By Sebastian Clare. To cinephiles and avid video-gamers alike, the name ‘Uwe Boll’ is synonymous with the very worst of what today’s film industry has to offer. Whether for repeatedly adapting successful game franchises such as House of the Dead, BloodRayne and Alone in the Dark into atrocious big-screen flops, […]
Bright Days Ahead – A Tribeca Interview
May 8, 2014
By Gary M. Kramer. Like Julien (Laurent Lafitte), the younger computer instructor, who tells Caroline (Fanny Ardant) the older woman he is romantically involved with that he is a diversion, Bright Days Ahead, co-written and directed by Marion Vernoux is a diverting film. Caroline, a retired dentist, takes some classes […]
Writing Freedom: An Interview with Kim Longinotto on Salma
By Paul Risker. We need to celebrate the documentary Salma (2013) as a story of survival. Imprisoned by her family, the famous Tamil poet and activist Salma was forced to marry and denied education. Told largely through the written word, the film depicts her use of poetry writing for […]
Catching Fire: The Revolution Will Be Televised
May 6, 2014
By Jacob Mertens. Revolution used to be a tangible part of our history. Not just stories of Malcolm X riling up a packed church in Harlem or Nelson Mandela looming in a prison cell. There was a sense that revolution was both cyclical and inevitable: a snake in the grass […]
Wake in Fright (1971)
May 5, 2014
By Robert Kenneth Dator. Great Australian films are not so hard to come by. Finding great Australian films that Australians think are great is another matter all together. Australian film, troubled from the late 1940s when exhibitors decided to get out of the production business, spawned a robust share of […]
The Bachelor Weekend – A Tribeca Interview
May 2, 2014
By Gary M. Kramer. The Bachelor Weekend is a genial Irish comedy about a groom named Fionnan (Hugh O’Conor), his best man Davin (Andrew Scott), and the quartet of other men taking to the great outdoors for a Stag party. The guests include Fionnan’s gay brother Kevin (Michael Legge) and […]
OffOn: An Explosion of the Senses
May 2, 2014
By Wheeler Winston Dixon. “The human eye, the human form, the human face: these are the three central images of this avant-garde collage and kaleidoscope of shifting and fractured images, changing colors, and pulsing rhythms. Near the end, a tree appears briefly, and birds fly – first white, then red […]
Thoughts on Two Recent Films: Dallas Buyers Club and Catching Fire
May 1, 2014
By Wheeler Winston Dixon. Matthew McConaughey is an excellent actor, and Lord knows he’s working enough these days, and he brings real fire and presence to every role he attacks. But with the exception of Steven Soderbergh’s criminally underrated Magic Mike, McConaughey’s films often don’t live up to their initial […]
Tribeca 2014 Festival Report
May 1, 2014
By Gary M. Kramer. The 13th annual Tribeca Film Festival wrapped up on April 27th, and by and large the documentary films were the festival’s highlights. The narrative features were more of a mixed bag, with strong performances saving familiar stories. Here is a run down of several films that […]
Wings (1927)
April 29, 2014
By Jude Warne. On May 16th 1929, in Hollywood’s Hotel Roosevelt, it was announced that William Wellman’s film Wings had won the first “Best Picture” Academy Award, or the “Best Picture, Production” Academy Award as it was then called. Eighty-five years later, Eureka! Entertainment has re-released Wellman’s Oscar winner in […]