By Leo Collis. “I really wanted to give the audience the feeling that they were entering the Stephen King universe.” The chances are, whether knowingly or not, you’ve seen a Stephen King adaptation on screen. The prolific author from Portland, Maine, has written over 50 books, and he has inspired […]
Tom Mix Rides Again: Sky High (1922) and The Big Diamond Robbery (1929)
By Jeremy Carr. Although many Mix pictures are lost, these illustrative entries showcase his customary assurance, his virtue, and his penchant for showmanship.” If Hollywood’s classic Western heroes are generally given little positive thought these days, the cowboy celebrities of the silent era in particular are even less familiar. In […]
Life During Wartime: Maryna Er Gorbach’s Klondike (2022)
By Thomas Puhr. This film about the Donbas region of Ukraine that borders Russia, set in 2014, features images that are hauntingly beautiful as often as they are simply haunting.” Maryna Er Gorbach’s searing Klondike (2022) takes place in 2014 Ukraine, in the Donbas area that borders Russia. Although the […]
Recognizing Belafonte
By Robert K. Lightning. If Poitier’s films frequently situate him as an integrationist hero, successfully negotiating the rocky path to white acceptance, Belafonte’s films typically chart a very different path where acceptance is not always the goal, making him often Poitier’s cinematic antithesis.” With the announcement of Harry Belafonte’s death […]
Collective Catharsis: An Interview with Cyril Aris on Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano
By Yun-hua Chen. For me the process of making this film allowed me to digest my feelings and experience as a means of catharsis on a collective level with the film crew….” On 4th August 2020, a catastrophic explosion devastated the port of Beirut due to 2,570 tons of ammonium […]
Living Through Hell on Wheels: Yuval Adler’s Sympathy for the Devil (2023)
By Thomas M. Puhr. Cage enthusiasts might get a kick out of this film’s meager offerings (if you managed to make it through Willy’s Wonderland, then this one should be a cinch). Others may find themselves daydreaming about Collateral or The Hitcher. If you’re going to set your film almost […]
“Rejecting Reality”: Mary Dauterman on Booger
By Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. I come from a commercial background. I’m mostly directing pieces where everyone looks perfect…. I did not want Booger to feel like that at all. It’s raw and disgusting and grimy.” At its most placid, depictions of grief on-screen veer away from excessive physical displays. Gentle weeping […]
An Outcast of the Islands: Albert Serra’s Pacifiction (2023)
By James Slaymaker. Pacifiction paints a portrait of French Polynesia as a land suspended between indigenous agency and external mechanisms of control and dehumanisation, an area still overcoming the trauma of its brutal colonial past and looking towards an uncertain future….” The first shot of Albert Serra’s Pacifiction (2022) – […]
Barbie: Greta Gerwig’s Unboxing
By Elias Savada. Gerwig leaves a personal imprint on her film, as a boldly painted battle cry for womanhood and subversive social satire about misguided male perceptions.” In a refreshingly anarchistic, pink-pastel manner, Greta Gerwig, the actor (Frances Ha) turned writer (here with her partner – in business and in […]
I Wanna Hold Your Hand: Danny and Michael Philippou’s Talk to Me (2022)
By Thomas M. Puhr. Talk to Me’s crisp runtime has its perks (there’s not an ounce of fat on this thing), but it also feels oddly truncated.” Like the most effective urban legends, Talk to Me (2022) revolves around a deliciously simple conceit – or, in this case, a deliciously simple object: […]