Tag: drama
Greetings from Tim Buckley – Tribeca Film Festival 2013
I thought there was no damn way Penn Badgley was performing the vocals as Jeff Buckley in “Greetings from Tim Buckley,” until he confirmed the contrary during a Q&A after the film’s US premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this week. Actor Frank Wood, who plays renowned guitarist and songwriter Gary Lucas, said the [...]
Harmony Lessons (Uroki Garmonii)- Tribeca Film Festival 2013
Visually arresting and psychologically engrossing, Harmony Lessons (Uroki Garmonii) is a commanding feature debut from Kazakh filmmaker Emir Baigazin, who with a clear and ambitious vision unearths harsh truths through harsh metaphoric imagery and austere storytelling. Deep in a stark, isolated rural village in Kazakhstan thirteen-year-old Aslan lives with his grandmother. The scientifically-inclined boy is [...]
The Syndicate – Series 1
Five co-workers at the local convenience store have formed a Syndicate, which apparently is a British colloquialism for a group of people who all chip in money toward a lottery ticket. When the group wins, and each collect nearly 4 million pounds, it understandably changes each of their lives in various ways. Each member of [...]
A Bottle in the Gaza Sea
To tell a simple story in the context of a complicated issue is not necessarily the same thing as telling a reductive story. A Bottle in the Gaza Sea, while at times extremely idealistic, highlights the universal dreamer and wisher that shine most especially in teenagers and young adults, with its story of friendship and [...]
Reality
Matteo Garrone’s Gamorra was an international success – despite the Oscar snub. The dense, stoically paced Italian crime drama was attractively elusive, giving viewers something to mull over on their way out of the theater. Reality, the director’s new film, explores a much different world than Italian mafioso, while keeping his phantom touch. Reality follows Luciano, a fishmonger running a pescetaria in the [...]
My Brother the Devil
My Brother The Devil is a story about the relationship between two brothers of Egyptian decent set on the tough and ethnically diverse streets of Hackney in London. Rashid (James Floyd) is the older of the two (probably just out of high school) and runs with a gang dealing drugs and performing other lower level tasks. [...]
The Other Son (Le fils de l’autre)
Imagine for a moment, that your entire identity, from a cultural and familial stand point, is erased. The person that you thought you were gets wiped away and you must find the means cope with being another human being. That is the dilemma that is the sole conflict in The Other Son (Le fils de [...]
Hemel (Heaven)
Sacha Polak’s debut feature film, Hemel (Heaven), is an intimate portrayal of transition into femininity and the childhood attachments that people shed as they turn into adults. Divided into eight individual chapters, this sexually charged character study follows Hemel (Hannah Hoekstra), as she goes from one sexual tryst after another. The various sexual relationships that [...]
The Place Beyond the Pines
In 2010, I recall standing outside in the bitter cold of Park City, Utah, hoping to catch of glimpse of a Sundance highlight, Blue Valentine. Star-studded with two pop icons – Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams – the line was understandably lengthy, making the chance of getting rush tickets near impossible. We failed to be part of the lucky [...]
11 Flowers
Coming of age stories are nothing new, but coming of age near the end of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in 1978 makes for a great story. 11 Flowers is a story about 11-year-old Wang Han, who lived in Southeast Asia with his father, mother, and sister during the revolution. It was no doubt a memorable [...]
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