Category: Reviews
D.A. Pennebaker’s Monterey Pop: 50 Years on from the Monterey International Pop Festival
Held fifty years ago this month on the virtual solstice of the Summer of Love, the Monterey International Pop Festival was a dazzling counterculture coming-out party. Its infectious good vibes and series of revelatory performances that soon passed into rock ’n’ roll legend were captured by documentarian D. A. Pennebaker, fresh off the release of…
David Michôd’s War Machine works well as cautionary tale, not as satire
War is Hell, but War Machine is frustrating. David Michôd’s somewhat-satire of the Obama era’s continued efforts in the Afghanistan insurgency is far from a spirited successor to Dr. Stangelove; it’s more a nuanced look at the sobering complexities of the war through the eyes of fictional general Glen McMahon, based in part on Gen.…
Beware the Gonzo: Exploring Bryan Goluboff’s High School Fable
To get accepted into your dream university, what would you do? Scratch that: what would you do to get accepted into your dream university if you were an ambitious seventeen-year-old? Maybe you would study hard, but that’s boring. Maybe you would decide to spice it up; maybe you would be like Eddie “Gonzalo” Gilman (Erza…
Pirates of the Caribbean-There, Done That: Latest Entry is Fun and Forgettable
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales doesn’t try to be either a good, or bad, movie. It’s a Pirates sequel – where the self-barometer is always leveled at “fun” or “not fun.” Thankfully, it’s fun! In the age of recycled entertainment, the latest film takes the familiar form of its three previous sequels…
Review: Live your childhood again with ‘Miss Kiet’s Children’
With their new film Miss Kiet’s Children, filmmaking couple Petra Lataster-Czisch and Peter Lataster have achieved something truly extraordinary. Over the course of two mesmerising hours, they’ve found a way to have viewers abandon their mundane adult perspectives, transporting them back to a time in which stolen crayons and memorising times-tables were great emotional challenges.…