There’s no place like home at two local film festivals.
Film Review: “Pacifiction” — Paradise Misplaced
A lot seems to be going on beneath the surface, but the surface itself is so beguiling, with the scenery, sea, and sunsets rapturously shot on digital cameras by cinematographer Artur Tort, and with the alternately lulling and agitating soundtrack, that the urgency tends to lapse.
Film Review: Seoul Mates
In this complex and enigmatic film, director Davy Chou has skillfully conjured up both a sense of time’s passage and a mood of timelessness.
The Boston Festival of Films from Iran returns to the MFA — Beneath The Veil
These films provide a glimpse into the workings of a culture and society increasingly cut off from the rest of the world as well as a taste of a cinema that had once been among the world’s greatest and which may one day be again.
Film Review: Wastelands then and now — “All Quiet on the Western Front” and “Utama”
Two recent film releases, both submitted by their countries for the Best International Feature Film Oscar, offer variations on no-man’s-land.
Doc Talk: Five New Nonfiction Films Worth a Look
From Mobile to Mars, from the mind of Robin Williams to the rise and fall of a Pez entrepreneur, and with a side trip to Newton South High.
Fuse Movie Review: “Force Majeure” — Dad Goes Downhill Fast
You may never taking the family on a ski trip again after watching Swedish director Ruben Östlund’s icily satiric study of a family’s breakdown after a near-disastrous avalanche.
Film Commentary: You Know It When You See It — Desire and “Blue is the Warmest Color”
Without its many steamy lesbian sex interludes tarting up what could otherwise be classified as a routine narrative, would “Blue is the Warmest Color” have garnered so many rave reviews and prizes?
Book Review: In Pitigrilli’s Intoxicating “Cocaine,” Love is the Drug
Cocaine’s bleak and brilliant satire, lush and intoxicating prose, and sadistic playfulness remain as fresh and caustic as they were nine decades ago.
Book Review: “Film After Film” — The Shadow History of Our Times as Seen on the Big Screen
It may be only a movie, but in his book “Film after Film,” former Village Voice writer J. Hoberman proves he isn’t just a movie critic.