I want to take you back to the seventies, to a time when a select few of America’s film critics operated like kingmakers, when their opinions could make or break a movie prior to it opening. I want to take you back to a time before social media, before Rotten Tomatoes, before Metacritic and the pass/fail immediacy of…
Artist Ai Weiwei is known to resist injustice and inequality through his various art forms and activism. In his newest film that just premiered at the Venice Film Festival, Human Flow, he does just that. Following, interacting, and interviewing the refugees from various locations from all over the world, Ai documents the turmoil that refugees…
A dragon’s darting eyes watched over ravers wrapped in international flags and flower crowns as fire shot up into the sky. On an island surrounded by giant pink lily pads, bubbles fell on a DJ dwarfed by building-sized books. A giant carried weights and a bearded lady posed as clowns strolled on stilts. Up on…
The 19-year-old indie-alternative rocker Grace Mitchell preformed at the Mercury Lounge to a buzzing sold out crowd. As the band was setting-up, people in the front row were peeking at the set lists that were placed across the stage, noting when or if their favorite songs would be played. Grace eventually stepped on stage to…
Of the 21 short stories included in Simon & Schuster’s original Great Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (1940), 14 have been adapted into full-length motion pictures. Of the seven that have not, three are six pages or less, one has been adapted into a television program, and another has inspired an hour-long musical…
After forty years of acting, William H. Macy – a recognized and admired name from films Fargo, Psycho, Magnolia, Seabiscuit, Wild Hogs, and countless more – has reversed roles from in front of the camera to behind it for his first film debut, Rudderless. (Written by Macy with partners Casey Twenter and Jeff Robinson.) In…
Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom successfully manages an impressive balancing act. There’s an inherent tension running throughout the biopic genre; they typically choose between portraying their central figures as unblemished messiahs and a more controversy-driven “warts and all” approach. At its best, Mandela proves this to be a false dichotomy. It’s perfectly possible to celebrate…
Few sentences inspire less confidence than “based on real events.” The second these four words crawl across a title card it becomes clear that the film has something to defend. In Philomena’s case it’s a shield for craftless, naked, emotional manipulation. Philomena is the herald of Oscar season, when the pretense of heart and wit…
“Words are life.” Filming a novel whose sole purpose is to defy the death of books and liberate actual reading, The Book Thief is a rarity in the neverending book-to-movie influx. Armed with a whole off and onscreen team of Oscar-winners, calculated cinematography, Schindler’s List composer and costume designer and a genuinely wholehearted cast, Downton Abbey director…
