There are a few basic differences between the novels by Thomas Harris and Hannibal, their NBC TV series adaptation. The most intriguing of these is that the Hannibal of the ongoing TV series has a tendency to speak theologically about his hobby horses, which include cannibalism, serial killing, and the presence of God. While most […]
If you are looking to plan your media diet for February, here are some recommended titles available in VOD or streaming formats. Film As It Is In Heaven (Website/iTunes – Our review.) Boyhood (Amazon Instant) Chef (Netflix) Dear White People (Amazon Instant) Hot Pursuit (Netflix) Joe (Netflix) Love is Strange (Amazon Instant) Mood Indigo (Amazon […]
As It Is In Heaven is a hushed film; a quiet film in the way of Gitai’s Kadosh or Reygadas’ Silent Light when these films are focused on the ritual lives of their respective communities. Such films remind us that we watch cinema simply because it can do something the other arts cannot. It allows us to […]
This debut feature from Paul Harrill has been getting a lot of press. Jeffrey Overstreet mentioned it in his Top Ten for 2014. Justin Chang wrote it up for Variety. Christianity Today posted an interview with Harrill. The NY Times featured it last week as a Critic’s Pick. And Darren Hughes hosted an insightful interview […]
There is a series of shots in Selma that called to mind a passage from Perez’s The Material Ghost. In this section, Perez is talking about the shot reverse shot convention. “The shot/reverse shot does not give us a bystander’s view: it has us stand in turn where each character stands.That people engaged in conversation will […]
I watched this quiet miracle of a film recently with my daughter. We have been taking painting lessons together, learning how to blend color, the tonal habits of different brushes, and little techniques artists use to paint things like clouds or shrubs. This made the film a real pleasure for us both, as Takahata’s animation is […]
Welcome to a new monthly post we will be putting together here at Filmwell. As streaming video and VOD releases have become an essential part of the cinephile diet, keeping an eye on new releases can be a daunting task. In these posts, I hope to separate some of the wheat from the chaff as titles […]
It is that time of the year when with a heave and a sigh I launch my top ten list out among all the others, knowing that mere moments from clicking “publish” it will feel like a flimsy record of a really interesting year in cinema. I had more than usual titles floating around near […]
I am not sure what A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night actually is. It emerges from the recent crop of vampire films cloaked in a lot of little genre hooks, but then defies easy description once fully unleashed. It is also undeniably beautiful, even alluring. It takes place in Bad City, an Iranian town bordered by […]