CRYPTOZOO is a touching throwback to the animated films of the late 60s and early 70s in both style and in substance. Set in that time frame, it is full of idealism about the possibilities of human society and wonder at the natural world, while also tempered with poignant cynicism about both. Writer/director Dash Shaw… Read More »
MANDIBLES (Mandibules)
In MANDIBLES, Quentin Dupieux takes us on a road trip with two lovable innocents and an outsized housefly. Why there is an outsized housefly in the trunk of a dilapidated Mercedes just waiting to be discovered/rescued/exploited by this pair of misfits is never explained, nor does it need to be. This latest excursion by Dupieux… Read More »
TOO LATE (2021)
TOO LATE is a noir fable about the dark side of show biz. Deadpan and droll in its exploration of monsters and their enablers, it doesn’t so much expose anything new about what people are willing to do in order to succeed as present it with a puckish flair and a wicked sense of irony.… Read More »
RISE AGAIN: TULSA AND THE RED SUMMER
Anticipating the centennial of the Tulsa race riots and massacre in 1921, Dawn Porter wanted to do more that remember that criminally ignored chapter in American history. The resulting documentary, RISE AGAIN: TULSA AND THE RED SUMMER, recounts a part of our history that had, similarly, been ignored by all but the survivors, and their… Read More »
THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
Based on the remarkable life of James Brooke, EDGE OF THE WORLD is an introspective film about how an Englishman became the Raja of Sulawak. Such was his fame in Victorian England that Joseph Conrad used him as the model for the title character in his novel, Lord Jim, and rich women proposed marriage to… Read More »
CAVEAT
Click here for the interview with writer/director/editor Damian McCarthy. CAVEAT is a small masterpiece of mood and atmosphere. A southern gothic transplanted to a remote island somewhere off the coast of Ireland without losing anything in the cultural translation, it is all about suggestion and quick cuts showing what may or may not be externalization… Read More »
RIDERS OF JUSTICE
It’s impossible to pigeon-hole RIDERS OF JUSTICE. Part tragedy, part very black comedy, part action/revenge, it is nevertheless also a perceptive examination of troubled souls longing for surcease of sorrow for whom the usual therapeutic methods have failed. If that were all, it would be enough, but it goes further, essaying nothing less than a… Read More »
DRUNK BUS
Michael (Charlie Tahan), the nebbishy hero of DRUNK BUS, needs no metaphor to describe his life in 2006. He is living it. After four years of driving the endless loop that is the overnight campus bus route at the Kent Institute of Technology his whole exitance has become a treadmill. What started as a part-time… Read More »
TWO LOTTERY TICKETS (Doua lozuri)
In a puckish bit of self-reference, one of the characters in the Romanian comedy, TWO LOTTERY TICKETS, opines that Romania doesn’t make good movies anymore. They’re all doom and gloom, completely missing the essence of Romania. In his second film, Paul Negoescu sets out to change that single-handedly and does a tidy job of it.… Read More »
ENFANT TERRIBLE
At one point, late in in ENFANT TERRIBLE, the titular character of this bio-pic, omnisexual filmmaker and agent provacateur of the German New Wave, Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Oliver Masucci), calls himself an uber-pig. It’s part boast, part confession, and part apology. As seen in Oskar Roehler’s stunningly oneiric film, they are all consistent with the… Read More »
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