By Ali Moosavi. It is not that Jean-Luc Godard is better than Xavier Dolan. That is impossible to say, but their idea of cinema is not the same. Maybe the world today doesn’t need cinema anymore.” Christophe Honoré is a multi-talented French artist. He is a novelist, actor, director of […]
Superfan Service: Patrick Read Johnson’s 5-25-77 (2022)
By Thomas M. Puhr. Not unlike the rough cut of a certain sci-fi epic, 5-25-77 exhibits a scrappy charm. Still, I’d leave this one to superfans and nostalgia junkies only.” “Most of this is true. The rest is even truer,” the opening text to Patrick Read Johnson’s 5-25-77 (2022) declares. […]
Rebellion and Cataclysm: Dennis Hopper’s Out of the Blue (1980)
By Christopher Sharrett. Hopper’s is a surprisingly radical statement for a filmmaker known for his very inconsistent political thinking.” What to say about Dennis Hopper? In his day he could be a pain in the neck, publicly brandishing his neuroses, failures, and addictions – in the new Severin edition of […]
Documenting the Cinema of Iran: An Interview with Bahman Maghsoudlou
By Ali Moosavi. In Razor’s Edge: The Legacy of Iranian Actresses, I showed their true worth and high place in the cinema. Some people who used to look down at these actresses from a high moral platform as cheap women, were crying at the screenings and saying how sorry they […]
A Magnetic Mystery: David Lynch’s Lost Highway
By Jeremy Carr. Lynch at his storytelling best.” David Lynch can tell a pretty standard story when he wants to. While films like The Elephant Man (1980), Blue Velvet (1986), and The Straight Story (1999) surely have their moments of classically “Lynchian” eccentricity, their fundamental plots unfold along relatively orthodox […]
May the (Weird Floating) Quartz Be With You – Something in the Dirt
By Elias Savada. With Moorhead&Benson’s latest feature, they’re back in front of the camera, playing the two neighborly leads in this satirical, self-parodying Hollywood Hills nightmare of their own making.” The “intergalactic geniuses” Moorhead&Benson, a.k.a. Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, are back to their deviously genre-bending antics for their fifth […]
Nocebos and Placebos: An Interview with Lorcan Finnegan on Nocebo
By Ali Moosavi. Without Name was probably the most oblique kind of minimalist film we’ve done and then obviously Vivarium is a quite surreal film…. With Nocebo it was quite a different challenge where we were basing the story in the real world in a domestic environment and then making […]
Jack of All Trades – Louis Malle: Interviews
A Book Review by Thomas M. Puhr. The cumulative effect of this collection, therefore, is nothing short of revelatory. All the more reason to revisit the director’s wildly unpredictable – and consistently exceptional – body of work.” Louis Malle is hard to pin down. The French director’s genre-hopping – film […]
Luca Guadagnino’s Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams at Provincetown FF 2022
By Chet Domitz. Following his dream, Ferragamo was home wherever he was and on whatever continent. He created his own world. “ The 2022 Provincetown International Film Festival was the site of the North American premiere of Luca Guadagnino’s Salvatore: Shoemaker of Dreams. Guadagnino was in attendance to introduce the […]
Childhood Bumps on Memory Lane: Armageddon Time
By Elias Savada. Takes a lot of effort to make a memorable, brooding statement; the solutions offered aren’t as satisfying as you might hope. The taste may be somewhat off-putting.” Memories comes in all shapes, sizes, and flavors, although director-writer James Gray cooks them up in with intimate, nostalgic, and […]