|Jeremy Noble| One of my favorite novels is Despair by Vladimir Nabokov. It draws me in every time I read it. Regardless of knowing the plot, I’m mesmerized by the narrative, which is told from the perspective of a deeply misguided protagonist. The novel follows Hermann, a man who… Continue reading
|Dan Howard| With every generation, a film comes around that provides a fresh new take on a genre. Most war films aren’t of interest to me, but when we leave the trenches (or spend little time in them) and the battlefield, we see different sides of war that we wouldn’t expect. Continue reading
|Cole Seidl| Letter Never Sent is many things: a visual tour-de-force, a technological marvel, an allegory of Soviet resilience, a grueling survival thriller. It is also, notably, the rare great film that openly rejects an individualist perspective in its storytelling. Continue reading
|Andrea Buiser| Wayne Wang’s Chan is Missing is best described as a puzzle without a solution. By the end of the film’s 1 hour and 21 minutes, it suggests that the more you search for something, the harder it is to find. The movie tells the story of two taxi drivers in… Continue reading
|John Moret| Generally speaking, I love crime cinema in nearly all its forms. The French Connection (1971), Massacre Gun (1967), The Glass Key (1942), Le Cercle Rouge (1970), Columbo (1971-2003)—pretty much any decade, from any country, you can find genuinely great films… Continue reading
|Jeremy Noble| “Banks, clothes make the man, I believe that. You say to me you want to go shopping, you want to buy clothes, but you don’t know what kind. You leave that hanging in the air, like I’m going to fill in the blanks. Now that, to me, is like asking me who you are, and I
don’t know who…” Continue reading
|Yuval Klein| The Italian neorealism era of 1940s cinema conveyed social frustration and stories of the working class through realism and minimal-ism. In the decades after, the face of Italian cinema would gain many dimensions and features that grew upon yet deviated from the standard. Continue reading
|Alec Gruba| Look, I don’t know what’s going to play at Grindhouse Trailer Spectacular!, but I do know what I’m ready for: Context-free explosions and slow-motion car crashes, ghouls, BloodSatanic biker gangs, practical effects, black leather gloves reaching out towards… Continue reading
|Matt Clark| “A title reflects a man’s honor. You have none.” 7 Grand-masters (1977), from Taiwanese director Joseph Kuo, was advertised in US markets with the tagline “IT NEVER STOPS!” There could not be a more accurate description of the film. It’s the period tale of a martial arts… Continue reading
|MH Rowe| “Live. Die. Repeat.” This is one of the great movie taglines, and you have to take what pleasures you can get in the fallen world of alien-invasion blockbusters like Edge of Tomorrow (2014). It is so great a tagline, in fact, that some posters for the film featured it… Continue reading
