The Ideology of Kinko’s: A Conversation with ‘Lady Bird’ Cinematographer Sam Levy
Devika Girish Interviews Sam Levy
Devious Dialogues: Mike Thorn and Anya Stanley on the ‘Psycho’ Franchise
“I’ll even go so far as to say that the sequel is just as satisfying as the original, in my eyes.”
The Birds and the Beats: How ‘Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai’ Achieved Ultimate Serenity
“Ghost Dog glides through the story with the swiftness of an avian being in a film that never fails to be cathartic.”
The Bees Won’t Sting: On Celebrity Adoration, Hollywood Misdirection and Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘Boogie Nights’
“At some point, you’ve got to take down the celebrity posters, or at least reassess what they represent.”
Real, All Too Real: Rakhee Sandilya’s ‘Ribbon’
“Within the context of a cinema that is high-strung and often defined by its over-the-top, spectacle-driven family dramas, ‘Ribbon’ and its smallness (and everydayness) is not just a refreshing break but an extremely well-timed breaking of the mold.”
The Story of the Girl Named Blue: Danish Renzu’s ‘Half Widow’
“Renzu’s film gives a face to the thousands of women featured in the papers, disturbingly called ‘half widows’ — not just defined by the lack of a husband, but also by this ‘half,’ not full, not a complete status of being.”
Grief in Life and Death: A Comparison of ‘A Ghost Story’ and ‘Manchester by the Sea’
“Although individual grief may be colored by guilt or loneliness, jealousy or the passage of time, ultimately everyone who knows love will know a ghost story, and suffer the same grief or become a ghost in the end.”
Book Review: ‘Yuletide Terror: Christmas Horror on Film and Television’
“‘Yuletide Terror: Christmas Horror On Film And Television’ provides insights not only on genre cinema, but on origins and aspects of the holiday season itself.”
Murphy’s Law and the Man Who Murdered Himself: Nikhil Nagesh Bhat’s ‘Long Live Brij Mohan!’
“If Murphy’s Law were to be made into a film, it’d look a lot like Nikhil Nagesh Bhat’s ‘Long Live Brij Mohan!’ His production, in more ways than one, is also a metaphor for the city of Delhi.”
Vague Visages Writers’ Room: 2017’s Under the Radar Films
In the Vague Visages Writers’ Room on Facebook, freelancers were asked to comment about their favorite under the radar films of 2017. Enjoy!
Review: James Franco’s ‘The Disaster Artist’
“The Hollywood dream lives on proudly in ‘The Disaster Artist.’”
The Uninhibited Spirit of Hope: Rima Das’ ‘Village Rockstars’
“‘Village Rockstars’ represents a cultural category that is largely ignored by mainstream cinema and heralds a new chapter in the contemporary practice of serious filmmaking in India.”
Review: Martin McDonagh’s ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’
“McDonagh’s film is as much of a message movie as summiting Mount Kilimanjaro is a relaxing family-friendly vacation.”
Despite Needing Tune-Ups, Pixar’s ‘Coco’ Is a Color-Saturated Celebration of Family
“A dance of layered visuals and eye-popping patterns, ‘Coco’ is well balanced with the understated”
Review: Feng Xiaogang’s ‘Youth’
“Achieving a vibrant mix of swooning sincerity and bitter irony, Feng Xiaogang’s ‘Youth’ walks the tightrope of Chinese history with a showman’s flair and a subversive wit, channelling its conflicting perceptions of the past into a single cohesive, ultimately jaded vision.”
Framing the Breakdown: Visual Psychosis in Lucrecia Martel’s ‘The Headless Woman’
“Martel’s film is an absolute masterpiece in visual symbolism and deserves to be seen on that basis alone.”
Review: Joachim Trier’s ‘Thelma’
“It’s an odd little film, more melancholy and plaintive than outright scary or troubling, that slowly crawls under your skin.”
On Ruben Östlund’s Dystopian Realities: ‘Force Majeure’ and ‘The Square’
“Painfully ironic, aggressive and humorously on point, Östlund’s films are timely cinematic pieces that put their characters’ moral compasses at stake.”
Long Live the New Flesh: Bodies, Horrors and Desires in David Cronenberg’s ‘Crash’ and ‘Videodrome’
“In ‘Crash,’ sex feels like a traffic accident. In ‘Videodrome,’ it becomes the subject of a warped, projected fantasy.”
Vincent Price and the Art of Darkness
“He always took the horror genre seriously, and that often meant daring to laugh in the face of the darkest horrors, toeing the line between irony and total seriousness.”