Riveting ‘Retrograde’ Makes Warfare in Afghanistan Personal
Matthew Heineman’s dizzying documentary, Retrograde, sees the fall of Afghanistan through the eyes of one beleaguered Afghan general.
Film
Filmmaker Alexandre Rockwell’s Everyday Surrealism
Three Alexandre Rockwell films, now on OVID.tv, depict everyday Surrealism and Expressionism quite unlike the usual dingy kitchen-sink realism about lost souls.
Director Mathieu Amalric on Letting Go in ‘Hold Me Tight’
French director and actor Mathieu Amalric talks with PopMatters about the power of imagination and its phantoms in Hold Me Tight.
Lon Chaney Didn’t Always Need Makeup to Menace Silent Film Viewers
‘Lon Chaney: Before the Thousand Faces, Vol. 2’ captures how he applied his darkly expressive visage, even without makeup, to menace silent film viewers.
Embodying the Mexico-US Border with Virtual Reality and Other Imaginings
Iñárritu’s VR experience Carne y Arena, Vizcarra’s documentary La Línea, and Rivera’s sci-fi film Sleep Dealer create unconventional imaginings of the Mexico-US border.
The Delightful Frightful Odyssey of Costa-Gavras’ ‘Eden Is West’
Costa-Gavras’ little-seen humane masterpiece, Eden Is West is the rare film that could make its viewers into better people. Now, many can see it on OVID.tv.
George Cukor’s 1944 Thriller ‘Gaslight’ Will Never Lose Relevance
George Cukor’s 1944 thriller Gaslight, wherein Ingrid Bergman’s character’s perception flickers between reality and insanity, endures in our time of extremes.
‘The Silent Enemy’ Raises Issues of Native American Identity
The gorgeously shot 1930 ethnography, ‘The Silent Enemy’, depicts the life of an Ojibway tribe long before the advent of European explorers and settlers.
What We Can Learn from Robert Bresson’s Simple Tale About a Donkey, ‘Au Hasard Balthazar’
As we see in Au Hasard Balthzazr, director Robert Bresson is no world-hater or sanctimonious moralizer. His spirituality is inseparable from his reverence for the material world.
‘Venom: Let There Be Carnage’ Should Have Cut the Carnage
Little did the filmmakers behind Ruben Fleischer’s Venom know that Carnage would become a poisonous burden to Andy Serkis’ sequel, Venom: Let There Be Carnage.
‘Licorice Pizza’ Pulls a Magic Eyes Trick on Entitled Idiots
Licorice Pizza is a gaudy parade of rich white privileged shits of the type Paul Thomas Anderson tends to focus on. They’re his people.
Ambiguous Loss and Migrant Emotions in Animated Comedy ‘Vivo’
Overlooked at the 2022 Oscars, Kirk DeMicco’s animated comedy Vivo expresses the “Trump-era anxiety” and ambiguous loss surrounding transnational migration.
