By Christopher Sharrett. Zhao’s film would seem to follow Bruder’s impulse in documenting a profound and perpetual economic crisis, as contemporary America’s bosses opt for an outsourced and financialized economy…. But the film’s critical concerns tend to leave center stage.” The opening card for Chloe Zhao’s Oscar-winning Nomadland informs us […]
Hybrid, and Vital as Ever: AFI DOCS Turns 19
By Elias Savada. Eight years ago, the documentary film festival then known as Silver Docs was rechristened AFI DOCS, expanding out from the American Film Institute’s tri-plex in Silver Spring, Maryland, into multiple other venues throughout downtown Washington, DC. While the new format was connected by the area-wide Metro subway […]
Out of Hollywood’s Darkness – Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It
By Elias Savada. A heartfelt, warts (just a few) and all look at one heck of a lady whose career has spanned cinema, television, theatre, and recorded sound…steered decidedly by Moreno as she takes to the screen in interviews, asides, clips, etc….” It seems fitting, if just for a brief […]
Hate, Perfection, and Some Werewolves Within: Selections from TriBeCa 2021
By Gary M. Kramer. Ruben features jokes and jump scares in equal measure throughout Werewolves Within, which relies on the crackerjack comic timing of the entire ensemble cast, most of whom are playing broad characters.” The 20th annual Tribeca Film Festival is actually three festivals in one this year, featuring […]
Community Building through Art: No Straight Lines: the Rise of Queer Comics
By Edward Avery-Natale. Ostensibly about the rise, influence, and growth of queer comic(s)…. In practice, though, it is far more: it is a movie about marginalized and minoritized people finding community and relationships….” No Straight Lines, a film by Vivian Kleinman now screening at TriBeca 2021 and based on the […]
A Minor Conflict Escalating: Shariff Korver on Do Not Hesitate
By Gary M. Kramer. When you talk about the military and troops, you see them as a large group of people who go together as one thing to do something. And in this film, we try to focus on the individual.” Director Shariff Korver’s quietly powerful Do Not Hesitate, had […]
More than Music – Trances (Criterion Collection)
By Thomas Puhr. The film eschews many of the conventions associated with concert documentaries; it’s a celebration of a culture – its history, religion, land, and people – without which such music never would have existed.” Even the most devout of audiophiles must admit that nothing quite compares to the […]
Corbucci’s Wild Western: Django (1966)
By Jeremy Carr. Arrow’s laudable treatment of Django attests to the lasting interest in this unconventional and oftentimes striking fare.” Although his stature has risen in recent years, Sergio Corbucci has primarily resided in the shadows of his more famous spaghetti western counterpart, Sergio Leone. But like the sub-genre generally, […]
Gloriously Leaping Into the New Normal: In the Heights
By Elias Savada. One big, ambitious Latina love letter that anyone can enjoy.” So, after having just been scared back into the movie theater with A Quiet Place Part II, it’s time to head into the darkness again, this time joyously soaring in your socially-distanced seat (if necessary/required) to the […]
Peter, Paul and Mary: The Song Is Love – Excerpt from American Twilight: The Cinema of Tobe Hooper
By Kristopher Woofter and Will Dodson. Can we turn on the lights again? Can we turn on the lights again?!” — Peter Yarrow, Peter, Paul and Mary: The Song Is Love According to Anne S. Lewis, an associate minister at the First Baptist Church of Austin in the late 1960s, […]