Reality is one of the most unusual films I’ve seen this year. I wanted to derive some (bourgeois) pleasure from it, but I couldn’t. And pleasure is definitely not Mr. Garrone’s intention. In Reality, the merest possibility of starring in a major TV reality show drives Luciano (the talented Aniello Arena). As these stories go,…
I saw my first “Free Mumia” sticker when I was a teenager in New York. I remember it vividly – it was on someone’s bicycle parked outside a cafe in the Lower East Side. A friend who was following his trial nodded approvingly. Seemingly both overnight and yet gradually, these stickers would pop up on…
Dagmar Schultz’s witty, engaging, humorous, and loving documentary on Audre Lorde felt both timely and nostalgic at the same time. Timely, because it reminded me of the fragility of the feminist movement and the current attempts by many American politicians to undermine it. Timely because of the ongoing conversations and debates about immigration in Europe…
Katniss Everdeen and Merida, the heroines of The Hunger Games and Brave, wield their weapons as naturally as they shoulder their duties to their home and their kinswomen. In a political season full of male politicians questioning a woman’s right to choose, it was refreshing to see two…
Moonrise Kingdom is one of the most unabashedly romantic films I have seen in a long time. Romance in nature: the cinematography captures the spectacular romance of the New England coast and its rugged coastline, fog, damp verdant trees, mellow sunshine, clapboard houses, Episcopalian churches. I was reminded sharply of the summers I spent on…
