James Kreul argues that Paul Taylor’s Driftwood, winner of the 2016 Slamdance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize, encapsulates all that is right and wrong with micro-budgeted independent features: intimate, thoughtful, well shot and acted, but also twee and predictable. […]
The Mandarin-language popular cinema arriving with greater frequency at AMC Fitchburg 18 continues to be generally ignored in local reviews, so James Kreul decided to take a look. Operation Mekong is an efficient and energetic, if unoriginal, action film with a healthy dose of Chinese nationalism. […]
James Kreul argues that London Road evokes a surprising range of emotions in what could have been a conceptual exercise: singing words taken from interviews about an infamous series of prostitute murders. […]
James Kreul suggests that while Ism is not a great film, it delivers a good balance of action, romance, and music as well as the star power of Nandamuri Kalyan Ram. […]
James Kreul suggests that The Childhood of a Leader might have worked better as a genre film, rather than the art cinema that it aspires to be. […]
James Kreul meditates on the range of his responses to the anti-comedy and funny staging of Zach Weintraub’s Slackjaw. […]
The latest drama from Anne Fontaine (Gemma Bovary) is a subtle and moving tribute to women who have harnessed the power of their shared experience to face adversity. […]
Mushi Productions’ Belladonna of Sadness pushes to extremes the tension between motion and stillness often found in Japanese animation (“anime”) to great aesthetic effect. James Kreul argues that despite a decidedly 1970s male-fantasy (and a little rapey) take on sex and power, the film delivers a uniquely rich and textured visual experience. […]
James Kreul suggests that reviewing Life, Animated presents a common dilemma: How to discuss an inspiring true-life story told in an uninspired documentary. […]
A much needed microcinema-style series for local and international video art has debuted at the Arts + Literature Laboratory. James Kreul explains why this matters, and surveys some of the titles curated by programmers Simone Doing and Max Puchalsky, a.k.a. Simone and Max. […]
Copyright © 2016 Madison Film Forum