By Tony Williams. The Outer Limits now has a justifiable reputation as one of the great achievements of American science fiction television. However, while this reputation derives from the first season, the second season, apart from a few exceptions, failed to continue the promise of the first and this led […]
The “Kids” are Back: Rene Eller’s WE
February 11, 2020
By Gary M. Kramer. We (aka Wij), now available on DVD and Blu-ray from Artsploitation Films, is being billed as a shocking story of reckless, amoral youth. The film features pornography and explicit sexuality (involving teens), death, (teenage) prostitution, blackmail, more sex, more death, violence, rape, and more bad behavior. […]
What Do You See? Alien in the Mirror: Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Glazer and Under the Skin by Maureen Foster
Thomas Puhr
February 4, 2020
A Book Review by Thomas Puhr. Recently appearing on both Cahiers du Cinéma’s top 10 of 2010-2019 and Variety’s list of the decade’s most overrated films, Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin (2013) remains deeply divisive. Though Maureen Foster acknowledges and embraces its polarizing effect in her superb Alien in the […]
A Masterful Work of Synthesis: The Legacy of the New Wave in French Cinema by Douglas Morrey
February 3, 2020
By Margaret C. Flinn. The New Wave cast a shadow that extends far beyond influencing French film of the late 1950s-early 1960s. That is the central argument of Douglas Morrey’s The Legacy of the New Wave in French Cinema (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020). This assertion might seem self-evident to many French cinephiles, but […]
A National Tradition Continues: Festival Director Kamel Aouij on the 2020 Panorama International Short Film Festival
January 31, 2020
By Matthew Fullerton. Tunisia is no stranger to film festivals. Well before its 2011 Jasmine Revolution, which toppled a 25-year old authoritarian regime that had stifled freedom of expression, film festivals were not uncommon in the North African country of 11.5 million. The JCC (Journées cinématographiques de Carthage), for instance, […]
In Remembrance: Marj Dusay (1936-2020)
January 30, 2020
Actor Marj Dusay has died. Marj is one of the lead actors in my second feature film, A Chronicle of Corpses. Marj and I met by chance at the New York-Avignon Film Festival in 1998 where the first feature film I directed, Magdalen, was screening. I knew who she was […]
Cinema of Hidden Histories: Leontina Vatamanu’s Siberia in the Bones (2019)
Brandon Konecny
January 29, 2020
By Brandon Konecny. Moldova has a fascinating recent history, and Leontina Vatamanu is perhaps its most articulate cinematic chronicler. Poke through her films, and you’ll realize that her cinema is one of hidden histories: whether it’s exploring one of Moldova’s most famous modern poets and politicians in Grief of Ion […]
Blunt Force Psychodrama: José Ramón Larraz’s Edge of the Axe (Arrow Video)
January 28, 2020
By Rod Lott. By the time the 1980s settled into middle age, the Gothic and/or supernatural horrors in which José Ramón Larraz specialized – Vampyres, Whirlpool, Stigma, et. al. – no longer were in favor. Thanks to Jason Voorhees and the VHS explosion, the slasher movie became de rigueur. Within […]
“A Love Letter to Life and Film”: An Interview with Willem Dafoe on My Hindu Friend
January 24, 2020
By Patrick McGilligan. Five years after it was made, My Hindu Friend, directed by Hector Babenco, finally is being shown in limited English-language markets. Fans and scholars familiar with the Argentinian-Brazilian filmmaker’s best-known works – Pixote in 1981, his breakthrough, Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985), Ironweed (1987) and At […]
The Language of Lovecraft: Richard Stanley’s Color Out of Space
January 24, 2020
By Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. To say that the US premiere of cult filmmaker Richard Stanley’s much-awaited return to feature filmmaking was one of the most buzz-laden events at this year’s Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, is an understatement. On one hand this was driven by the enigma of Stanley alone, director […]