Jesse Malin’s Memoir Is the Tale of an Extraordinary Everyman
Jesse Malin’s adventures through NYC take Almost Grown‘s readers through hallowed music landmarks where he is found rubbing shoulders with legends with almost comic frequency.
coming-of-age
Coming-of-Age Drama ‘I’ll Be Gone in June’ Subverts the Narrative Tradition
In her 9/11-era drama, I’ll Be Gone in June, Rivilis hits perfect tension between how life moves so fast, and yet, so slow.
‘Renoir’ Faces the Uglier Parts of Grieving
Chie Hayakawa’s deeply personal Renoir is a harsh and intimate portrait of childhood, examining a grief that arrives without clear form or catharsis.
Solace House’s Unsettling Tale of Coming-of-Age in Liminal Spaces
The horror in Will Maclean’s Solace House is informed by preoccupations as diverse as Usborne Books’ Mysteries of the Unknowm, The Backrooms, Shirley Jackson, and Donna Tartt.
‘Amrum’ Presents Wartime Distress with Visual Grace
Fatih Akin’s visually beautiful wartime drama, Amrum, turns a child’s survival into a memory handed from one talented filmmaker to another.
‘Broken Voices’ Records the Sound of Institutional Abuse
Drawing on the scandal around one of the Czech Republic’s most admired choirs, Broken Voices shows, once again, how institutions meant to exalt can perpetuate abuse.
‘A Man and a Woman’ and a Dizzy 1960s Romance
Claude Lelouch’s hugely popular A Man and a Woman was criticized for its sleek, chic, starstruck, pie-eyed, romantic wish fulfillment. Yet therein lay its radicalism.
Pantheon’s House of High-Tech Mirrors
The post-human speculative sci-fi series Pantheon asks, can humanity recognize itself in its digital reflection?
‘Mosquitoes’ Punkishly Reckons with Motherhood
The vivid depiction of motherhood in Mosquitoes echoes Marguerite Duras’ sentiment; mothers are “the strangest, craziest people we’ve ever met.”
British Identity Interrogated in Three Films
Where Roddam’s Quadrophenia asks of British identity, “Who am I?” and Anderson’s If…. asks “Can I be myself?”, Cammell and Roeg’s Performance declares, “There is no self.”
A Bittersweet Tale of Childhood Innocence, ‘Misunderstood’ Charms
Initially dismissed as a film for children, Misunderstood reveals some mature ideas about childhood and family and would sit better with adult audiences.
Director Mark Pellington on His Timeless Coming-of-Age Debut ‘Going All the Way’
Still courtesy of Oscilloscope