10th Anniversary: “An Education”

By Cláudio Alves

An Education tells the story of Jenny Mellor, an English schoolgirl who, in 1961, falls into the trap of an older man’s affections. In the process, she almost squanders away her dreams of Oxford, thinking she’s trading a hopelessly boring life for one of excitement. After all, if the years slaving over books are the best of one’s life, why bother? 

One of the loveliest aspects of the film is how it refuses to offer easy answers to its dilemmas. Throughout, we see many women who chose different paths and, thanks to director Lone Scherfig and screenwriter Nick Hornby, all of them are humanized and sympathetic. There are no villains in An Education, no one is wrong or completely right. These are people and not mere plot points or narrative mechanisms. We can imagine all of them living their lives, being the protagonists of their stories.

It’s not surprising that An Education has lived on as an actors’ showcase above all else. Many of its performers would go on to greater fame, though the star has arguably not yet reached these heights again...

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Oscar's International Race Pt 4 - Returning Directors

by Nathaniel R

In the race for this year's Best International Feature Film, Parasite definitely has the lead but Bong Joon-ho is one of only 20 directors trying again with Oscar after previous submissions in this category. None of them have been nominated before except the LEGEND we'll start with...

THE RETURNING GIANT
Spain's most globally celebrated director, Pedro Almodóvar, is back in contention for the seventh time with Pain and Glory, his 21st feature at the age of 72. This finally makes him Spain's most submitted director of all time...

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Soundtracking: Ghost

by Chris Feil

A convergence of the romantic, the spooky, and the outright earnest happened in the early 90s with Ghost, most notably immortalized through song through the ripe feeling of The Righteous Brothers’ version of “Unchained Melody”. It was the kind of megasmash that only this era could have produced, and the kind of instantly classic movie moment that distills the era. But for the past thirty years, the sight of Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze in clay-mate-tion has been burned into our minds and our cultural loins in ways few musical scenes can equally measure.

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See a Movie in a Broadway House!

by Nathaniel R

Photograph © Caitlin Huston

This news is a day late (we got distracted by the foreign film long list reveal yesterday) but have you heard where Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman will be playing? With many of the big theater chains unwilling to play Netflix movies (on account of them streaming the same movies a week or three later), Netflix has gotten creative in a potentially awesome way. The Irishman will play at the Belasco Theatre on Broadway for one month, priced at $15 a ticket...

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NYFF: "The Booksellers"

by Jason Adams

Once upon a time in a land only as far away as blasted impossible time travel forces it to be there were blocks upon blocks of bookshops in New York City -- old dusty cavernous things, with stalactites and stalagmites of leather bound little readers piled up and down from the floors and ceilings. You'd need a miner's cap to traverse the places to dig up all of the glittering gold preciousness held within, but buried treasures abounded. Once upon a time, anyway.

D. W. Young's captivating new nerd-out of a documentary The Booksellers excavates that magical place, those treasured memories...

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