Review: Skolimowski's "EO" is a miracle!

by Cláudio Alves

Can donkeys dream of heaven? One hopes so, for they need not search for hell in sleepy fantasy – they live it every day, wide awake. A world defined by human cruelty demands dreams of something better, something beyond the pain. Is it peace, love, a state of joy? Maybe it's red.

EO all starts in red. Bathed in scarlet light, skin touches fur, human hands over the animal's body, a trance-like choreography that's both intimate and public. There's a closeness to these touches that transcends their physical softness, a beauty that's more than mere performance for circus audiences – it's that heaven we spoke about, but maybe it's hell, too. Red will linger, a memory, perhaps a reverie. Dreams are nightmares by another name, and so is EO, both nightmare and dream right from the beginning…

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The Refreshingly Modern Marriages of "She Said"

By Ben Miller

There are plenty of things to like about Maria Schrader’s She Said, but one of the most impressive things is the relationships of the main characters. So many heavy, important things happen in the film, the marriages of Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan) and Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan) gets lost in the shuffle. It’s so rare, it’s almost revolutionary. It shouldn’t be ignored

Over a number of months, Kantor and Twohey investigate Harvey Weinstein’s numerous instances of sexual harassment of his female employees. This consists of business trips, long hours, and calls in the middle of the night or weekends. The film goes out of its way to show both women continuing to be mothers to their children and wives to their husbands. Here’s the refreshing part: it’s no big deal...

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Which young male actors will factor into awards season?

by Nathaniel R

Gabriel Labelle in "The Fabelmans"

While rising stars are a semi-annual event in the female acting categories, Oscar voters have long been resistant to young male actors. The statistics bear this out. For whatever reason (cough *the patriarchy*) voters prefer their women young / full of potential and their men older / with lots of achievements already under their belt. Yes, those stats are beginning to change. For example, Oscar voters have been much kinder to 40something to 60something actresses in the past couple of decades than they previously were. With the men, though, things have stayed much the same. 

Once men enter their 30s, awards bodies tend to take them seriously but before the 30something years it definitely takes a very special combination of the right role in the right film in the right year and with the right co-stars. Do you think any of these men will make it this year? Here are eight actors, thirty or younger, that are in the conversation or adjacent to it this season...

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Doc Corner: 'Bad Axe'

By Glenn Dunks

With a name like Bad Axe, it was only a matter of time before somebody made a movie about this town in Michigan. Bad Axe isn’t necessarily about the entire microcosm of this small town, preferring to focus on a single family (the director’s own) and their experiences within it. This isn’t Our Town; I mean, come on. You can’t pass up that title!

In telling the story of the Siev family in the town of Bad Axe, first-time filmmaker David Siev lands upon potent ideas of the political divide across America (it’s not as blue state/red state, or even blue county/red county state as some may like to conceive it...

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Streaming: Argentina’s Oscar Submission ‘Argentina, 1985’

By Abe Friedtanzer

One of the benefits of screening selections for Best International Feature is not only to see different worldwide approaches to filmmaking but also to get to understand national histories. European entries, for instance, often engage with the Holocaust, while a finalist from a few years ago, Truth and Justice, was based on a highly influential book in Estonia known throughout that country. Argentina, 1985, now streaming on Amazon Prime, confronts a more recent period in that nation’s history, documenting an unprecedented reckoning with the crimes of its military leaders in a trailblazing civil case.

Ricardo Darín, a familiar face from Argentinian cinema and its recent nominees, The Secret in their Eyes and Wild Tales, stars as Julio César Strassera, the lead prosecutor in the Trial of the Juntas. It was an undesirable assignment given the extraordinary influence of the military dictatorship that had only recently been replaced by a new democratic government...

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