It’s fitting, for the time it lasts at least, that the sole title card gracing the screen at the start of Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas reads Mads Mikkelsen. Here is a film of land disputes and legal tedium, of valuing honour and integrity, made meaningfully intense by the furrowed brow of its leading man. After a time, other …
It’s to the bereaved Andrew’s bizarre request of his female friends that they sleep with him to alleviate his emotional pain that the title of The Big Ask refers, but that’s nothing beside the movie’s assuming of its audience the restraint not to leap through the screen and slap him. The kooky premise indie lives or dies on its ability to …
It’s pretty common in our increasingly technologized society to make jokes about addiction to the devices we own and the programs they run. But what if society took those labels seriously, admitting people to rehab for Candy Crush overload or Facebook dependency? Though it sounds like the set up for a groan-worthy indie film called APPetite for …
If you are under the impression that you will be seeing something revelatory, fresh or insightful in this teen oriented weepy about cancer, you may need to reconsider your film going choice. It joins the ranks of cute, emotionally manipulative, surface level explorations of dealing with disease, first loves, intense teenage …
![We Are the Best Vi Ar Bast[3]](https://nextprojection.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/We-Are-the-Best-Vi-Ar-Bast3-351x185.jpg "We Are The Best! Review")
Punk rock, real punk rock lived very briefly, burning bright and then burning out or segmenting into hardcore and new wave. For a brief few years, though, punk was more than just a musical genre, it was an active rebellion against the world as punks found it. It was more than just the music, it was a lifestyle. We …
Rodrigo Guerrero’s The Third One (El Tercero, 2014) depicts a pivotal event in a young man’s life, one which shifts how he will forever view the concepts of love and sex. It is a coming-of-age story unlike any other, not only for its portrayal of homosexual relations, but for how it focuses specifically on the impact of sexual experience in a young…
New York, present time(ish) is my next stop for my journey through the Criterion catalog. I decided I wanted something immensely upbeat this time, and just like the run time of my newest title Frances Ha (85 minutes), my visit was brief, but rewarding. The newest film from writer/director Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale…
Mankind plays by a different set of rules at night. For most of us, the daylight hours are defined by work, routine, and the pursuit of a paycheck. The nighttime offers something far more alluring: the chance to pursue our own, more radical ideas. In Night Moves, characters toil on an organic farm and collect towels at a health spa during …
With Clouds of Sils Maria, the Official Competition featured another film that can be described as a backstage drama, looking behind the scenes of the film business through the eyes of the aging Hollywood actress Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche) and her personal assistant Val (Kristen Stewart). Twenty years after her breakthrough role in “Maloja Snake”, a film based on a…
A moody exploration of sexuality as a fluid concept, Something Must Break mixes twenty-first century notions of queer sexuality with gender identity crisis. While that premise may not exactly come across as unique to those familiar with films centered around LGBT characters, this Swedish film tries to distinguish itself through its …