It seems a good opportunity to talk about film and nationhood, given that so many of this year’s local films – not only A Family but Alice, Buoyancy, and Animals[…]
DVD & Blu-ray · Historical & Epic · Reviews
“What do such large loose baggy monsters, with their queer elements of the accidental and the arbitrary, artistically mean?” – Henry James, from the preface of his novel The Tragic[…]
Horror · Interviews · Movies · SF & Fantasy
* * * It’s The Day of the Triffids’ fault: when he was a wee lad stuck at home in front of the television with a sprained arm (fault: sister,[…]
In her fourth report from the Tribeca Film Festival, Claire Baiz looks at first-time feature director Matt Ratner’s intriguing family drama Standing Up, Falling Down, which, as a thoughtful film[…]
Documentaries · Festivals & Awards · Sound & Language
Herewith we begin our coverage of the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, courtesy of our intrepid reporter Claire Baiz, who will be filing dispatches on some of the more worthy entries[…]
Composers · Historical & Epic · Reviews · Silents
This is an updated and revised version of Gordon Thomas’s article first posted in Bright Lights in May 2006, reposted to celebrate Easter. * * * Bigger is better this[…]
From volatile sibling relationships to House of Atreus–style depravity, traditional ideas about family were upended and replaced with a contemporary look at the complex, ever-expanding definition of the ties that[…]
Festivals & Awards · Women in Film
Rather than a fascist leader, in Vox Lux Celeste suggests a different sort of monstrosity – a receptacle for the nation’s horrors and fantasies, even more than a Madonna or a[…]
Festivals & Awards · New Media
Francis Ford Coppola introduced the screening of his Robin Williams vehicle Jack. Since this was the Festival of Disruption, Coppola said he wanted to “disrupt” by screening his worst film,[…]
Even more than in The River, with The Deserted we are sensually implicated in the small gestures of rest and relief, saving graces in this abandoned world. When Lee later[…]
Look Back in Anger (Tony Richardson, 1959); The Entertainer (Tony Richardson, 1960); Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (Karel Reisz, 1960); A Taste of Honey (Tony Richardson, 1961); The Loneliness of[…]
Comedy · Drama · Festivals & Awards
To Dust (dir. Shawn Snyder) “Isn’t that sweet,” I thought when I picked up my mother’s dropped pocket calendar. So many dates had names on them. Mom doesn’t want to[…]
Documentaries · Festivals & Awards
“I’m grateful I didn’t grow up with Barbie.” – Gloria Steinem * * * Gloria Steinem isn’t alone. Lisa Simpson hates Barbie. Feminist writer Roxanne Gay wishes Barbie had never[…]
Comedy · Documentaries · Festivals & Awards
The effect is intimate, but not particularly enlightening. Love, Gilda offers a lot of reminiscing, some sweet (and a few heavy) insights, but very little new information about Radner’s life.[…]
Activist & Political · Festivals & Awards
Emblematic of the prevailing sober atmosphere was the festival’s Invisible Hands Tribute, a series of five films about the erosion of workers’ rights, unemployment, and collective action. * * *[…]
Actors & Personalities · Festivals & Awards · Historical & Epic
The moral of this particular dose of Oscar reality: You don’t have to be a royal to grab the Academy’s attention, but it sure helps if you’re pretending to be[…]
Actors & Personalities · Drama · DVD & Blu-ray · Silents
What we see in Brooks and Beery on the screen is a mixup of the actors’ hardwired personalities and those contrived for their roles, but this is the sort of[…]
“Once you have a hammer, doesn’t everything look like a nail? In Hong Sang-soo’s films, everyone’s a nail.” * * * The most anticipated films on the festival circuit this[…]
Hitchcock’s one-word titles have never been so instructive. Psycho is the feeling of being preyed on by your self, as by one of Norman’s stuffed birds. It is the primal[…]
Though moving a bit more stiffly in Lucky, Harry Dean is still moving, and that, the film says, is a beautiful thing. * * * SxSW wrapped up this past[…]
