By Jude Warne. “Her voice is full of money,” Jay Gatsby says of his love Daisy Buchanan in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 masterwork. There is something in the aural quality of socialite speak that suggests the speaker holds a vague indifference toward whatever matter may be at hand, because its […]
A Comeback and a New Beginning: Jackie Earle Haley on Criminal Activities
December 9, 2015
By Matthew Sorrento. Like many child actors, Jackie Earle Haley faded from the spotlight as he reached maturity. He was relaxed on camera, which helped him exude cool as a lost youth finding a talent in The Bad News Bears (1976) and a teen making steps to adulthood in Breaking Away (1979). Curtis Hanson’s Losin’ It (1983) offered Haley the […]
Larry Cohen: The Stuff of Gods and Monsters (2015)
December 7, 2015
A Book Review by Tony Williams. Those fortunate enough to have met or interviewed Larry Cohen are always amazed by his detailed answers to questions as well as his unique knowledge of American cinema and history. Michael Doyle’s Bear Manor Press publication is the most detailed compilation of interview material […]
Room: Woman and the Domestic Household
December 7, 2015
By Christopher Sharrett. Lenny Abrahamson’s Room, adapted from a recent novel by Emma Donoghue, is a “true crime” thriller of important resonance. Its story concerns a now-common and atrocious crime: a woman is kidnapped by a rapist and kept prisoner, a permanent sex slave. Joy Newsome (Brie Larson) is locked […]
Pasolini Revisited, in the Context of Contemporary Turkey: An Interview with Deniz Gamze Erguven
December 7, 2015
By Amir Ganjavie. In her first feature film, Mustang, director Deniz Gamze Erguven beautifully demonstrates how living in a closed totalitarian society impacts young Turkish women since everything is reduced to their sexuality and every act is defined through that filter. Taking place in a remote village in Turkey, the […]
The Perils of Perfume: Stink! (2015)
By Jude Warne. Jon Whelan acted solely as a concerned parent when he chose to investigate why his daughter’s new pajamas, which he himself had purchased for her from the Tween clothing brand Justice, were the source of an unsettlingly foul order. The path that this three-year-long investigation led him […]
An Artistic “Journey”: Filmmaker Matthew Leutwyler on Uncanny
By Paul Risker. Cinema, or more specifically science fiction, has a long established fascination with the future of human civilisation: the quest as well as the hypothesis of a potential future reality. Director Matthew Leutwyler and writer Shahin Chandrasoma’s passion project Uncanny (2015) continues the storyteller’s and as an extension […]
A Life Laid Bare: Tab Hunter Confidential
November 28, 2015
By Elias Savada. Producer-director-editor Jeffrey Schwarz – I Am Divine (2013), Vito (2011), Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story (2007) – is back in original action form from his day job as the creator of electronic presskits and supplemental home digital content. He brings us Tab Hunter Confidential, a laid-back examination of the […]
Trumbo: Wit in the Face of Pathos
November 26, 2015
By Matthew Sorrento. Dalton Trumbo’s story is an ideal one to represent the golden age of Hollywood. A famed screenwriter with literary roots (as the winner of the National Book Award for Johnny Got His Gun, 1939) who worked successfully within the studio system for around a decade (late 30s to 40s), […]
“Never Say We’re Making It Up”: An Interview with Marc Lahore on The Open
November 24, 2015
By Tom Ue. Marc Lahore grew up between a mountain of VHS and a heap of comics. He became a voluntary projectionist, then a TV editor, pursuing at the same time a university course in English language and culture. He directed a series of quite different, often strange, short films (the […]