By Paul Risker. Argentine pianist Martha Argerich has always represented a swirling musical force – her performance of the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No.3 in particular having left me astounded and inclined to perceive her as a godlike force of artistic expression. I have heard whispers of the woman behind Argerich […]
FilmInt on the Underground: A Cinematic World to Come
July 11, 2015
FilmInt on the Underground is a new blog dedicated to emerging filmmakers. By April L. Smith. Directors Trevor Mowchun and Daniel Eskin’s World to Come is a stark, beautifully shot study on the grief and guilt that underlies a quiet Jewish community. The film unfolds slowly as a series of images […]
Banished to Strangerland
July 10, 2015
By Elias Savada. The psychological story and claustrophobic/expansive landscape seem familiar, especially for fans of the series The Killing (2011-14) and Broadchurch (2013- ), recently watched locales where anyone and everyone might be guilty. Suspects (of something) are a-plenty in this return to Australian indie cinema, after a two-decade absence, by […]
CARVER to Open Second Annual REEL EAST FILM FESTIVAL, August 21-23, 2015
July 9, 2015
Contact: reeleastfilm@gmail.com Oaklyn, NJ – Carver, the horror film phenomenon directed by teen wunderkind Emily DiPrimio, will open the Second Annual Reel East Film Festival (REFF) for a 7:30 screening on August 21, 2015 at the historic Ritz Theatre in Oaklyn, NJ. South Jersey native DiPrimio will introduce the film, with a Q […]
A Debut Emerges: Rebels of the Neon God (1992)
July 7, 2015
By Paul Risker. As Rebels of the Neon God (1992) opens, one cannot help but be struck by the weighty feel of the images. It is perhaps something within the shot selection in Ming-Liang Tsai’s debut (now in release in the US), the framing and positioning of the actors in relation to the […]
The Suspense of Climate Change: Showtime’s Years of Living Dangerously
July 6, 2015
By John Duncan Talbird. The Showtime series Years of Living Dangerously is aware of how to make the unsexy topic of climate change both engaging and even suspenseful. Not surprising as two of its executive producers are action movie veterans, James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Each episode is split into […]
End of a Saga: Andrzej Wajda’s Wałęsa: Man of Hope
By Geoffrey Fox. The credits roll over a black-and-white newsreel of missiles and men parading before an austere Leonid Brezhnev in Moscow on the 52nd anniversary of the October Revolution. A leap in time and place, and we see as through a car window the sepia and rust-brown hulks and […]
Escalation as Class Conflict in Damián Szifron’s Wild Tales
July 5, 2015
By William Repass. Newton’s Third Law does not hold sway in Argentine filmmaker Damián Szifron’s Wild Tales (Relatos salvajes, 2014). On the contrary, action leads only to overreaction, effect revenging itself on cause. Each of the six thematically interlocking shorts that comprise the film advances by means of escalation. In […]
Discovering Mary Pickford
By Tony Williams. The title of this article has a double meaning. It is primarily a reworking of that lavishly illustrated and meticulously researched 1999 publication Mary Pickford Rediscovered written by someone (Kevin Brownlow) who already knew her work and had the privilege of once meeting the 70 plus year-old […]
The 2015 AFI Docs Festival Report
July 1, 2015
By Gary M. Kramer. The AFI Docs film festival showcased more than 50 feature and short length documentaries in Washington, DC, and Silver Spring, MD venues. Here is a rundown of two World Premieres from the fest—1st and 17 and The Three Hikers—as well as reviews of several documentaries from the […]