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Spotlight on the films of Women Horror Directors

Although relatively scarce, horror movies directed by women are out there. You may have to turn over a few rocks to know who they are and their material might be a little more difficult to get your hands on, but these directors deserve just as much attention and scrutiny as their male counterparts, who have …

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New Projects: ‘The Birds’, ‘Monopoly’, and ‘Ashley’s War’

Every time it feels like Hollywood has decided to remake a property that couldn’t be more sacred, they one up the ante. Michael Bay has been prepping a remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s suspense/horror classic The Birds, and Variety reports that the project has now found its director: Dutch filmmaker Diederik Van Rooijen. Van Rooijen has …

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Night Train to Tokyo: ‘Café Lumière’ and Ozu’s Legacy

Taiwan’s Hsiao-hsien Hou has often spoken of his admiration for Japanese master Yasujirō Ozu. In the 1993 documentary Talking with Ozu, attached to the Criterion edition of Tokyo Story and featuring such commentators as Claire Denis and Aki Kaurismäki, he compares the man’s work to that of a mathematician: one that observes and studies in a detached, clinical fashion. Often, returning to …

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NYFF 2013 Dispatch: ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’; ‘The Immigrant’; ‘Bastards’; ‘Gloria’

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (Dir. Ben Stiller) The trailer for Ben Stiller’s newest directorial effort is life-affirming, anthemic, and seems like a heartstring-puller in the best possible way. Trailers are often misleading. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is occasionally satisfying white-guy wish fulfillment, as if Network’s Howard Beale were in a 2-hour, beautifully …

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‘Bastards’ Movie Review – is a nocturnal nightmare that becomes impossible to shake

Every detail matters in the films of Claire Denis. Her latest, and unquestionably her darkest film yet, Bastards, contains a wealth of information in its first few shots: a man on the verge of what we learn to be a suicide, pacing about his office with the rain crashing down outside, a naked girl, wearing only heels, slowly inching her way down a darkly lit street. We re-visit the latter of these shots later in the film, but under a completely different and disturbing context. Denis is back working in full L’Intrus mode, and while Bastards isn’t nearly as impenetrable as the aforementioned 2004 film, it’s an elliptically charged work that challenges and seduces with its wide gamut of unsettling images and sounds.

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2012 in Review: Personal Narratives and the Best Films Seen

Cinema, like most arts, exists beyond time and space. They are a medium of transportation, and for most of us, our only opportunity to fulfil our deepest desires and confront our darkest fears. That’s why it seems unfair to look back on a year in film and focus only on new releases. Our year end obsession with …

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‘Sister’ an emotionally manipulative but devastating slice-of-life story

Sister Directed by Ursula Meier Written by Antoine Jaccoud and Ursula Meier Switzerland, 2012 If acting is difficult for adults, the task may be roughest and most challenging for children. Some children have a naturally showy personality, an overly precocious sensibility that is, depending on your attitude, immensely endearing or obnoxious. But capturing what it’s …

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31 Days of Horror: ‘Trouble Every Day’ poetically revels in the silence of addiction

Trouble Every Day Directed by Claire Denis Written by Claire Denis and Jean-Pol Farqeau France/Germany/Japan, 2001 Rarely enabling itself to be clearly defined or labeled, Trouble Every Day is an oppressively quiet and poetic subversion of the horror genre from French auteur Claire Denis. The small cast floats in and out of this Parisian world in an isolated malady …

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