By - Nick Adrian For fans of The New York Dolls, 70s New York punk, concert films, music documentaries   You might know David Johansen as being the lead singer and founder of The New York Dolls, a proto-punk NYC band in the early 1970s that helped popularize back-to-basics rock ‘n’ roll and makeup-donned glam rock. Or you might know his alter ego, Buster Poindexter, who had a huge hit […]

By - Nick Adrian For fans of Michael Jordan, basketball, feel-good movies, crowd pleasers Some films that are based on true stories are greatly anticipated. Some don’t quite seem like they have enough material to fill a film at all. Ben Affleck’s Air initially sounded like the latter to me and my own interest didn’t grow until I heard the unanimous praise behind it. I wondered how a movie centered […]

By - Gareth Jones For fans of Memento, Guy Pearce, meta-narratives, mystery novels This week’s film is not going to win any awards.  It is not a brilliant film.  I watched it for one reason and one reason only, Guy Pearce. I must admit first that I would watch Guy Pearce wash his laundry and find it fascinating.  He is one of those actors who is always excellent and can […]

By - Gareth Jones For fans of David Lynch, The Wizard of Oz, film history, directors talking about other directors Lynch/ Oz makes a very strong case that not only is The Wizard of Oz the most influential film for David Lynch but in many ways is even more influential than Citizen Kane for all of film history. I often introduce Citizen Kane to my students when I teach it […]

By - Nick Adrian For fans of folk-horror, low budget 70s horror movies, experimental film What makes the majority of horror fiction (stories, books, films, television shows) work is the element of the unknown - the questions that arise, the paranoia, the uncertainty. It adds a level of anxiety in the listener/reader/viewer that isn’t typically accompanied with any other genre of story and it’s what excites horror fans the most. […]

By - Gareth Jones For fans of House Party, 90’s London, films about friendship If you were alive in 1999, your world was quite different as you approached New Year’s.  The Y2K hysteria was in full effect, Google was just starting to be a thing, flip phones with messaging had just started, and people actually tried to keep electronic pets called Tamagochi alive.  This era is expertly captured in humorous […]

By - Nick Adrian For fans of The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, New York, and music documentaries Once upon a time, there was a music scene in New York City that many considered to be groundbreaking and influential. One that’s been studied for years, leading not only the entire country, but even the entire world to turn its head toward the spectacle. Prior, the term “rock music” had expanded almost […]

By - Gareth Jones For fans of Hard to categorize films, coming of age films, Folk Horror, Australian Women directors Released in 1989, Celia has been a challenge for people to categorize. Initially, it was marketed as a coming of age story in Australia, but when it made its way to the United States it was misleadingly marketed at Celia: Child of Terror, in the same manner as The Bad […]

By Gareth Jones For fans of Au Hasard Balthazar, Animal perspectives, the Kuleshov Effect, Polish Film Although he lost this year’s Oscar for Best International Film to All’s Quiet on the Western Front, 84-year-old Polish master Jerzy Skolomowski’s has created an equally devastating examination of the inhumanity of mankind with Eo.  Instead of war, we get the perspective of the donkey, Eo, as he wanders in and out of relationships […]