Streaming: Riz Ahmed's star ascends in "Sound of Metal"

by Christopher James

Since he broke out in Nightcrawler, Riz Ahmed has been looking for his movie star moment. Sound of Metal proves he is the real deal. Director Daris Marder displays quite a bit of flair in his directorial outing. The Place Beyond the Pines screenwriter excels here specifically because of his unique use of sound design to give us greater insight to our lead character. Between Ahmed and the sound design, Sound of Metal is of major interest...

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The day moviegoing died?

by Nathaniel R

What is that old line. 'Some say the world will end in fire. Some say in ice?' Who would've expected that our particular world (i.e. moviegoing) would end due to an exceptionally incompetent cruel government's mishandling of a worldwide pandemic? There's no poetic ring to that!

Movie theaters have been closed here in NYC since late March. Moviegoing as we knew it might have died months ago while we were busy stupidly thinking of it as an induced coma that we would all purposefully awake from once treatment options improved. We were not expecting the movie studios themselves be the ones urging us to pull the plug and plan a funeral. As you probably heard today, Warner Bros, one of the last standing behemoth movie studios, has announced that they'll be premiering the entirety of their 2021 slate day and date on HBOMax and in movie theaters...

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"Make Way for Tomorrow" across film history

by Cláudio Alves

"Thanks, but you gave it to me for the wrong picture." 

Those were Leo McCarey's words upon winning the Best Director Oscar of 1937. His victory was for the screwball classic The Awful Truth, though the filmmaker would have preferred if the honor had been bestowed upon another of his films. In 1937, McCarey not only directed one of Old Hollywood's most beloved comedies, but he also helmed one of its most devastating tearjerkers. According to Orson Welles, Make Way for Tomorrow could make a stone cry…

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Doc Corner: A 'Mayor' in Palestine

By Glenn Dunks

Documentaries about bureaucracy can be tricky. Not everybody has the luxury of being Frederick Wiseman and be given over four hours to luxuriate in the minutiae of a major city’s political processes like he did in this year’s City Hall. And if nothing particularly interesting happens then all you’re left with is a movie about people pushing paper around for 90 minutes, which would thrill me by doubtful many others. American director David Osit is at something of an advantage with Mayor, however; set in the city of Ramallah in the Palestinian West Bank.

You could be forgiven for thinking that Osit has missed the obvious story right in front of his face. For the opening stretches of Mayor, about Ramallah’s Mayor Musa Hadid, the director is seemingly content to focus on administrative nonsense including an amusing, extended narrative strand around Hadid’s inability to grasp the concept of city branding (as a public servant myself, I related). I was beginning to think that this film would be just a curious diversion showing how life in the Palestinian National Authority does carry on.

But Osit proves to be much smarter than that in how he has structured Mayor...

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The Spy Who Crunched Me

by Jason Adams

Hey! Eyes down here! Thank you. Yesterday came news that the long-rumored sequel-of-sorts to David Cronenberg's 2007 film Eastern Promises was gaining some momentum... and that momentum was taking it straight towards the above-splayed abdominal muscles of one Jason Statham. Should we all be so lucky. And I think you can tell already that I'm hoping this film exists solely for a re-do of Viggo's balls-out sauna-brawl, just subbing in Jason, so we'll just go ahead and get that out of the way upfront. Say hello to our upfront business! 

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