CREATIVE CONTROL is a film that is not afraid to challenge its audience. Blending multiple realities, existential angst, and the problematic relationship we have with technology, it poses intriguing questions about creativity while also exploring levels of tragedy and absurdity that are truly epic. When I spoke with its director/co-star/co-writer Benjamin Dickinson and co-star comedian/philosopher/rapper… Read More »
EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT (El abrazo de la serpiente) — Ciro Guerra Interview
I didn’t have the best phone connection with Ciro Guerra when we spoke on February 6, 2016, but that didn’t affect the quality of what he had to say about his sublime and savage film, EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT. We started with why he chose black and white rather than color for his film set… Read More »
THE BETTER ANGELS
No plaster saint, nor marble effigy of Abraham Lincoln is to be found in THE BETTER ANGELS. Based on the recollections of Lincoln’s surviving family, as spoken by his cousin about his boyhood in Indiana, this is a Lincoln before the legends had taken root, the Lincoln of great promise whose intellectual curiosity and love… Read More »
BRAND UPON THE BRAIN!
Guy Maddin’s BRAND UPON THE BRAIN! is such a purely, viscerally visual experience that, like trying to describe a dream, much is lost when trying to put the language of the subconscious into words. And that is what Maddin is working with here. Boasting no spoken dialogue, eccentric black-and-white exposures, he bills this as a… Read More »
Marjane Satrapi Creates PERSEPOLIS
When I talked with Marjane Satrapi on December 12, 2007, the national news was full of the latest example of gun violence in the United States. Before getting down to talking about PERSEPOLIS, based on her autobiographical graphic novel of the same name, she asked me why the pundits were talking about the shooter’s psychology… Read More »