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: […]
“Three Goodbyes”: An Interview with Celine Song on Past Lives
By Yun-hua Chen. Characters that I am trying to create are in general characters that are very thrilled to exist as who they are. So, I think this is really about not making apologies.” Exploring untaken paths and traces of human connections that feel like originating in past lives, Celine […]
A Literal Battle of the Sexes: Neil LaBute’s Fear the Night (2023)
By Thomas M. Puhr. It’s fun to watch the former enfant terrible explore his obsessions through low stakes genre fare. Sign me up for more.” At first glance, Neil LaBute’s Fear the Night (2023) seems like a far cry from his early films, let alone from his theater work. You’d […]
The Paradox of Peace: The Miracle Club (2023)
By Jonathan Monovich. What makes The Miracle Club work is the film’s deliberate choice in including four very talented actresses from four different generations for its core cast. Each character brings a diverse perspective on life and a varying level of surliness that gradually increases with age.” The Miracle Club […]
Plenty of Enjoyable Crunch – Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
By Elias Savada. Cruise and company battle an out-of-control sentient AI creation called ‘the Entity,’ which seems to have no weak points and quite a global advantage…. Preposterous? You bet. Fun? Of course!” All the movie magic and stunt work you’ve grown to admire in the Mission: Impossible series comes […]
Shepherding It to the Finish Line: An Interview with Russell Owen
By Leo Collis. Filmmaker Owen discusses gaining some momentum after a decade of grind. A lot can happen in 11 years. In fact, the last five years alone feels like two lifetimes. It was back in 2012, when I was a bright-eyed intern for Film International, that I first spoke […]
Universal’s First Horror Films
By Gary D. Rhodes. Here is an amazing history, one far more enduring than, say, Paramount’s connection to the comedy genre or Warner Bros. to the gangster. The question of precisely when Universal horror movies began is equally as fascinating as it is complicated.” In the 21st century, Universal Pictures […]