Boys State By Elias Savada. One of the premier documentary film festivals is back for its 18th year. Unlike all previous iterations of the event it started life as Silver Docs but was renamed in 2013 when it expanded beyond the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center and ventured to […]
A Rookie Director Takes to the Skies: 7500
By Elias Savada. German-born filmmaker Patrick Vollrath’s first feature, the foreign-financed, English-language 7500 (pronounced seven-five-zero-zero), is the latest in a long string of airplane hijacking movies. Since most folks are not doing any flying these days (stay home, stay safe), you might find meager travel points accumulating in your frequent […]
Episodic Exploration: Mazursky’s An Unmarried Woman (Criterion Collection)
By Gary M. Kramer. The first reel of An Unmarried Woman practically eavesdrops on the lives of its characters, Erica (Jill Clayburgh) and Martin (Michael Murphy), who have been married for 16 years. They live comfortably in the Upper East Side of New York, and have a smart, 15 year-old […]
Down to the Earth: An Interview with Victor Kossakovsky on Gunda
Yun-hua Chen
June 11, 2020
By Yun-hua Chen. It is a rare opportunity to have an eye-level communication with pigs, chickens and cows. Victor Kossakovsky has once again demonstrated the unique power of cinematic language to open up a new way of seeing commonplace phenomenon or creatures which have long been taken for granted, and […]
Whose Truth is the Truth? Agnieszka Holland’s Mr. Jones
Thomas Puhr
June 11, 2020
By Thomas Puhr. “I don’t have an agenda,” intones journalist Gareth Jones (James Norton) in Agnieszka Holland’s historical drama, Mr. Jones (2019). “Unless you call truth an agenda.” While some write off his stance as idealistic naivete, he is not speaking in an abstract, philosophical sense. The truth, in this […]
Dreamer and Performer: An Interview with Jessica Henwick and her Father, Novelist Mark Henwick
Ali Moosavi
June 11, 2020
By Ali Moosavi. For fans of fantasy and sci-Fi Tv and cinema, Jessica Henwick is a familiar name. After refining her acting skills in a number of British TV series, Hollywood beckoned, and she landed parts in such iconic projects as Star Wars VII – The Force Awakens (as Jess […]
More to the Show: Jeffrey McHale on You Don’t Nomi
Ali Moosavi
June 9, 2020
By Ali Moosavi. Showgirls (1995) is one of the most notorious films in Hollywood history. Director Paul Verhoeven and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas were riding high on the massive box office success of their previous joint effort, Basic Instinct (1992). Perhaps because of that success, the critics had sharpened their pencils, […]
The 2019 Seoul International PRIDE Film Festival: A Conversation with Director KIM JHO Gwang-soo and Programmer Dave KIM
Areum Jeong
June 7, 2020
By Areum Jeong. In 2019, the Seoul PRIDE Film Festival, founded in 2011, became an accredited international film festival. The festival took place from November 7 to 13 at CGV Myeong-dong Station Cine Library, where 100 films from 33 countries were screened. The film festival opened with Portrait of a […]
Bruce McDonald’s Dreamland: Side Effects Include Drowsiness
Rod Lott
June 5, 2020
By Rod Lott. With Dreamland, the Canadian creative triumvirate of raconteurs behind 2008’s beloved Pontypool are back together, Musketeers-style: director Bruce McDonald, writer Tony Burgess and actor Stephen McHattie. To cut right to the chase, lightning does not strike twice. Set in Europe – the part that throbs with the […]
Screen and Canvas – Cinemagritte: René Magritte within the Frame of Film History, Theory, and Practice by Lucy Fischer
Thomas Puhr
June 1, 2020
La belle captive (1983) A Book Review by Thomas Puhr. Given their ubiquity in the public consciousness (who wouldn’t recognize The Son of Man’s [1964] bowler-hatted gentleman with an apple covering his face?), it comes as a surprise that Lucy Fischer’s Cinemagritte (Wayne State, 2019) is the first book-length analysis […]