By Anees Aref. An informative if somewhat dry history lesson, Speer is a cautionary tale of historical whitewashing that reaches for urgency in a time of increased worries over misinformation and “fake news” being peddled around the world.” Whatever one may say about the Nazis, and a lot has been […]
No Magic Allowed: Elle Callahan’s Witch Hunt
By Thomas Puhr. Embodies the most grating qualities of the message movie. Calling this supernatural allegory on-the-nose would be giving it far too much credit.” Most, if not all, films convey a message – implicit or explicit – but some are a message; that is, they have little reason to […]
“The Selling of a Dream”: Evan Jackson Leong on Snakehead
By Theresa Rodewald. The American Dream is this thing that we sell, that our culture sells. We’ve been selling it for decades now, it’s a propaganda tool, a myth. I wanted to dispel that myth by making sure that our character is not here for the American Dream.” Snakehead is […]
A Not-So-Prodigal Daughter Returns: Spencer King’s Time Now
By Elias Savada. A dirge-worthy film, chock full of familial doom and gloom….If you like despondency and depression, here’s an indie effort that doses it out in large quantities.” Spencer King, the writer and director of Time Now, has crafted a dirge-worthy film, chock full of familial doom and gloom. […]
The Velvet Underground: Mourning a Lost Bohemia
By Christopher Sharrett. I very much recommend Haynes’s film, but, [f]or me at least, it’s a reminder of all that has disappeared….” Todd Haynes’s new film The Velvet Underground has an obvious place in the filmmaker’s oeuvre; it connects to his early film Poison (1991) and much that followed, films […]
Wagging the Horses’ Tale — Steven Latham’s The Mustangs: America’s Wild Horses
By Elias Savada. A fine, upstanding look at the breed of feral steeds that have been an iconic symbol for the American West for centuries and, yes, it has a slow-build message. I have never been a horse person. That was my sister, an equestrian who would ride from morning […]
E. Elias Merhige’s Begotten: Still Burning Away the Darkness
By Ted Knighton. Merhige pushed the distortion to its limits to transform the look of his film, exploding the emulsion’s grain and slowing the frame-rate to stagger time and motion…. Begotten is, at times, difficult to discern, and our eyes have to adjust to its scorched, lunar landscape.” In his […]
Becoming Cousteau: An Interview with Liz Garbus
By Kate Hearst. It was a combination of being true to the early films that he shot but also my voice as a filmmaker trying to express to a modern audience how unusual and incredibly dynamic these images were.” Two-time Academy Award®-nominated filmmaker Liz Garbus is not one to shy […]
Lessons from a Master – Hayao Miyazaki (DelMonico Books)
A Book Review by Thomas Puhr. Like the exhibition itself, the publication is first and foremost a celebration of the singular writer-director.” My first Hayao Miyazaki film – 1989’s Kiki’s Delivery Service – was like nothing I’d (wrongly) come to expect from animation: by turns contemplative and silly, wistful and innocent, it felt closer in spirit […]
Dune: An Oversized, Delightful Space Opera
By Elias Savada. Sure, it’s loud and possibly confusing for those viewers who haven’t tapped into the 1965 text…. But this go round [for the screen], all cylinders are firing.” Ah, the wide-screen grandeur that is Dune! All that sand makes me relish the epic 70mm moments more than a […]