Are you ‘cliterate’? How many of you out there know the exact physiological structure of the clitoris? How many of you are uncomfortable with it being brought up, or even written in a sentence? That is what the new documentary The Dilemma of Desire considers as part of a larger examination of the disconnection from, and vilification …
Right before I started watching the new indie release, International Falls, I had noted to myself that I wanted to watch a documentary called Misery Loves Comedy. I don’t know much about that documentary, which features interviews with dozens of comics, but it appears to speak to the connection between comedy and depression. What director Amber McGinnis and screenwriter …
There’s an explosion of underground rappers releasing their music on SoundCloud, some of which are gaining a global audience. It is with this understanding, as a number of her high school buddies have found relative success there, that writer/director Marnie Ellen Hertzler built her part-narrative, part-documentary, part video art project called Crestone. The film is shot …
Written and directed by Katherine O’Brien, Lost Transmissions centers on a young, performance-shy singer/songwriter named Hannah (Juno Temple) who connects with her friend, record producer Theo (Simon Pegg) over their shared love of music. He believes she is talented, and tries to build both her confidence and her professional resume by working with her. The only problem …
I’m all for whistling while you work, but Romanian New Wave writer/director Corneliu Porumboiu takes it to a whole new level in his new release The Whistlers. It’s a heist flick loosely centered on crooks learning an ancient whistling language in order to break a drug dealer and money launderer named Zsolt out of prison. Zsolt …
At Sundance Film Festival one of the best documentary films you’ll likely see in 2020 had its premiere. Crip Camp was introduced by festival director John Cooper, who was effusive about the selection of this film as the opener. Though given it will be released by Netflix, one might argue it skirts the definition of …
It’s a tall order to aspire to landing even close to the neighborhood of classic Black love stories in which Love Jones, Brown Sugar, and Love and Basketball reside, but that is what the film The Photograph aims for and achieves, thanks to writer/director Stella Meghie, her magnetic cast, and some impressive work by visual and musical collaborators. From its first …
There’s something perverse in seeing great actors doing great work in a film that has an extremely problematic script and plot. In the new release The Burnt Orange Heresy, directed by Giuseppe Capotondi and written by Scott B. Smith from the Charles Willeford novel, a collection of endlessly enigmatic actors that includes Claes Bang, Elizabeth Debicki, …
The Oscars are Sunday night, and as usual, even with the amazing, worthy films that could have been included, it’s the same old white, male-dominated parade we’ve ever had. The exceptions are the ‘fantabulous’ fare brought to you by Bong Joon Ho with Parasite, which deserves all the awards it can get, the great female …
Let’s be honest. There’s really no such thing as a simple wedding. Writer/director Sara Zandieh drives this home in her new rom-com A Simple Wedding, starring the gorgeous and hilarious Tara Grammy. I love seeing films by women that center on women coming from or representing other cultures. It brings me such joy to see an American comedy …
