Published on April 6, 2013 - 12:30pm by Aaron Weiss

Shepard & Dark

Shepard & Dark

Sam Shepard has a lengthy career as a playwright, actor, and director, but his fifty-year plus friendship with the more hermetic writer and deli-clerk Johnny Dark maybe a better factor that defines his life. Their relationship is chronicled in hundreds of hand-written correspondence while Shepard enjoyed a career up and down the entertainment industry and Dark lived modestly in suburbia. Despite the disparity in experiences, Shepard & Dark recounts their divergent paths in life, their convergence at the most pivotal moments in their lives, and the hundreds of letters they sent to each other.

Published on April 6, 2013 - 4:30am by Aaron Weiss

The Forgotten Kingdom

The Forgotten Kingdom

While AIDS has been demoted as a treatable virus with its patients remaining active in Western societies, not all settings have achieved these shifts. Together with the struggles of modernity The Forgotten Kingdom captures the societal unease of AIDS while a young man reluctantly reacquaints himself to his indigenous culture that his AIDS-afflicted father had taken him from.

2013 Florida Film Festival Preview

While all the other Florida film festivals try to get bigger and more elite, the Florida Film Festival focuses solely on the quality and diversity of its films.  While the Gasparilla International Film Festival, which I covered two weeks ago had a world premiere of an action flick as the opening night film, FFF 2013 will keep its opening film simple but captivating with Twenty Feet from Stardom, a documentary about the back-up singers who offered that additional umph for some of the most iconic musical performers and groups, but remained marginalized in history.

Roger Ebert (June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013)

One of the most recognizable faces and names in film journalism, Roger Ebert, has passed away on April 4th, 2013 at the age of 70. Ebert was a journalist at first and slid into the film critic spot at Chicago-Sun Times in the mid-sixties. He became a critic long before film studies was common humanities class or an academic discipline in colleges and universities. Perhaps that is why he was so beloved or even hated. He brought a common-guy approach that was in line with journalistic integrity with a staunch opinion.

Published on April 5, 2013 - 5:00am by Ollie England

Trance

Trance

Danny Boyle has made a career in exporting visions of cityscapes around the world.  His first films, Shallow Grave and Trainspotting represented Edinburgh in such a light that the country has still not fully recovered from the stereotype of chronic heroin abuse and violence.  His later film 28 Days Later opened with an exploration of an empty, post-apocalyptic London that was chilling to inhabitants of the city.  Such huge audiences saw his next film, Slumdog Millionaire, that it is reasonable to believe that a large number of them have never seen a film set in Mumbai and th

Published on April 3, 2013 - 5:00am by Aaron Weiss

Room 237

Room 237

It is a critic’s job to use their knowledge of cinema and extra-filmic knowledge to interpret a film and formulate an opinion delivered as either a recommendation or a warning, or a deeper conclusion. One of the most foundational topics in film criticism was auteurism, and one of the foundational aspects of this critical topic was that there was a delineation between directors who merely had technical competence and auteurs who superseded said competence and inserted their personal statement and/or interpretation of the original source.

GIFF 2013 Post-Mortem

The 2013 Gasparilla International Film Festival has come and gone, and what is left is an indication that the festival is vying to be on the international stage and trump some of the veteran Florida festivals. Strangely, Florida happens to have its four big film festivals happen within one month, often times overlapping each other, and continuously attempting to outmaneuver each other.

Published on March 31, 2013 - 5:00am by Aaron Weiss

Poster Boys or: The Art of Mobile Recording

Poster Boys or: The Art of Mobile Recording

Athens, GA band King of Prussia gained a modest but dutiful following and critical acclaim in niche circles, but band members Brandon Hanick and Nathan Troutman have a side project to be completed on the road. They have joined a traveling college poster tour that foots the bill for their travel, lodging, and gas, and any time where the two are not setting up, tearing down, or driving, they are in their hotel room writing and recording their DIY album using equipment that fits in a carry-on suitcase.

Published on March 30, 2013 - 5:00am by Aaron Weiss

GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling

GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling

Unlike suffrage or reproductive rights, women were not exactly exhibiting a battle-cry over inclusion in professional wrestling. During the mid-1980s and into the 90s, the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling or GLOW, was one man’s dream and a beloved sorority for dozens of women who became positive icons for millions of viewers. GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling compressively explores an unapologetically camp television series where women ruled the ring.

Published on March 29, 2013 - 5:00am by Ollie England

Upside Down

Upside Down

A fundamental genre convention of cinematic science fiction is the explicit necessity to suspend disbelief whilst watching in order to enjoy the openly speculative narrative. This suspension of disbelief is a critical faculty that you willingly remove as you watch in order to learn something about a set of greater themes such as humans vs. technology, history & politics, or collective crisis management. The difference between an enjoyable and an unsatisfying sci-fi in hindsight can often be found in how much the audience can plausibly forgive before feeling frustration at a central premise or plot device.

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