2021 film fest season is underway, and with it comes a whole bunch of movies reckoning with last year’s lockdown and the still ongoing global pandemic. It’s hard to say what the value of these films will be in hindsight, hyper-topicality capable of being…
In the middle of one of Poser’s early scenes, we see Lennon Gates (Sylvie Mix), a young girl who dreams of making her mark as a podcaster in the underground indie music scene of Columbus, Ohio, talking with Micah (Abdul Seidu): “I’d strive to capture…
It’s fairly remarkable that there has yet to be a film made that addresses the topic of open relationships — or any of the myriad configurations found under the umbrella of ethical non-monogamy — in a way that isn’t reductive or otherwise grossly conservative…
On the day before the official premiere of the latest Ted Bundy thriller No Man of God, director Amber Sealey received a scathing letter from true-crime enthusiast & fellow film director Joe Berlinger. The letter — which contained a glut of baseless slander accusations…
At this point, it’s fairly useless to ascribe Studio Ghibli qualities to any new anime release, so diluted have such comparisons become, but there’s an undeniable touch of that familiar eco fabulism to Studio 4°C’s latest, Poupelle of Chimney Town. Based on a children’s…
In 1951, the Minamata-based Chisso corporation was one of Japan’s leading producers of acetaldehyde, a then in-demand chemical compound that the company had begun to synthesize using a mercury sulfate catalyst. This production method would make Chisso very rich and the city of Minamata…
Chloe Galibert-Laine and Kevin B. Lee’s Bottled Songs 1-4 is an epistolary essay film in which the duo exchange four video letters, with each filmmaker authoring two segments apiece, that interrogate the audio/visual techniques of assorted terrorist propaganda videos, ranging from low res phone…
Far more than its rather nonsensical title and unconventional mix of animation styles, the general plot synopsis of Accidental Luxuriance of the Translucent Watery Rebus may help to clarify the feature-length work’s narrative and formal elusiveness. There’s a man, named Martin, who works for…
Currently on display in all of its titanic glory at the Louvre, Théodore Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa is a peculiar masterwork. Depicting one of the most horrific humanitarian tragedies at the time of its production, Géricault’s masterful strokes and command of movement…
Broadcasting its ambitious scope with its borrowed title, Rita Hui Nga Shu’s Decameron sets out to encapsulate the tenor of current day Hong Kong following a year of COVID lockdown and mass protest against the Chinese government’s significant influence over the semi-autonomous nation. Hui…
