By Elias Savada. Wow! I didn’t know (insert actor’s name here) could direct! Actually I should clarify that. Can said actor direct a film that is (a) something that his or her fans will want to see whether or not he or she is in it, and/or (b) a well done, […]
Editorial: Film International 70
By Daniel Lindvall. In an essay recently published at Filmint.nu, Martin Smith takes a critical look at the censorship debates in the British press regarding two equally controversial recent films, Antichrist (2009, directed by Dane Lars von Trier) and The Human Centipede II: Full Sequence (2011, directed by Dutchman Tom […]
The Authentic Death and Contentious Afterlife of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid: The Untold Story of Peckinpah’s Last Western Film, by Paul Seydor (2015)
A Book Review by Tony Williams. It is very rare to encounter a critical work written by someone who combines the expertise of university professor, film historian, and film editor. Yet such is the position of Paul Seydor who is not only an Oscar nominated film editor with many credits […]
Constancy and Variation: An Autumn Afternoon as Ozu’s Final Testament
April 22, 2015
By Jeremy Carr. An Autumn Afternoon was director Yasujirô Ozu’s final film. He passed away a year after its release, on his 60th birthday, Dec. 12, 1963. Knowing that the film is indeed his last, it’s easy to look at it in terms of being a sort of grand summation […]
Programmer Magali Simard on the 2015 Toronto Human Rights Watch Film Festival
By Amir Ganjavie. Between March 26 and April 2, TIFF presented the 12th series of Human Rights Watch Film Festival, which featured eight movies: The One That Got Away, The Look of Silence, Uyghurs: Prisoners of the Absurd, Beats of the Antonov, The Salt of the Earth, Burden of Peace, The Wanted 18, and Lady Valor: The Kristin Beck Story. As the […]
Hunting Elephants: In Search of….
April 19, 2015
By Elias Savada. With all the unrest in the Middle East, it seems that one of the few places where Israelis can gather these days for a good laugh would be at the cinema. Yet, despite the best efforts of its cast, Hunting Elephants is a tame comedic excursion into a […]
Stand, Men of the West! The Battle for Middle-earth (and Britain)
By Laura Crossley. “You’ve enjoyed the film, so now what are you going to do about the message? Tolkien didn’t just write The Lord of the Rings for fun, you know. He wrote it to inspire people, to make people understand that – faced with bad government and threats to […]
Radical Film-Making and Digital Paradox: the case of The Fourth Estate
By Elizabeth Mizon and Lee Salter. Digital media technologies are full of paradoxes. On one hand they are said to open up new opportunities, a “democratisation” of media, but on the other they are said to consolidate not just media power, but also the ideological frameworks that constrain critical creative […]
Quick Take: Frederick Wiseman on At Berkeley (2013)
By Paul Risker. 1967 marked the inception of Frederick Wiseman’s documentary filmmaking career (with the controversial asylum expose, Titicut Follies), but fast-forward to the present day and behind him now lies a total of forty-seven diverse films. If there was a singular inspirational moment or spark for this observational career […]
The Trials of Love, Justice, and Prejudice: Tom Hanks and Jonathan Demme’s film Philadelphia
By Daniel Garrett. In the film Philadelphia (1993), written by Ron Nyswaner and directed by Jonathan Demme, the actor Tom Hanks is impressive for being able to incarnate several perspectives in one man – states of health and malady, youth and sudden age, but also the public and private man, […]