By Moira Sullivan. “He likes to run his mouth … I think he dug himself in a deep hole today.” Kirsten Dunst. The press conference on May 15 with Lars von Trier after the screening of his film Melancholia in the Cannes Official Competition gave insights into the workings of […]
Revisiting Tea and Sympathy: Sexual Paranoia in Fifties America
By Christopher Sharrett. Vincente Minnelli’s melodrama Tea and Sympathy, finally released on DVDby Warner Archive, deserves revaluation, given its neglect during its long absence from the home video market. Although there have been intelligent comments on the film by Vito Russo (1981: 112) and David Gerstner (2009), it has long been […]
The 28th Miami International Film Festival
By Oscar Jubis. It hardly seems to matter that the Miami International Film Festival has a new director, the third in four years, because the festival has a blueprint for success and a well-established identity. The 28th edition boasted a good selection of 73 features reflecting the festival’s traditional predilection […]
Bloodied Light: The cinema of Martin McDonagh
By Marshall Botvinick. ‘I’m sorry,’ says a somber doctor just as the opening credits for Six Shooter(2005), Martin McDonagh’s first film, dissolve. For a playwright known for his remorseless characters, it is a surprising way to begin a cinematic career, and it sends a clear signal to his viewers that […]
33rd Créteil Films de Femmes
May 24, 2011
By Moira Sullivan. The Créteil Films de Femmes festival is a high quality panorama of the images of international women in cinema. A question for some may be: is a women’s film festival outdated today? If you attend the festival you will know that it exists for the same reason […]
Trollhunter (2010)
By Jacob Mertens. The towering behemoth of a forest troll looms over the cameraman, its three heads sniffing the air violently, a shaggy tail swishing through the brush. The scene is punctuated by percussive shifts between night vision and standard, as the awkward bulk of the troll evaporates in darkness […]
Bridesmaids (2011)
By Jacob Mertens. There’s a lot at play with the new female-driven comedy Bridesmaids, directed by Paul Feig. The chaos of marriage and weddings, and the fluctuating dynamic of long sustained friendship is all laid bare, while a balance is constantly maintained between frivolous humor and genuine emotion. More importantly, […]
Navigating Both Worlds: An Interview with Maryam Keshavarz on Circumstance
By Matthew Sorrento. While adapting Alicia Erian’s novel Towelhead for the big screen, Alan Ball considered using the title Nothing is Private. While the idea now sounds like padding, the alternate title would have suited the film well. The lead role, the thirteen-year-old Arab-American Jasira, comes of age sexually under […]
Billboards for Geeks
By Jamie Isbell. How has projection mapping made such an impact on audiences? And, with increasing numbers of brands adopting the advertising method, is it a bright future for the digital delight? Or an already exhausted gimmick destined for a dusty shelf? In plumes of digital fabric the angular relics […]
Istanbul Film Festival Turns 30
By N. Buket Cengiz. The most important event of the year for the cinephiles of Istanbul, the International Istanbul Film Festival, enjoyed its thirtieth birthday this year, featuring two hundred and thirty one films in seven venues and attracting a total of one hundred and fifty thousand viewers. The festival […]