Doctor Zhivago (David Lean, 1965) A Book Review Essay by Tanja Bresan. I’ve been wondering about the immortality of the soul” –Geraldine Chaplin in A Countess from Hong Kong (1967) How does one find independence in cinema when your own father is cinema immortalized? Steven Rybin’s new book Geraldine Chaplin: […]
The People vs. Larry: Battling a Downloadable Demon in Come Play
By Rod Lott. If only it could be less silly…. Is there an app for that?” While the invention of the cellphone has forced filmmakers to get more creative in keeping their characters in peril, few have been able to figure out how to use the mobile device as an […]
Going Virtual: Selections from Philadelphia Film Festival 2020
À L’Abordag (Guillaume Brac, France, 2020) By Gary M. Kramer. The Philadelphia Film Festival, now in its 29th year, offered more than 100 films, shorts, and documentaries online, with select programming at the Film Society’s drive-in theater. There were some great documentaries and feature films from around the world screening […]
Essential for Fans, and Even the Accusers: Apropos of Nothing by Woody Allen
Directing Scarlett Johansson (an Allen defender) on the set of Match Point (2005) By Ali Moosavi. Apropos of Nothing is an immensely entertaining, funny, often touching, openly confessional memoir…. It is essential reading for fans of Woody Allen and his films. Even those accusing him of being a pedophile, rapist, […]
Babadook Move Over, There’s a New Monster in Town: Jacob Chase’s Come Play
By Elias Savada. “It’s a fascinating concept, not that it’s terribly original…but one that constantly put me on edge.” I’ve been a fan of Jacob Chase since the Spooky Movie International Horror Film Festival played his short film Copycat five years ago. He also wrote and directed the 5-minute dread-inducing […]
American Decay, Viewed Through A Hometown – Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope
By Michael Sandlin. ‘The election of President Reagan in 1980 initiated a mass transfer of wealth and power away from ordinary Americans’ intones Kristof in his voiceover; of course, what Kristof doesn’t tell you is that many of these ‘ordinary’ Americans voted for Reagan, thus essentially voting away their own […]
The Inferno and its Impact: Hideo Sekigawa’s Hiroshima
By Jeremy Carr. A key aspect of Sekigawa’s 1953 docu-drama concerns the related discrimination leveled against victims (of leukemia, the “A-bomb disease”), based largely on ignorance and misinformation, but on a broader level, the film also focuses on the wide-ranging scars left etched upon the Japanese populace.” Hideo Sekigawa’s Hiroshima […]
Wo Wo We Wa!: Pranks, Satire, and Bathroom Humor Endure in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
By Elias Savada. Forget the news about the Russians doing their worst to screw up the coming election, because we have Uzbekistan’s secret weapon. And there’s nothing Trump, Putin, or all those conservative, right-wing Yankees can do about it. Borat‘s back in town.” Mockumentarians make way for another gatecrashing excursion […]
Frustration in Falfurrias: Lisa Molomot and Jeffrey Bemiss’s Missing in Brooks County
By Elias Savada. The film examines, sometimes in gruesome detail, the unfortunate migrant disappearances and deaths that have occurred in this eponymous region of Texas, about an hour’s drive from the Mexican border….” I’ve watched a lot of documentaries through the years. Among those that make me mad: Blackfish (2013), […]
Questions of Discovery and Retribution: Massoud Bakhshi on Yalda, A Night for Forgiveness
By Ali Moosavi. After only two feature films and a documentary, Massoud Bakhshi has come to the forefront of the Iranian directors. He started his filmmaking career with the faux documentary, Tehran Has No More Pomegrenates!/ Tehran Anar Nadarad (2007). On the surface, it was a nostalgic, amusing, comedy-musical portrait […]