By Gary M. Kramer. With the release of Joanna Hogg’s three features, Unrelated (2007), Archipelago (2010), and Exhibition (2013), it is imperative for cinephiles to discover her brilliance as a filmmaker. Hogg’s films are remarkable for their perspicacity. The filmmaker captures the intimacies between family members and their environments in […]
AFI Docs Film Festival 2014
July 29, 2014
By Michael Miller. AFI Docs, now in its second year, unspooled June 18-22 at multiple venues in the District of Columbia and all three screens at the AFI Silver Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland. Eager fans of non-fiction film queued up for mostly sold out screenings of some of the […]
What’s at Stake in the Work of Art: John Cassavetes’ The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
July 28, 2014
By Brandon Konecny. Apart from Faces (1968) and A Woman Under the Influence (1974), none of Cassavetes’ films were successful, both commercially and critically. They were seen as chaotic, technically inept, haphazardly improvised—they were, in short, a chore to watch. But none of them, not even Husbands (1970), incurred the […]
The Virus Returns: An Interview with Kaare Andrews
July 27, 2014
By Paul Risker. Just as a virus needs a host, there is a broad collection of films placed both within and outside of the horror genre that employ viral infection. These films tap into our innate fears of one another, and the obsessive compulsive disorders of the fear of human […]
The Time of His Life: Richard Linklater’s Boyhood
By Matthew Sorrento. I honestly hope the “sublime” trend ends soon, with the recent output of Terrence Malick, his bombastic, excessive Tree of Life and To the Wonder, and gaseous muck like Cloud Atlas, cramming together years of history and a speculative look to the future, to signify nothing. Thankfully, […]
The Art House Convergence Regional Seminar 2014
July 24, 2014
By Mark James. It’s fitting that “Art House Convergence” spells it with two separate words. Without the specificity that the term “Arthouse” commands in the film world, “Art House” can enjoy a far wider interpretation. The Art House Convergence, which started as an adjunct to the Sundance Film Festival in […]
Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
July 24, 2014
By Jeremy Carr. Even if we weren’t told at the start that Picnic at Hanging Rock was about a group of girls who disappeared Saturday, Feb. 14, 1900 and were never seen again, it would become apparent almost immediately that this 1975 film was not going to end happily, or […]
Hide Your Smiling Faces (2013)
July 22, 2014
By Jude Warne. In his 1854 book Walden, Henry David Thoreau sets forth a crucial instruction: “Resign yourself to the influence of the earth.” This, perhaps, is the overarching message of Daniel Patrick Carbone’s first feature film Hide Your Smiling Faces. In the proverbial end (or, for the sake of […]
The Corman Legacy Continues: An Interview with Evelyn Maude Purcell
July 20, 2014
By Anna Weinstein. Heatstroke, starring Stephen Dorff, Svetlana Metkina, and Maisie Williams (Game of Thrones), tells the story of a female search and rescue worker put to the ultimate test of survival when her boyfriend is murdered in the African desert and she’s tasked with evading his killers while protecting […]
Gaming the Future: An Interview with Jeremy Snead on Video Games: The Movie
July 20, 2014
By Paul Risker. Every art form has a story, and recalling Mark Cousins’ description of film being a grass roots art form raises the question what term would be most fitting to describe video games, the youngest of the art forms. Despite their youthful age, the story of video games […]