By Janine Gericke. Saxon Logan’s 1984 film Sleepwalker was once thought to be lost. Distributors weren’t sure how to market and sell the film; so instead, it ended up on a shelf for nearly 30 years. Finally, BFI Flipside have not only restored the film for a DVD/Blu-ray release, but […]
Netflix and National Cinemas
August 24, 2014
By Wheeler Winston Dixon. This article caught my attention about a week ago, and though I blogged on it then, it seems important enough to me to warrant further exploration. Under the headline “Netflix Will Rip the Heart Out of Pre-Sale Film Financing,” Schuyler Moore wrote in Forbes that: “Netflix is […]
Love is Strange (2014)
August 20, 2014
By Mark James. Love is strange, and so is the real estate market these days, especially in New York. Love’s form can change along with the place and the people that house it. And so Love is Strange—director Ira Sachs’ and screenwriter Mauricio Zacharias’s second installment in a New York […]
Consumed: David Cronenberg’s Foray into Body Horror Prose
August 18, 2014
A Book Review by Shane Joaquin Jimenez. The Nest (2014), the latest film by David Cronenberg, is comprised of a single unbroken GoPro shot. A topless woman sits on an examination table in a dungeon-like basement, pleading for a mastectomy. Her left breast, she says, is filled with a swarm […]
Vindication of an Heiress: Surprise revelation, alienation effect, and screen persona in Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
August 18, 2014
By Robert K. Lightning. Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956) was Fritz Lang’s final U.S. film.[1] In several obvious ways it can be read as a companion piece to the film that preceded it, While the City Sleeps. Both films star Dana Andrews as a reporter-turned-novelist. Both narratives also involve a […]
The Varieties of Experience: Michel Gondry’s Mood Indigo
August 16, 2014
By Paul Risker. In my review of Alive Inside for Film International, the idea arose that the act of explaining one’s love of a piece of music undermines the intimate bond formed between person and art. Now whilst discussion may not undermine any intimate bond formed in this case between […]
A Most Wanted Man: The Zen of Spydom
August 13, 2014
By Jacob Mertens. At some point in watching modern spy films—be they centered around James Bond, Jason Bourne, Jack Ryan, et al.—viewers can lose sight of the fact that being a spy is a job. As with any job, moments of exhilaration are matched with moments of mundanity, and a […]
By the Starlight: An Interview with April Wright on Going Attractions
August 13, 2014
By Paul Risker. On Saturday the 23 August two inaugural moments separated by eight decades are scheduled to converge when Going Attractions: The Definitive Story of the American Drive-in Movie (2013) screens at the first annual Reel East Film Festival in Oaklyn, Camden County, New Jersey. Is it a coincidence that […]
I am Cuba at 50
August 11, 2014
By James Knight. “My sugar was carried away on ships, but my tears were left behind.” This year marks the fiftieth birthday of Mikhail Kalatozov’s classic film I am Cuba. Not in the half decade since has a film been so effective in its portrayal of history. It is a […]
Wertham in Context: An Interview with Robert A. Emmons Jr. on Diagram for Delinquents
By Tom Ue. Robert A. Emmons Jr. is a documentary filmmaker. His films include: Enthusiast: The 9th Art (2001), Smalltown USA (2005), Goodwill: The Flight of Emilio Carranza (2007), Wolf at the Door (2008), YARDSALE! (2008), and De Luxe: The Tale of Blue Comet (2010). Goodwill has had the privilege […]