Movie talk

Yingying Zhang was a promising young graduate student who left her home, family and boyfriend in China to pursue her studies in the United States. She’s one of thousands of students who make the same journey, whose parents sacrifice both financially and emotionally to let their children go to an unknown country all in the…

Welcome to Movie DNA, a column that recognizes the direct and indirect cinematic roots of both new and classic movies. Learn some film history, become a more well-rounded viewer, and enjoy like-minded works of the past. This entry recommends movies to watch after Jonathan Lynn’s Clue. We’ve all been there. You google “movies like Clue” and…

The never-ending pandemic gave us a deeper understanding of social isolation and a kinship with the fictional characters who experienced it. It’s safe to say we’re all ready for this to be over (in fact, that might be the understatement of the year). Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonIn the meantime, we…

Melissa Haizlip’s award-winning documentary, “Mr. Soul!”, has now been nominated for Outstanding Debut Feature at the Cinema Eye Honors. According to the awards group, which has been annual honoring nonfiction work since 2007, over 65% of its nominees this year are first-timers. “Women filmmakers and craftspersons made up 44% of today’s announcements, a record for Cinema Eye, and…

The city of Usuki in Oita Prefecture is noted for its Stone Buddhas believed to date back to the 12th-century. Their origins are quite unclear, as no historical records of them have survived. According to local folklore, they were created in memory of a princess who died young, but according to archaeological evidence, this seems…

★★ Directed by: Jorge Villacorta Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonWritten by: Jorge Villacorta Starring: Jorge Villacorta Read moreRobert Stack Finally Solves a Mystery in ‘The Strange and Deadly Occurrence’Film Review by: Patrick Foley We’re living in a golden age for conspiracies right now. Everyone from Donald Trump to Denise Welch seems…

★★ Directed by #AlexAppel #JonathanLisecki Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonWritten by #AlexAppel #JonathanLisecki #BarbaraRadecki Starring #AliciaWitt Read moreRobert Stack Finally Solves a Mystery in ‘The Strange and Deadly Occurrence’,,Film Review by ,,Cat McAlpine Wren Cosgrove is happy to go on her morning runs, talk to her cat Wentworth, and work too…

If you are ever moved to be needlessly cruel to someone hunkered down for the winter in a dull, drafty place, you might send them a picture of Heron Island. A lush, sand-fringed freckle several hours by boat from Gladstone, Australia, it looks like a screensaver version of paradise. Adorably dour-looking black noddies perch in…

Every year, on December 13, golden-hued saffron buns bake in ovens across Scandinavia. Eating this sweet bread—known as lussebullar or lussekatter in Sweden, luciabrød in Denmark and Norway, and lucia-pullat in Finland—heralds the celebration of St. Lucia’s Day. In Sweden, eldest daughters often serve their parents buns and coffee in the morning while wearing a…

It’s that time of year again when streaming services and television channels get into the holiday spirit. Lifetime, Hallmark, and now Netflix are the titans of churning out holiday fare, which all seem to be set in the same small snowy town. This is also the time of year to revisit annual favorites. That time when family and friends…

“You must remember to nourish yourself.” Vintage Pictures has released an official trailer for the Icelandic film Agnes Joy, which originally premiered last year and also opened in Iceland last year. After playing at a few other film festivals this year, Iceland has submitted Silja Hauksdóttir’s Agnes Joy as their selection for the Best International…

Jameela Jamil has a bone to pick with Cancel Culture, but it’s so small it could be found in your middle ear. “The Good Place” alum opened up about not just Cancel Culture but those who inadvertently trigger it during a conversation at TheWrap.com’s Power Women Summit 2020. Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong…

“The kind of genre cinema we dream of.” RLJE Films has debuted a new official trailer for the upcoming VOD release of a wacky horror sci-fi comedy titled Psycho Goreman. We featured a teaser trailer earlier in the year before the film’s originally planned premiere at SXSW (before the fest was cancelled). This is the…

If there’s a unifying dynamic to be found in Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa‘s last two major films, it’s an intense focus on characters who are totally out of their element. In 2017’s Before We Vanish, the director presented a science fiction spin on the fish-out-of-water narrative, following a group of aliens masquerading as humans in…

I invite you to help me celebrate The HistoryMakers‘ twentieth anniversary with twenty days and nights of panels, discussions and video performances and talks that span the gamut of the African-American experience from December 1st through December 20th (you can find the full schedule of events here). Twenty years ago, visionary attorney Julieanna Richardson looked around and saw…

2020’s International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam (known as IDFA) had one of the richest programmes I’ve seen for a virtual festival. There were over 170 films screened across feature, mid-length and short film categories. Many filmmakers got the opportunity to premiere their latest work for the first time and the festival team ensured there…

On the side of the road in the small town of Kingman, Kansas, two giraffes stand in a park they share with a dinosaur snacking on a human leg, a cowboy riding parallel to train tracks, and a full cast of characters. All these statues are from the collection of Glenn Stark, a sculptor whose yard became…

The Shanghai Film Park is a working film and television studio based around a full-scale replica of Nanjing Road, Shanghai’s famous shopping area circa the 1930s. The set recreates iconic buildings from central Shanghai such as the five-story Sincere Company department store.  Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonThe streetscape was constructed for…

At the De Akkers metro station in Rotterdam’s suburb of Spijkenisse on November 2nd, 2020, a metro train breached the station’s end barriers and nearly plummeted over 30 feet from the elevated rails. All that saved the train and its operator was the fact the front carriage was caught and held aloft by one of…

Over the last five years, director Marco Porsia had been accumulating a mass amount of footage from recording the concerts of venerated alt-rock group Swans. While gathering this treasure trove of material and getting to know frontman Michael Gira, Porsia set about to create a documentary on the revered music of Swans with the 2019…