Imagine a talk-y mash-up of Rocky Horror Picture Show and West Side Story by way of Ed Wood, and you might come close to approximating Amanda Kramer’s theatrical uber-indie Please Baby Please. Kramer also appears to draw inspiration from Kenneth Anger and his 1964 release Scorpio Rising, as well as a list of Fassbinder and John Waters flicks, in a …
If you think life is hard for women in our 2022 world, try being a 14 year old daughter of an impoverished English aristocrat in the 1290. As much as girls have always been girls, in that era, ‘coming of age’ happened while restrained and controlled in a thousand different ways. This included being married …
It’s not news that teenagers eat their own…that’s been the case since way before the internet. Now social media is aiding and abetting the most reptilian, judgmental, fear-mongering parts of all of our minds, and challenging those who’ve come up post-net in new ways we can’t even imagine. Society has yet to determine just how …
There’s no question that writer-director April Wright loves the drive-in. She showed herself an avid and curious fan when she released her 2013 documentary Going Attractions: The Definitive Story of the American Drive-In Movie. In it she tracked the history of the cinematic pastime, and the nostalgia she and many others feel about it, with passion …
Director/co-writer Thyrone Tommy’s debut feature Learn to Swim is premiering on Netflix on Monday, August 15th. It’s just the kind of languid, intense story of love and loss that demands to be watched during the most sweltering days of summer. It follows sax player and arranger Dezi (Thomas Antony Olajide), as he reflects on his relationship with …
With Antonia’s Line, writer/director Marleen Gorris created a film that is both a celebration of life and an unflinching look at the challenges intergenerational women faced throughout the 20th century. The feminist filmmaker achieved for world cinema what many great female directors before her could not. 1994’s Antonia’s Line represents the first foreign-language film by a female filmmaker …
At the end of his experimental film Lux Aeterna, writer/director and provocateur Gaspar Noé plasters the line “Thank God I’m an atheist” onto the screen. As an auteur, cinema should be Noé’s chosen deity, although whether he did it dirty or created a worthy offering to that god with his movie is a matter of opinion. …
Shown first at the Angoulême Film Festival in 2020, My Best Part (Garçon Chiffon in French) is finally opening in New York, LA, and on streaming services on February 25th. This film, which toured the fest circuit including TIFF, Newfest, and OUTshine, is the directorial debut of actor Nicolas Maury, best known in the US for his role …
The new documentary release The Automat teaches many things about the power of nostalgia, the history of New York City, the benevolence of companies long gone, and the egalitarianism of a 5 cent cup of coffee, but before all else, it teaches audiences that Mel Brooks has been and always will be a force. He’s the guy …
Hello, my name is Leslie, and I’m addicted to disaster movies. I have literally seen every incarnation of Airport, both Poseidon Adventures. I’ve even seen Beyond the Poseidon Adventure. For me, watching them offers the perfect cinematic mixture of schadenfreude, catharsis, and hope. So regardless of the fact that my chosen beat is to amplify the independent works …
