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.
Film reviews
Posted inArts & Entertainment
‘Color Out of Space’ is a psychedelic horror trip you won’t want to end
Nathan rushes Theresa to the hospital, leaving their children at home to fend for themselves. But the television is all static. The cell phone signals are scrambled. Time is incongruous, no longer adhering to linearity or logic. Something sinister is brewing …
Posted inOpinion
Don’t bother reading this review, just go see ‘Parasite’ at FilmScene
I want to gush about Parasite, which opens at FilmScene—The Chauncey today, but it’s one of those movies where the less you know going in, the better. Still, while you’re here, I think there are a few things I can say about Bong Joon-ho’s latest masterpiece that will, hopefully, entice you to go see it without diminishing that experience for you.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Springtime for Hitler, Germany and Jojo: Taika Waititi’s quirky coming-of-age comedy opens at FilmScene
Nazis are bad, right? Right. Taiki Waititi assumes you already understand this if you’re sitting down to watch his latest film, Jojo Rabbit. If you know anything about this movie, it’s that it’s about a kid who has Adolf Hitler as an imaginary friend. Maybe you even heard that it’s directed by the Thor: Ragnarok guy. Oh, and it’s divisive as hell.
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‘Lucy in the Sky’ offers careful metaphor, slightly disjointed
‘Lucy in the Sky’ (dir. Noah Hawley) opens with astronaut Lucy Cola (Natalie Portman) looking from the outside to the world she left behind. It appears as a sphere strung with lights of connection. She’s told to come in, but she asks for another moment. The vast vista is exchanged for a view from earth, a fast-moving amalgam of cars and faces and
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‘Monos’ is unstuck in time — and sticks with you
In ‘Monos,’ the lack of a centralized, framing point of view, the young children who lack a fixed identity and the absence of much context make the film difficult to predict. Choices that lead to unexpected consequences are less revelations of character than witnesses to forces that alter our sense of what life and survival mean.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
‘Joker’ is dreary fan-fiction, but you could see worse horror movies this October
I fell down a Wikipedia rabbit hole a few months back and stumbled upon the page for the “‘My Way’ killings.” Apparently, in the ’00s, at least a half-dozen karaoke singers were killed while singing Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” at bars in the Philippines. Fighting is not uncommon at these bars, but for whatever reason, “My Way” seemed to be an especially
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Lush and moving, ‘Aquarela’ is the quintessential film for the new FilmScene Chauncey space
Aquarela is shot at 96 frames per second, four times faster than most film. And, at last Friday’s opening, Iowa City’s FilmScene — Chauncey is the only theater in America where you can see it in its intended format. Combined with the new 7.1 surround sound system and the new chairs, the space itself is […]
Posted inOpinion
The evils of white supremacy are on stark display in ‘The Nightingale,’ a grim rape-revenge drama set in colonial Tasmania
On Friday, Aug. 23, FilmScene opened Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale for a limited run. Art house audiences know Kent from her critically lauded horror film The Babadook (2014), which chronicles the mental deterioration of single mother, Amelia, reeling from her husband’s death and desperately struggling to parent her young son. The Nightingale also features a […]
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The South won the war, and this sword proves it! ‘Sword of Truth’ milks conspiracy theory for comedy
You don’t have to believe a conspiracy theory to buy into it. Sword of Trust, the latest film from indie queen Lynn Shelton, follows four adults who dabble in the world of Deep State conspiracy in hopes of a pay-out — and, adversely, a little enlightenment. The tight 90-minute comedy is now playing at FilmScene.
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Ethiopian life through the eyes of a precocious and imaginative boy in ‘Anbessa’
FilmScene’s Vino Vérité series presents Anbessa, directed by Mo Scarpelli on July 14. The hors d’oeuvres and wine tasting, part of the experience of the series, start at 6:30 p.m.
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Within these walls: Belonging, change and ‘The Last Black Man in San Francisco’
Joe Talbot’s film — his first — is a collaboration between the director and his friend/scriptwriter/main character Jimmie Fails, who tells a story at least partly autobiographical about changes to the city of San Francisco and the struggles that members of its lower classes face as they adapt.
