First & Lasts 035 - All Time Fav

Can you guess the movie from its first and last shot? The answer is after the jump... 

Click to read more ...

First & Last 034

Can you guess the movie from its first and last shot? 

Party music is blasting. No, it's not a Spider-Man movie despite the upside down cityscape. The next cut, once fireworks go off, turns the image right-side up.

And a shot of an FBI building. The movie is from 2023. The answer is after the jump...

Click to read more ...

First & Last 033

Can you guess the movie from its first and last shot?

This one recently got a sequel and the answer is after the jump once you scroll down...

Click to read more ...

First & Last 032 - A film you love

Can you guess the movie from its first and last shot? The answer is after the jump when you scroll down...

Click to read more ...

Review: "Mami Wata" Brings West African Folklore to the Big Screen

by Cláudio Alves

As if dipped in ink, the screen is a void, shadows so thick they seem to swallow the light. Gravity-pulling like a black hole, this emptiness must be broken. So, it is with water leading the way, that eternal life-giver, life-taker. And even before we see its tide, we feel an ocean calling. It emerges in white lines, foam on cresting waves, their back-and-forth movement an Atlantic embrace. No character has invoked her yet, but we already sense the immensity of Mami Wata, the mother-like water deity that appears across African myth and the diaspora. In a feat of miraculous cinema, Nigerian director C.J. 'Fiery' Obasi has used his third feature to summon the spirit, inviting us to commune with her. 

That's not to say Mami Wata – now in theaters – is a film aiming solely at religious ecstasy. If possible, it has even greater ambitions. Its tale is the story of a matriarchal society threatened by patriarchy and treacherous progress, of a sisterhood trying to resolve ancient contradictions while preserving the old ways into a changing world…

Click to read more ...