By Cleaver Patterson. Some films have, since their first release, entered into the realms of mythical cinema. Whether due to their technical achievements, performances or simply by dint of that inexplicable quality that makes the film viewing experience magical, these movies have outlived their contemporaries to become the stuff of […]
The Symbolic, the Sublime, and Slavoj Žižek’s Theory of Film (2012)
September 4, 2013
A Book Review by Brandon Konecny. Slavoj Žižek is by far one of the most prominent intellectuals active today, gaining much of his popularity from his frequent engagement with popular culture, expansive bibliography, and endlessly entertaining lectures. To the chagrin of figures like David Bordwell, the Slovenian philosopher—perhaps the small […]
Film4 FrightFest 2013 | Day 4
September 4, 2013
By Cleaver Patterson. Horror that derives from the everyday and mundane is frequently one of the most disturbing types, particularly if it falls under the guise of a holiday—whether its an innocent weekend away, an annual excursion or a trip to your seaside bolt-hole in order to escape the city […]
The World’s End (2013)
September 3, 2013
By Jacob Mertens. In film, there are any number of ways the world can end: zombies wreak havoc across the globe, colossal monsters terrorize earth from an inter-dimensional riff in our ocean’s depths, the biblical apocalypse forces mid-grade celebrities to bunker down in James Franco’s house and whine incessantly about […]
Alice Guy’s La Vie du Christ: A Feminist Vision of the Christ Tale
By Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. Alice Guy is a filmmaker whose body of work is still a site of contestation for modern critics; after all these years, her name is nearly unknown. Yet her output was prodigious. Of the nearly four hundred films Guy directed between 1896 and 1920, Guy has […]
Wong Kar-wai: a Cantonese Auteur
September 2, 2013
By Shashank Saurav. “Sometimes they think the way we work is very stylish and romantic, but actually it’s the way we can survive and make the films. We can work with the things that we get, but not the things we wish we had.” (Wong Kar-wai) Hong Kong is a […]
We’re the Millers (2013)
September 2, 2013
By Cleaver Patterson. There will always be drawbacks for any actor appearing in a film alongside Jennifer Aniston, the main one being that you shall inevitably have to take second-billing to everyone’s favorite friend. Director Rawson Marshall Thurber’s new comedy We’re the Millers may co-star successful funny man Jason Sudeikis, […]
Blue-Eyed Soulless: the Morgan Spurlock Sellout
August 30, 2013
By Matthew Sorrento. Morgan Spurlock is one of very few documentarians who seem to find constant work. (Others include Alex Gibney, who must have struck Oscar gold with Taxi to the Dark Side, and obviously, Michael Moore.) With his sizable skill, Spurlock has benefited from his onscreen charisma, which he […]
The 59th Taormina Film Fest
August 30, 2013
By Oliver C. Speck. In June 2012, it seemed that the 58th Taormina Film Fest might be the last one: too many changed schedules, too many bad projections and too many uninspired films marred what was once one of Europe’s premiere international film festivals. After being moved twice, the festival finally […]
Blue Jasmine, and the Curious Career of Woody Allen
August 29, 2013
By Wheeler Winston Dixon. Woody Allen’s latest, Blue Jasmine, has received mixed reviews from the daily critics, who don’t seem to know quite what to make of it. It’s one of Allen’s most serious films to date, and one of his most unforgiving, both of itself, and of society as […]