What responsibility do movies have to reality? Marketers love to trumpet when their film is “based on a true story,” even if it’s just a passing resemblance, because it gives the film relevance and allows audiences to think they’re being less frivolo …Read more
Director Michael Almereyda is no stranger to modernizing Shakespeare; his best-known film is probably his 2000 version of Hamlet that featured Ethan Hawke as a film school slacker version of the prince stalking the NYC boardrooms of the Denmark Corpo …Read more
Human Capital, Italy’s submission for the 2014 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, cleverly examines the encroachment of capitalist economics into all other spheres of human activity. Yet the economics of the film are never presented in a dry, textbook …Read more
Something, Anything is a quiet, interior film that for most of its running time, is entirely un-cinematic. Yet while I’ve used that as a pejorative before, and the film’s subject might have been more naturally explored in prose or another medium, it …Read more
John Huston was a true Hollywood legend – a maverick writer who by sheer force of talent and personality made the then unheard-of transition to directing in the early 1940s, only to continue writing and directing films for the next five decades. Hus …Read more
Reproductive rights exist at a strange nexus of politics and public health; whether or not they should is another issue, but it’s currently hard to address the issue without considering the political implications. Vessel takes this tension to the int …Read more
Florence, Arizona is a gently observed documentary that lets its larger themes develop organically through listening to the diverse residents of its namesake town. Florence is notable for its enormous prison population, which makes up a rarely seen, …Read more
Sex and Broadcasting is a loving homage to oddball New Jersey radio station WFMU. In a world of corporatized Top 40 radio, WFMU is a refuge for the weird and unexpected, where listeners might find anything from songs played on drinking glasses, to po …Read more
Still Dreaming celebrates the timelessness of art with a cast whose time is limited. The documentary chronicles the attempts of two young Broadway directors to stage a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in a nursing home. But it’s not just any n …Read more
A Murder in the Park depicts a terrible miscarriage of justice at the point where politics, law enforcement, and the media intersect. If the filmmakers convincing argument is true, a killer is once again walking the streets of Chicago while in his pl …Read more
