Film Scratches focuses on the world of experimental and avant-garde film, especially as practiced by individual artists. It features a mixture of reviews, interviews, and essays. A Review by David Finkelstein. Toogie’s Trip to Bukuokuka is a kind of S/M Alice in Wonderland, a menacingly surreal and fascinating 24 minute film by […]
Film Scratches: Euphoria Unmasked – Careless Camera Work on Clapham Common (2016)
June 20, 2018
Film Scratches focuses on the world of experimental and avant-garde film, especially as practiced by individual artists. It features a mixture of reviews, interviews, and essays. A Review by David Finkelstein. In Jack Wormell’s aptly named five minute silent video Careless Camera Work on Clapham Common, he assembles shots taken from a […]
Film Scratches: Recent Short Films by Chang Po-Yang
June 20, 2018
Film Scratches focuses on the world of experimental and avant-garde film, especially as practiced by individual artists. It features a mixture of reviews, interviews, and essays. A Review by David Finkelstein. Chang Po-Yang is a young filmmaker from Taiwan. Here is a round-up of his recent experimental shorts. Je est un autre […]
Life Interrupted: Erick Stoll and Chase Whiteside on América
June 18, 2018
By Gary M. Kramer. América, directed by Erick Stoll and Chase Whiteside, is a lovely, poignant meditation on eldercare. The filmmakers capture the rhythm of the life of Diego, a young man living in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, who is called back to Colima to care for his grandmother, América, who […]
Fiercely Unpredictable: First Reformed
By Thomas Puhr. Paul Schrader takes Christianity seriously: no small feat, given that many “Christian” movies today are of the schmaltzy, Sunday School variety (i.e. God’s Not Dead, Heaven Is for Real). The writer-director’s latest offering, First Reformed (2017), reconfirms his status as one of America’s most unpredictable filmmakers (his […]
Kitsch Shining Bright: Jeffrey Schwarz on The Fabulous Allan Carr
June 14, 2018
By Tom Ue. Emmy Award-winner Jeffrey Schwarz’s many documentaries include Tab Hunter Confidential (2015), about the 1950s heartthrob and movie idol, and Vito (2011), the gay activist, film scholar, and author Vito Russo. His latest project centres on Allan Carr, best known for his producing work in Grease (1978) and the […]
Omnibus of Unrest: On Ten Years Thailand
June 14, 2018
By Ali Moosavi. Many film aficionados’ first memory of Thailand dates back to the 1956 film The King and I in which Yul Brynner played the King of Siam (Thailand’s former name). After a bloodless revolution in 1932, Siam became a democratic constitutional monarchy and changed its official name to Thailand. Since […]
North Korea’s International Movie Co-Productions, 1985-2012
By Johannes Schönherr. Kim Jong Il, the son of North Korea’s founder and Great Leader Kim Il Sung, went early in his youth in the direction of eventually inheriting his father’s position as leader of the country. At the same time, Kim Jong Il was an ardent cineaste with a […]
Hereditary: The Mother Again
By Christopher Sharrett. As the end credits roll for Ari Aster’s horror film Hereditary, we hear Judy Collins sing her hit song from the 60s, “Both Sides Now,” appropriate for the kind of film that wants to keep us guessing as it tries to walk a fine line between supernatural […]
Beyond the “Jacksplosion” – Quintessential Jack: The Art of Jack Nicholson on Screen by Scott Edwards
A Book Review by Louis J. Wasser. Scott Edwards’s new book (McFarland, 2018) is anything but a garden variety biography of an American A-list actor. There’s no story here of a film actor’s breaking loose from a difficult childhood. There’s no straight-up chronological filmography for a discerning reader to trace […]