Tag: film
Understanding Coriolanus: The upside of obsession
When I decided to attend my local screening of the National Theatre Live production of Coriolanus (2014) I was expecting to see rows of empty seats. The audience for Kenneth Branagh’s Macbeth (2013) had been no more than a dozen people, and it is a far more appreciated play. This time, the theatre was packed.…
Land of the Little People: Controversial filmmaking in Israel
Imagine this scene: the skies are blue, the birds are singing, and four children are playing joyfully in the woods. Now imagine these children covered with two soldiers’ blood as their own private war rages in the woods while a “real” war rages in the outside world. Welcome to Land of the Little People, an…
Nymphomaniac: A one night stand with Lars von Trier
Despite the accolades he’s amassed over the course of his career, Lars von Trier in 2014 is more commonly a topic of discussion than a receptor of praise. Following the release of 1996’s Breaking the Waves, he was hotly tipped to be the next great European auteur, especially in light of the bold Dogme 95…
Interviewing Hal Hartley: Cinema, words and music
If Hal Hartley’s autobiography were written today, a fitting title might be Words and Music. The director, writer and composer, whose films have ranged from The Unbelievable Truth (1989) to the upcoming Ned Rifle (expected 2015), is as much concerned with the literary and musical components of his movies as the visual ones … and…
Crisis of the Undead: Zombies ate my movie script
Zombies are huge right now and never before have so many astoundingly bad films (and books… and TV shows… and video games) made their way into the mainstream. Never has the genre been populated by so many characters who are, in fact, less intelligent than the zombies they are up against. Never have there been…