By Jeremy Carr. The power and purpose of storytelling is essential to The Breadwinner, the newly released animated adaptation of Deborah Ellis’ 2000 young-adult novel of the same name, directed by Nora Twomey and scripted by Anita Doron. For Kabul father Nurullah (voiced by Ali Badshah), stories are a way to […]
“And ‘Nothingwood’ in Afghanistan”: An Interview with Sonia Kronlund
By Yun-hua Chen. Sonia Kronlund came to filmmaking by way of philosophy, criticism, and broadcasting. She studied philosophy at Sorbonne in Paris before developing a career as a French radio reporter. For 15 years she reported from Afghanistan about the war, as well as from Japan and Iran, while contributing reviews to Cahiers […]
From Novel to Transformation – The Making and Remaking of China’s “Red Classics”: Politics, Aesthetics, and Mass Culture, Edited by Rosemary Roberts and Li Li
November 28, 2017
A Book Review by Tony Williams. On the surface, most of this edited collection of essays from Hong Kong University Press (2017) appears to have little to do with media save for the last section. But today, Film (and by implication Media) Studies has long passed the time when it had to […]
In Defiance of Hollywood – Trying to Get Over: African American Directors after Blaxpoitation, 1977-1986 by Keith Corson
A Book Review by Louis J. Wasser. The film director’s traditional conflict between making an artistic statement and making a film that earns money is especially challenging if the director is black. Like any, these filmmakers have to cover significant costs and work within a budget. And because film is […]
Daniel Radcliffe Survives: Dana Lustig on Jungle
November 26, 2017
By Tom Ue. In Bolivia, 1981, Yossi Ghinsberg (played by Daniel Radcliffe), Kevin (Alex Russell), and Marcus (Joel Jackson) meet the mysterious (and apparently more experienced) traveler Karl (Thomas Kretschmann), who becomes their guide into the uncharted Amazon. Some weeks into the trip, the group separated into two. Following a rafting […]
Verity Less Lively: Flesh and Blood
By Dean Goldberg. There’s an often quoted line attributed to director Alfred Hitchcock that goes like this: “Drama is life with the boring parts cut out.” Flesh and Blood, a new film that turned heads at the 2017 SXSW Film Festival, bounces Hitch’s statement on its end. Indeed, actor/director Mark […]
Novitiate: Life Entombed
By Christopher Sharrett. I have always been curious about the lives of nuns, mainly because I suffered under their twisted physical and psychological ministrations for eight years of parochial grammar school in the Fifties. The topic of a nun’s origins are dealt with in a not particularly distinguished film entitled […]
Assisting a First-Time Director: Robin Vidgeon on Lensing Hellraiser
November 20, 2017
By David A. Ellis. Robin Vidgeon was born in August 1939 and has worked on numerous films. For many years he worked with the legendary cinematographer Douglas Slocombe as his focus puller. His last two films with Slocombe were Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Temple of […]
Preparing for Office Mayhem: An Interview with Samara Weaving
November 17, 2017
By Tom Ue. Mayhem is the latest film directed by Joe Lynch, and it stars Steven Yeun, Samara Weaving, and Steven Brand. The film follows Derek Cho (Yeun) over a single day as he is unjustly fired from his job at a law firm. The building that they are in is […]
A Bloody (Laugh) Riot: Mayhem
November 17, 2017
By Elias Savada. The tongue-in-check, over-the-top aspect of Mayhem, a looney tune of a film from director Joe Lynch, offers a steroid-infused day in the life of a really toxic office environment. And I do mean toxic, as in a nasty, infectious virus nicknamed ID-7, which first appears, appropriately, as a […]