By William Blick. A slow burn that simmers into a boil…[and] a compelling exploration of antisemitism and miscarriage of justice….” Roman Polanski’s 2019 political thriller An Officer and a Spy, which will see its U.S. premiere at New York’s Film Forum on August 8, recreates the “Dreyfus Affair,” a pivotal […]
Scenes of Integrity: An Interview with Reza Akhlaghirad
By Ali Moosavi. The road I have travelled on has been a tumultuous one. Some things that I could only dream about in my day-to-day life, I could experience in the lives of the characters that I played. Those feelings of rage and anger, that if you display them in […]
Where Criticism’s Headed: An Interview with Jonathan Rosenbaum
By Jonathan Monovich. Where we’re headed is a nightmare…. our language is so corrupted on so many different levels that we basically can’t even have film criticism now…. The language that we use is largely under the control of the industry.” —Jonathan Rosenbaum Born into a family of movie theater […]
So You Think You’ve Seen Weird Docs?: Gary D. Rhodes on the Weirdumentary
By Roger Nygard. We yearn to know the secrets of our mind, whether its power can lead to telekinesis or precognition. We yearn to know what lies beyond, from the world of ghosts to the world of alien life forms….” –Gary D. Rhodes I remember how Hammer Film’s Five Million […]
Coming Out of the Soundtrack: Alexandros Voulgaris on They Come Out of Margo
By Yun-hua Chen. It started when I went to a concert by an artist who was quite similar to the one portrayed in the film. The whole experience of watching her on stage was very intense. So I began writing something based on that, and over these 11 years, the […]
Indelible Footprints: Joseph Maddrey’s The Soul of Wes Craven
A Book Review by William Blick. Maddrey illuminates the master from behind the scenes and shines a light on exactly what he means to the language of cinema.” Joseph Maddrey, author of Nightmares in Red, White, and Blue (2004) has a new title The Soul of Wes Craven (Harker Press) […]
Van Helsing’s Key: The Latin Reading in Dracula (1931)
By Nicholas Goodhue. As far as I can discover, none of the commentators on the film have satisfactorily explained the meaning and importance of the film’s Latin passage…. However, the passage does in fact provide the basis for Van Helsing’s conclusion regarding his analysis of Renfield’s blood.” About thirty minutes […]
Irreversible Transformation: Mo Harawe’s The Village Next to Paradise
By Yun-hua Chen. While Cigaal’s coming of age is marked by the loss of his dreams, the surrounding’s seems to be a brutal and irreversible transformation—one driven by machine-led globalization….” “My whole life I try to make things better, but I keep making mistakes,” says Mamargrade (Axmen Cali Faarax), the […]
Reading Between the Lines: An Interview with Biographer Carl Rollyson
By William Blick. I do not ask myself what information is available about a figure or would they cooperate. Rather, I ask myself, what is in my own experience or what do I think I know about this figure? What qualifies me to write about this person? That is what […]
Building a Mask: Luis Ortega on Kill the Jockey
By M. Sellers Johnson. How do you go through the scenes in life, with what face, with what attitude? It’s really something you can’t choose. You think you can choose but you can’t.” -Luis Ortega From perceptive newcomers like Tomás Gómez Bustillo to internationally regarded directors such as Lucretia Martel […]