The brilliance of Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love lies in the odd space where subtlety in character and story are able to intertwine seamlessly with breathtakingly obtrusive cinematography. Wong and cinematographer Christopher Doyle use a brilliant framed language in the film... Read More »
The memories we connect to film tend to be image or scene based. Colorful simulacra create stories and, if cleverly manipulated, can lead to transformative reactions in audiences’ senses. Growing up watching horror movies, it was all about the sounds and the stuff you couldn’t se... Read More »
Eyebrows inevitably arch upward in surprise as Fred Jaggi, seasoned Swiss beekeeper, happily clambers his rickety ladder and—peacefully puffing on the cigar dangling casually from his lip—hacks a hive from the tree branch above, never so much as flinching as dozens of bees land r... Read More »
Chen Kaige’s Yellow Earth borrows elements of the American Western as a stranger walks into an unknown land, turning heads and catching the attention of the townsfolk (or members of a tribal agrarian collective). This stranger isn’t the usual mysterious prototypical western prot... Read More »
Since 2009, an anti-homosexuality bill has made its way back and forth in the courts of Uganda. This bill threatens people in same-sex relationships with life imprisonment and threatens those who might know a homosexual with their own three-year imprisonment if they refuse to tur... Read More »
Kaige Chen’s 1993 film Farewell, My Concubine is a masterpiece. It is a film of rare beauty that does not shy away from the pain and brutality that beauty comes from. The story is that of two men, Douzi (Zhi Yin as a teenager,Leslie Cheung as the adult) and Shitou (Yang Fei as ... Read More »
It’s 2010 in the scattershot urbanized landscapes of an overcrowded Taiwan. Old and new architecture and technology clash together against the disappearing skyline, though the world seems to move a bit slower today because of some untold tragic event. Taiwan has lost some of its ... Read More »
The film follows three parallel stories. John Sandberg (Simon J. Berger) is a vice squad detective on the brink of uncovering a network of corrupt politicians. Dagmar Glans’s (Pernilla August, she played Anakin’s mom in Star Wars franchise) is a motherly madam expertly networking... Read More »
Let’s start this off on a fun note: this movie took six years to make. Everyone’s schedule had to align just right. Six years. So to say this movie had ample prep time is to be generous. Right off the bat…Seth Rogen (Knocked Up) awaits the arrival of his oldest friend Jay Baruche... Read More »
Stretching as far back in cinema’s history as films the like of 1905’s Rescued by Rover, the essentiality of the human-canine relationship has found some of its most moving artistic expressions in film. Who, for instance, can forget the heartbreaking Umberto D., which saw a man r... Read More »
Where to begin? This three-hour opus has been the talk of Cannes since its debut earlier this week, and at the time of writing is the forerunner to win the Palme d’Or. It had better. Tunisian filmmaker Abdellatif Kechiche has crafted a beautifully intimate film that introduces us... Read More »
It is a travesty that Clair Denis’ film is not in the official competition at Cannes. She presents with Bastards (Les salauds) one of her most smoldering, sensual, and darkest films, collaborating with some of her fetish actors (Vincent Lindon in one of the lead roles, but also M... Read More »
