By Gary M. Kramer. Former actor turned filmmaker Scott Coffey’s Adult World, which received its World Premiere at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival, is a genial—and at times laugh-out-loud funny—comedy about Amy (Emma Roberts), a twenty-something would-be poet. While waiting for her big break as a writer (and the accompanying […]
Tribeca 2013 Festival Report
May 14, 2013
By Gary M. Kramer. The 2013 Tribeca Film Festival offered attendees hundreds of films—documentaries, dramas, thrillers, comedies, and character studies—that sought to reveal some aspect of the human condition. Here is a rundown of five films from the festival. One of the best entries at the festival this year was […]
Life Behind the Camera: an interview with David Worley
By David A. Ellis. David Worley was brought up in Rickmansworth, London and finished his schooling at Watford Grammar School. He has worked as camera operator with some of the greatest directors, actors and directors of photography in the business. His films include The World is not Enough, Aliens, Alien […]
Interview with Daniel Patrick Carbone and Cast of Hide Your Smiling Faces, Tribeca Film Festival
May 11, 2013
By Gary M. Kramer. A stunning coming-of-age drama about rural childhood and the fragile line between life and death, Hide Your Smiling Faces was one of the best narrative features at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival. Writer/director Daniel Patrick Carbone’s small, absorbing film concerns two brother, the older Eric (Nathan […]
Call for Contributions: Special issue of Film International on Iranian Independent Cinema
May 10, 2013
Guest editor: Parviz Jahed (parviz.jahed@cine-eye.com) Associate editor Amir Ganjavie (ganjavie@yorku.ca) Articles are invited for publication in an edited volume of Film International on the topic of Iranian independent cinema. Independent Iranian cinema consists of the low budget Iranian films with limited affiliation to the government and its financial resources that […]
The Place Beyond The Pines (2012)
By Jacob Mertens. A stretch of cute neighborhoods with picket fences, green lawns. A traveling carnival filled with trailers and sideshow burnouts. A shack buried out in the forest, surrounded by pine trees and old cars sinking back into nature. Ultimately, it does not matter what you call home, it […]
Star Trek Into Darkness
By Cleaver Patterson. Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) dispels the widely held assumption that sci-fi extravaganzas are, on the whole, aimed purely at the teenage / geek market. Here, it can be comfortably claimed, is the thinking man’s blockbuster, a film that doesn’t forgo intellect in favour of spectacle. That’s […]
Iron Man 3 (2013)
By Jacob Mertens. Many hinge the success and failure of a superhero film on whether villains can entice and excite the audience, or whether heroes can effectively transcend their humanity and conquer the odds. These are irrelevant concerns when placed next to the crucial component of all great action films: […]
Interview with Sean Dunne and Michael Moore, Tribeca Film Festival
May 7, 2013
By Gary M. Kramer. One of the best documentaries at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival was director Sean Dunne’s Oxyana, a strong and searing film about an epidemic of addiction. Showcasing 18 residents of Oceana, a West Virginian town crippled by Oxycontin drug dependency, the film features lyrical shots of […]
SXSW 2013 Festival Report
By Jacob Mertens. I have become convinced that I bring bad weather with me to Austin. For the last three years I have attended the SXSW Film Festival, and for the last three years it has rained on me. In one absurd moment in 2012, I rode a friend’s bike […]