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 […]
Forsaken Son: Richie Mehta’s Siddharth
July 19, 2014
By Paul Risker. If film is a visual medium, then Richie Mehta’s Siddharth (2013) places as much emphasis on what is seen as not seen. “Siddharth” is a quest; a father’s search for his missing son whom he suspects has been abducted by child-traffickers. Of this twelve year old child […]
Borgman (2013)
July 18, 2014
By James Teitelbaum. The pivotal moment in Alex van Warmerdam’s Borgman comes at the end of the first act, when the titular Camiel Borgman (Jan Bijvoet) strides into a forest surrounding the modernist estate inhabited by Marina (Hadewych Minis) and her husband Richard (Jeroen Perceval). After taunting the violent Richard […]
The Epic of Everest: Closing the Gap Between Man and the Impossibly Distant
July 16, 2014
By Axel Andersson. An epic of Everest? The heroics of nature? John Noel’s remarkable 1924 documentary, expertly restored by the BFI with a new evocative score by Simon Fisher Turner, encapsulates the most paradoxical of Romantic tropes. The mountain, Everest, is for sure present—a forbidding thing to be conquered. But it […]
The Past As It Is: Agnieszka Holland’s Burning Bush
July 16, 2014
By Paul Risker. Agnieszka Holland’s three part mini-series Burning Bush (2013) opens with a pictorial and musical energy that swings like a pendulum between freedom and oppression. Just as day and night are two fundamental ontological opposites, so too are these titanic forces. Holland infuses the show’s title sequence with […]
John Sayles to Attend First Annual REEL EAST FILM FESTIVAL in New Jersey, August 22-23rd; Deadline for Short Film Series Announced
July 16, 2014
Oaklyn, NJ (July 16, 2014) – The Reel East Film Festival (REFF), a premiere event in South Jersey to be held on August 22-23, 2014 at the historic Ritz Theatre in Oaklyn, NJ, is proud to announce the appearance of John Sayles. Noted filmmaker (Return of the Secaucus 7, The […]
The Cold Lands, Cold Indeed
July 11, 2014
By Robert Kenneth Dator. In The Cold Lands prepare for inspired photography by Wyatt Garfield within which images old-growth forests appear like cathedrals; fields of golden rod and sage seem timeless; the blue shadows of the deep woods, in shade or under the silver breath of the moon, transform memory; […]
The Art of the Steal: Joyous, Clever, and Fun
July 11, 2014
By Noah Charney. The first compliment I will pay to the new art heist movie, The Art of the Steal (2013), written and directed by Jonathan Sobol, is that it did not annoy me. That may sound like damning with faint praise, but I’ve got a good deal more praise […]