OFCS members don’t just write film reviews. Here are several articles you might find interesting.
Best of Lists
The Best Horror Movies You’ve Never Seen
Interviews
Jason Bateman of “Bad Words”
Noah writer-director Darren Aronofsky and co-writer Ari Handel
Steven Greydanus @ National Catholic Register
- Excerpt: My first-ever interview in which the first question came from the filmmaker asking me about my work.
Festivals: General Coverage
The Best and Worst Films of SXSW 2014
I’m a Fucking Indian Woman Who Has Her Own Fucking Show: Mindy Kaling Fires Back at “Insulting” Diversity Complaints
Lena Dunham’s High-School Abortion Play and Other Highlights From Her SXSW 2014 Keynote
Of Horses and Men
R. Kurt Osenlund @ Slant Magazine
SXSW: The 10 Best Quotes from “A Conversation with Tilda Swinton”
Talk and Listen, Listen and Talk: Acting Tips From Robert Duvall’s SXSW Panel
Festivals: Individual Reviews
The art of decolonising: postcolonial cinema at AV Festival
Michael Pattison @ Sight & Sound
Harmontown
- Excerpt: The film, like the podcast, sounds like blatant self-promotion, or self-congratulation, but it’s honest, and painful, and true, and kind of great.
The Japanese Dog
Kenji Fujishima @ Slant Magazine
Master of the Universe
Michael Pattison @ Grolsch Film Works
Putin’s Games
Michael Pattison @ Grolsch Film Works
She’s Lost Control
Kenji Fujishima @ Slant Magazine
Trap Street
Kenji Fujishima @ Slant Magazine
Veronica Mars
- Excerpt: ‘Veronica Mars’ doesn’t blow open the cinematic possibilities of the Neptune universe—it looks great and moves sleekly, but it’s basically a two-hour episode of the show. And I mean that as the highest compliment.
Awards Coverage
Overnight America: Oscars Coverage
Bob Cashill @ Overnight America
- Excerpt: Talking Oscars with Overnight America host Jon Grayson.
Essays
Contrary to Sexist Oscar Blogger Opinion, Movies About Women Make Money
- Excerpt: By focusing solely on blockbusters, Dixon is looking at effect and ignoring cause; there aren’t dozens of female-led blockbusters because Dixon’s equally clueless counterparts inside the movie industry think that people won’t see them, so they don’t make them, so there aren’t any to see, so they keep not making them, and the tail eats itself.
Divergent battles to become next Hunger Games-style hit series
- Excerpt: To succeed where others failed, “Divergent” needs to avoid the pitfalls of the weaker franchises and learn the right lessons from the success stories.
Fernando Di Leo, in the Shadow of THE GODFATHER
- Excerpt: The films of Fernando Di Leo are the poliziotteschi at its best and four of his films in particular dismantle the pulp glorification of the mafia: Caliber 9 (1972), The Italian Connection (1972), and The Boss (1973), which make-up his Milieu Trilogy, and his postscript Rulers of the City (1976).
Fernando Di Leo’s Anti-Mob Movies: Is There Such a Thing as a Happy Ending Built on the Corpses of the Losers?
- Excerpt: While it’s not quite accurate to call Shoot First, Die Later (1974), Kidnap Syndicate (1975), and Rulers of the City (1976) a trilogy in their own right, together they offer a companion series to his mob trilogy where victims of the mafia’s indifference to civilian lives take on the syndicate. Not of idealism, mind you, simply out of vengeance and rage.
Give the People What They Want: The Battles Royale of ‘The 10th Victim’
- Excerpt: Petri directs with tongue firmly in cheek, lampooning the media obsession with high risk contests and games of chance with cool sixties style, ultra-modern backdrops of sleek glass-and-steel architecture amidst the ancient monuments of Rome, and absurdly chic fashions that wouldn’t be out of place in Danger: Diabolik or Barbarella.
Let’s Unpack Zack Snyder’s Ugly, Mean-Spirited Terry Gilliam Slam
- Excerpt: The idea of a hacky, video-game-slo-mo-junkie schmuck like Snyder “saving” anything from a director of genuine style and intelligence is enough to make you book a flight to the coast, make your way to the set of whatever Superman story he’s currently ruining, and punch him dead in the face.
Veronica Mars Digital Download Is a Clusterfuck for Kickstarter Backers
Reviews of Short Films
Aurum
Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Portuguese Short Film Review
César Casanova
Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Portuguese Documentary Film Review
Estranys
Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Spanish Short Film Review
I Am Alive Thanks to Aristides de Sousa Mendes
Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Portuguese Documentary on Holocaust Hero Aristides de Sousa Mendes
An Instagram Story
Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Spanish Short Film Review
Sucio
Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Spanish Short Film Review
La Última Lágrima
Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Argentinean Short Film Review
Other Articles
Cinema In Noir: Rooney Mara As Native Princess Tiger Lily (Seriously, Hollywood?)
The Details: Douglas’s Dissolves
- Excerpt: If the dissolve has traditionally been thought of as little more than a glue connecting scenes in a conventional dramaturgy, a functional symbol of time’s passage, the technique’s employment by Douglas Sirk always aimed at a more complex dimension. In Sirk’s films, the moment of the dissolve—often suspended for three or four seconds—becomes a composition in itself, a vital carrier of subtext.
The Morning After: Mar. 7, 2014
- Excerpt: Short Reviews of “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” and “The Starving Games”
