If Bob Fosse ever taught us anything, it’s that musicals don’t always need to end happily. Even behind all the glitz and glamour that trademarks the genre – words, actions and more importantly songs, can often reflect an entirely different meaning when hinging on the notion of unavoidable tragedy. We saw it with the unshakable…
Last year, Chyna Robinson directed No Ordinary Love, an immersive thriller about two women in abusive marriages. It pivots its audience between two very different, but very real, experiences of intimate partner violence. We follow its protagonists as they realize they are in danger, and we are held in visceral suspense as they consider escape. No Ordinary Love…
It’s all about the game and how you play it. Scores of minds have grappled and tugged at riches. The parlay between rags and results requires either ambition or fault. The best players secure both. And while it may feel comforting – or simply less tiring – to consider the value of enterprise and service,…
The first film to premiere almost simultaneously at the Toronto, Venice, New York, and Telluride Film Festivals, Nomadland is a tale centered around Fern (Frances McDormand), a jobless, working-class woman who turns to life as a modern-day nomad who traverses the American Midwest. Written, directed, and edited by the incomparable Chloe Zhao, the much buzzed…
In the No Time To Die Countdown, Jake Tropila takes a look back at every Bond film – official and unofficial – in anticipation of the release of the latest entry. Despite reaching an artistic apex with On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, George Lazenby could not bring himself to commit to a contract of five…
While survival and transitional stories are far from a new tale, their ability to interweave important topics and necessary conversations of the world into the narrative is what keeps them fresh and relevant. It is their ability to stay true to the issues through strong characters and solid setting that maintains their importance throughout the…
In 1998, French company Haut et Court initiated a film project dubbed 2000, Seen By…, in which the impending turn of the millennium was depicted by ten different filmmakers from around the world. One of these filmmakers was Taiwanese auteur Tsai Ming-liang, and the resulting film, The Hole, has just been re-released via virtual cinemas…
Welcome to How’d They Do That? — a bi-monthly column that unpacks moments of movie magic and celebrates the technical wizards who pulled them off. This entry looks into how rear projection works. If you’ve seen a film from before the 1970s, there’s a very good chance you’ve already encountered rear projection. And if you’ve seen…
Escape is defined as “an act of breaking free from confinement or control”. How does one define, or even understand, breaking free, especially when all they have known is what they want to escape the most? Can we ever change our destiny, or is fate an inescapable vice that we can hold off, but never…
It’s been almost thirty years since the last installment in the Bill & Ted franchise, and it would be an understatement to say that a lot has changed in the cinematic landscape since then, certainly not limited to the comedy genre. Things have changed a lot in the time between the titular duo’s journey to…
College isn’t going as planned in Shithouse, the feature debut of writer/director Cooper Raiff. A lot of expectations are placed on your college years. Wild nights, lifelong friends, the chance to do things you’ll never do again, all of that and more is supposed to be yours, but Alex isn’t getting any of it. His freshman…
Welcome to Filmographies, a biweekly column for completists. Every edition brings a working actor’s resumé into focus as we learn about what makes them so compelling. In this entry, we spotlight the film and TV work of Zoë Kravitz. The inimitable Zoë Kravitz has long been touted as a rising star. Considering her various contributions to…
Welcome to 4:3 & Forgotten — a weekly column in which Kieran Fisher and I get to look back at TV terrors that scared adults (and the kids they let watch) across the limited airwaves of the ’70s. This week we head to a small town with a spider problem in Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo! Steven Spielberg’s Jaws…
Bollywood Inquiry is a monthly column on the biggest new Bollywood movies. Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl (Sharan Sharma) The young, starry-eyed Gunjan Saxena (Jahnvi Kapoor) has her adult life all figured out. She’s smart, clued into the world, and has all the passion and persistence needed to achieve her dream of becoming a combat pilot for…
Bleed with Me, the first feature from writer/director Amelia Moses, remains one of the standouts from this year’s virtual Fantasia Film Festival. Set in an isolated cabin, the film follows a young woman who becomes increasingly aware of her precarious surroundings, and her odd relationship with her best friend. At a snappy 79 minutes, Bleed…
In HBO’s immersive and deeply moving coming-of-age drama We Are Who We Are, everyone is either finding their own identity or reclaiming something that was once lost about them. Created, directed, and co-written by the acclaimed director of Call Me by Your Name, Luca Guadagnino, the show focuses on a group of teenagers, as well…
“People will know that you can’t just smuggle in, hunker down, and wait to be legalised”. Trump’s blatantly racist remarks play on the background while Olivia (Isabel Sandoval) quietly eats her breakfast. She faces the living, tired map of many concerns severely amplified by the shouting man. Trump’s words come back to hunt Olivia throughout…
“You don’t like apples?” “I don’t remember if I like them” Read moreA Guide to The Perfect Bong Joon-ho MarathonEchoing the philosophical wonderings of Saramago, dwelling on the complex themes explored by Kaufman’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and wrapping it all with the unnerving narrative style of Yorgos Lanthimos, Apples is a gritty,…
Horror films have the unique ability of finding terror in even the most comforting of places. Homes, lovers, friendships, and even inanimate objects can become enemies of the night, lurking in the shadows, concealing their true intentions until it’s too late. With Rent-A-Pal, director Jon Stevenson becomes the latest director to turn the tables on the…
Estus Washington Pirkle was a Baptist preacher out of Mississippi and evangelist of the “turn or burn” variety that prized quantity of conversions over the quality of conversions. He was far from the only evangelist to hold the same approach to bringing souls to the kingdom of the Christian God, however, he may the only…
While survival and transitional stories are far from a new tale, their ability to interweave important topics and necessary conversations of the world into the narrative is what keeps them fresh and relevant. It is their ability to stay true to the issues through strong characters and solid setting that maintains their importance throughout the…