By Robert Buckeye. Cannes may be a place, but it is not place as we understand it, except as it exists as cinephilia on a screen. Berlin is a place, its past always brought to bear whenever the city or its people are mentioned. At ArtFilmFest in Trenčianske Teplice and […]
Bonded by Flicks: Woody Wise and Inda Reid on a 30-Year Brotherhood
By Irv Slifkin. For 30 years, Woody Wise has entertained his friends on Saturdays in his Los Angeles-area home. The fun usually starts with donuts or bagels in the morning, followed by a healthy serving of a movie serial, a short subject or a “B” western and a vintage feature […]
Alive Inside: Reconnecting the Self, with Sound
August 2, 2014
By Paul Risker. Earth: a world of sound within a vacuum, despite the best efforts of science fiction to convince us otherwise. Then there is the metaphysical question of a tree falling in a forest that confronts the very ontology of sound. In my own contemplation of music there are two […]
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
August 1, 2014
By James Teitelbaum. The coolest thing about Joss Whedon’s film The Avengers (2012) is that it exists. The notion that four major Marvel Comics heroes (The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America) could each appear in their own individual movies, and then be brought together in a team-up […]
The Films of Joanna Hogg
July 31, 2014
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 […]