Trying something new here: a radio show evocatively titled Indie on Demand Movie Reviews. They’re short, snappy reviews of indie films that have recently been released on-demand. This episode’s on the gritty Brazilian police/political thriller, ELITE SQUAD: THE ENEMY WITHIN; new eps will post on a weekly basis. Check it out and let me know …
Tag Archive: Social Drama
Feb
24
Joshua Marston on THE FORGIVENESS OF BLOOD
Fiddler on the Roof notwithstanding, there are probably some traditions that are best to be abandoned. At the beginning of THE FORGIVENESS OF BLOOD, a longstanding feud between two Northern Albanian families results in murder, and the kin of the now-fugitive killer finds itself paying for the crime by imprisoning itself at home as a …
Feb
17
Fernando Trueba, Javier Mariscal and Tono Errando on CHICO & RITA
Amidst the swashbuckling felines, fast-talking lizards, and kung-fu pandas — plus a cat in Paris — that occupy this year’s Oscar nominees for animated feature, there’s actually a tale featuring human beings, stylized though they may be. In CHICO & RITA, live-action director Fernando Trueba (BELLE EPOQUE) joins forces with artist/designer Javier Mariscal and his …
Jan
19
Trailer for THE PRUITT-IGOE MYTH: AN URBAN HISTORY
A key passage in Tom Wolfe’s blistering architectural critique, From Bauhaus to Our House, recounts a tumultuous public meeting attended by the residents St. Louis’ Pruitt-Igoe housing project, called by the city to get input on how to salvage the seriously deteriorating facility and notable for ending with the assembled tenants joining in on the …
Dec
12
Cinefantastique Spotlight Podcast: TREK NATION
A son goes in search of the father he never quite knew, and the CFQ crew gets introspective enough to take a nostalgic trip back to explore one of the formative influences on their sense of wonder, Gene Roddenberry’s STAR TREK. Come join our special guest, theofantastique.com’s John W. Morehead, as he joins Cinefantastique Online’s …
Nov
30
Cyril Tuschi on KHODORKOVSKY
“World’s richest political prisoner,” now there’s a term you don’t hear much. And while OWS can make a case that there are select representatives of the 1% that deserve to see the inside of jail cell, in the case of Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, now serving time in his home country for charges of tax …
Oct
21
Cinefantastique’s New York Comic Con 2011: ATTACK THE BLOCK’s Joe Cornish
You gotta love an alien invasion film where the aliens make the serious mistake of trying to invade some council estates (read, “projects”) in London and discover that the street-tough kids there are not going to yield the territory without racking up a body count. That’s the idea behind ATTACK THE BLOCK, Joe Cornish’s directorial …
Oct
01
Jeff Nichols on TAKE SHELTER
Roland Emmerich can bite me. The guy’s been making disaster films since time can remember, yet for all his besetting humans with floods, fires, and earthquakes (and the occasional alien invasion), he’s never managed to make something as resonant, affecting, and powerful as TAKE SHELTER. A film that skirts the line between vivid fantasy and …
Sep
19
Cinefantastique Spotlight: LION KING 3D & MST3K VS. GAMERA
There were no new genre films in theaters this weekend, but there was one old one in a shiny new, 3D coat: THE LION KING 3D, which just so happened to top this week’s box-office. With a prescience befitting a Cinefantastique editor, Steve Biodrowski recognized the film for the hit it was going to be, …
Sep
11
Cinefantastique Spotlight: CONTAGION
Break out the Purell, Steven Soderbergh is in mainstream thriller mode and he’s decided to get under your skin — almost literally — with a tale about a virus that doesn’t know when to quit. CONTAGION follows Soderbergh’s TRAFFIC template, spinning a world-spanning drama of people trying to survive the ravages of a fast-acting and …
