By Robert Kenneth Dator. “I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of an afterlife.” The Holistic is a film short that stays long in one’s memory. I cannot count how many films I’ve seen devoted to life-after-death, but I can’t recall a single one that presented the idea that some […]
The Lords of Salem
By Cleaver Patterson. Having watched The Lords of Salem (2012) one really has to ask what the point behind such a film is? That’s not to say that every movie has to have some deeper meaning. Indeed some films, particularly horror, are often more entertaining if taken at face value […]
Dead Again: The Evil Dead Legacy
By Cleaver Patterson. They say if something’s not broken, don’t fix it – advice Sam Rami and Bruce Campbell might have been wise to pay more heed to. This week sees both the rerelease on Blu-ray of Evil Dead II (1987), the sequel to their cult schlocker The Evil Dead […]
“Difficult” Black Women: A Q&A with Shola Lynch
By Daniel Lindvall. Documentary filmmaker Shola Lynch’s new film, Free Angela & All Political Prisoners, tells the story of how the brilliant young intellectual Angela Davis was transformed into an international icon in the space of a few short years in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The film focuses […]
Créteil Films de Femmes Celebrates 35 years of Showcasing Women in Film
By Moira Sullivan. The 35th Créteil International Women’s Film Festival, which was held from March 22 to 31, featured several special events this year. First, tributes were given to veteran filmmakers and actresses who have attended previous festivals such as Margarethe von Trotta, Suzanne Osten, Mira Nair, Ulrike Ottinger, Agnes […]
Spring Breakers (2013): A SXSW Review
By Jacob Mertens. As far as rallying cries go, I suppose you can do worse than “spring break forever.” Even so, as Spring Breakers’ enigmatic Alien (James Franco) intones the words over and over, each syllable clawing through the speakers in the character’s arresting drawl, the sentiment becomes more of […]
Interview with Jon Gartenberg, Tribeca Film Festival
By Gary M. Kramer. Jon Gartenberg had been curating experimental films for the Tribeca Film Festival since 2003. He previously curated film at MOMA. For this year’s program, Let There Be Light: The Cycle of Life, Gartenberg scoured hundreds of submissions and winnowed them down to 13 films from Canada, […]
Interview with Sharon Badal, Tribeca Film Festival
April 15, 2013
By Gary M. Kramer. Sharon Badal has curated another terrific program of shorts for the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival. Starting with 2,870 entries, she and her staff/screeners have selected 60 shorts, 30 of which are World Premieres. “I think that’s great to have this many new short films to introduce […]
Looking Backwards: Oblivion
By Cleaver Patterson. “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” Ecclesiastes chapter 1, verse 9, describes succinctly the new Tom Cruise blockbuster. Oblivion (2013), the sci-fi extravaganza written, directed and produced by Joseph Kosinski and based […]
Spying the Noir: Fritz Lang’s Ministry of Fear
By Matthew Sorrento. By 1959, when making cinema history via Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock was weary of male victims on the run. In North by Northwest, he delivered what screenwriter Ernest Lehman described as “the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures.” Essentially, it was the last great work by the […]