I was lucky enough to see the trailer for 65 with no context. It spelled out a familiar tale: High-tech space explorers crash land on an unidentified planet where danger lurks in the shadows. If you’re familiar with the work of co-directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, you know that’s their specialty. But unlike their […]
Film reviews
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Op-ed: Why The Lord of the Rings movies matter 20 years later
A disembodied melody punctured by sharp whispers; the resounding voice of Lady Galadriel demands your attention to the darkened screen. The commencement of arguably the best adapted fantasy series ever has begun — that is, 20 years ago. Sunday, Dec. 19 marks the 20th anniversary of Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of The Lord of the […]
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‘Come closer…’ 11 horror movies from 2001 to revisit this Halloween
2001. Wikipedia and BitTorrent launch. Apple introduces iTunes and the iPod. Rudy Giuliani is Time’s Person of the Year. Britney dons a python. The kids won’t shut up about Harry Potter, and your brother won’t shut up about Ocean’s 11. Movie tickets cost around $5.50. Hollywood’s horror producers are desperately trying to replicate the success […]
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Ghost Creek shimmers in the fog of our pandemic-fatigued minds
We’re in a pandemic, in case you haven’t noticed. And in a pandemic, especially as the parent of a toddler, time (to put a fine point on it) gets a bit — slippery. So on this past rather innocuous Tuesday night, when Ghost Creek premiered, I accessed the website at “about 7” rather than at […]
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Brave old world: ‘Coded Bias’ explores the dangers of AI tech and how prejudice defines the future
“The more that humans share with me, the more I learn.” This is the somewhat ominous voiceover, sourced from the Microsoft AI robot Tay, that opens Shalini Kantayya’s equally ominous documentary, Coded Bias. This line is ostensibly supposed to reassure us that robots rely on human inputs in order to function and only through increased […]
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CR designer’s work in ‘Totally Under Control’ clarifies its uncompromising look at our government’s COVID failures
Watching a contemporary documentary about events unfolding in real time is a surreal exercise that elicits both despair and incredulity. Directors Alex Gibney, Ophelia Harutyunyan, and Suzanne Hillinger’s film Totally Under Control (2020), available on Hulu, explores the (mis)management of COVID-19 in the United States and deftly investigates the way American politicians and public health […]
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Quirky, tender ‘The Mole Agent’ marks virtual return of Vino Vérité series
Today, Oct. 23, marks the FilmScene debut of The Mole Agent, a film that serves as the first ever Virtual Vino Vérité (“online wine and cinematic realism,” essentially, for all those who just mind-mumbled right over that). Co-sponsored by Bread Garden Market and Little Village, Vino Vérité traditionally involves a catered reception with a filmmaker […]
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Fact and fiction intersect to find truth in ‘Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets’
Vino Vérité returns for 2020 this weekend with Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets. Directors Bill and Turner Ross will be in attendance for a Q&A following the screening. The series, presented by FilmScene, Bread Garden Market and Little Village, presents films in the vérité tradition paired with hors d’oeuvres, wine and desserts. Tickets are $20 for […]
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‘The Assistant’: A snapshot of our current conversation around sexual misconduct (the image isn’t pretty)
Kitty Green’s The Assistant is currently playing at FilmScene on the Ped Mall for the next two weeks. Papercuts are not the only wounds that sear in Green’s masterful and mesmerizing feature film The Assistant (2020). Some hurts are untraceable, undetectable on the surface of one’s skin. While the industrial revolution altered the domestic sphere’s […]
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‘Cats’ is back out of the bag as FilmScene hosts four special screenings
“You will believe,” promised the first trailer for Tom Hooper’s Cats, the film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s stage musical, itself adapted from T.S. Eliot’s collection of poems Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. There was something ominous, perhaps even mildly threatening about this tagline. What will we believe? That the strangest Broadway hit of all time would make a good movie?
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The Oscars did something right! FilmScene audiences cheered for ‘Parasite,’ honored snubbed films Sunday
All of Hollywood is nursing a hangover, so you know what that means: It’s the Monday after the Academy Awards! After a disappointing 2019 Oscars (including a Best Picture winner that was more than a little controversial) and a slate of 2020 nominees rife with snubs, cinephiles’ were tempered last night
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The Oscar-nominated Animated Shorts challenge viewers to face the many forms of grief
Perhaps more than any of the other 23 categories, the Oscar-nominated Animated Shorts come with the promise of fresh, risk-taking perspectives. The medium of animation is truly limitless, and for being so constrained within the mainstream, there is something liberating to view the artistic shorts explore, push and reinvent themselves for the betterment of their own narratives.
