To the manor bored aka Dame Maggie Smith saves Downton Abbey You don’t really know the fans of Downton Abbey until you sit in a darkened theater as the first strains of the theme song start playing, to a bust of applause, and even a few gasps. Thus begins the feature film that feels like …
You’ve probably always wanted to see Werner Herzog’s tattoo, am I right? Now’s your chance. Folklorist, writer, and filmmaker Alan Govenar’s documentary Tattoo Uprising features vintage footage of the mercurial auteur showing off his Ed Hardy design, as well as other footage dating from all the back to 1980 to the present day, and interviews with noted …
When Tigers Are Not Afraid is not busy scaring you, it’s breaking your heart. Social activism meets horror meets coming-of-age in this bracing, gorgeously shot, intense multiple award-winning film that’s both written and directed by famed and favored Mexican filmmaker Issa Lopez. Since it originally premiered at Fantastic Fest in 2017, it has garnered over 50 awards …
A loving yet unsentimental look at an artist lost too soon There are those of us who have known someone truly unusual and special that died young, and we live in the longterm thinking that it’s incredibly unfair. That’s just one thing the new documentary Love, Antosha does to its audience. The film, which is …
Showing the universal power of Springsteen’s poetry How much could an aspiring Pakistani-Brit writer from Luton and a musician from New Jersey have in common? Prolific and beloved writer/director/producer Gurinder Chadha’s new film Blinded By the Light suggests quite a lot. It stands in the belief that people searching for truth, no matter where they …
On August 9th, Amazon Studios releases Grand Prize winner at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, One Child Nation, from directors Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang. An examination of the policy that started in 1980, the extreme population control measure made it illegal for couples to have more than one child. Though it ended in 2015, …
When assigned to review Geek and You Shall Find, I thought what I usually think in such circumstances, the circumstances under which my experience as an art gallery owner that specializes in film art, including superhero, Disney, and, just generally what would be termed “geek art”, is meant to come to bear. In the 20+ years …
Spider-Man: Far from Home has a terrific and tangled web they weave, and you’ll love every minute of it. Imagine a sort of sweeter National Lampoon’s European Vacation, or an 80s John Hughes teen movie, but halfway through some villain doses our hero with a tab of LSD. That’s approaching the sort of fun, twisty …
So proud to have posted this review of documentary The Queen on the anniversary of Stonewall. It is absolutely required viewing for those interested in both queer history and film history. See the trailer here: “Before queer was cool, or even fully legal, first-time director Frank Simon created The Queen, a 1968 groundbreaking documentary chronicling one …
Men in Black International goes global some seven years after MIB: 3 seemed to bid adieu to the franchise, with two very winning stars and one tired, uninspired script. The impossibly cool Tessa Thompson as Agent M and preternaturally beautiful Chris Hemsworth as Agent H drag us through what is essentially the same plot as …
