Category Archives: Festivals&Academy

Navalny: An Ongoing Thriller

By C.J. Hirschfield (January 17, 2023) Two years ago, an extraordinary documentary on Russian opposition party leader Alexei Navalny was recorded. The film has just been released; he has not. Having been charged with everything from fraud to having created an extremist group “with the purpose of inciting hatred toward officials and oligarchs,” he currently […]

Navalny: An Ongoing Thriller

Film Review: The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

Inisherin is a (fictional) island off the coast of Ireland. It is 1923. The civil war (“A bad do, that.”) can be heard but, on the island, there is nothing to do but toddle off down the pub or gossip in the general store, saving up the details for confession. And, in this world, Colm, […]

Film Review: The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

Martin McDonagh is one of our greatest living playwrights, with his work being widely produced, from the sacred stages of Broadway to the smallest public theatres in Asia, and everywhere in between, his penchant for darkly comical morality tales being the source of many fascinating discussions under the direction of a range of artists who […]

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

Ship of fools: ‘Triangle of Sadness’

Listening to a Russian oligarch and an American luxury yacht captain drunkenly exchange clichés about socialism versus capitalism over the ship’s PA system strikes me as farce without tragedy — and the joke is that it’s Woody Harrelson as the captain whose aggressive about socialism and the Russian who sounds like an OAN reporter. Good […]

Ship of fools: ‘Triangle of Sadness’

Musical Masterpiece: Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story”

I remember the first time I saw “West Side Story.” I watched the 1961 film during class at my Catholic elementary school decades later — on a square TV on a rolling cart — and it was transformative. I immediately loved the music, choreography, dancing, characters, and storytelling. I watch that version from time to […]

Musical Masterpiece: Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story”

Here Are the 2021 Nominations of the Washington D.C. Area Film Critics!

The Washington D.C. Area Film Critics have announced their nominees for the best of 2021!  The winners will be announced tomorrow so that means you have exactly one day to see all the nominees.  GET TO IT! Best Film Belfast The Green Knight The Power of the Dog tick, tick…BOOM! West Side Story Best Director […]

Here Are the 2021 Nominations of the Washington D.C. Area Film Critics!

The National Board of Review Names Licorice Pizza The Best of 2021

The National Board of Review just announced their picks for the best of 2021 and, while many thought they might go with West Side Story or The Power of the Dog, the NBR instead announced that their pick for Best Picture was Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza! In fact, Power of the Dog went curiously […]

The National Board of Review Names Licorice Pizza The Best of 2021

ARCHIPELAGO (ARCHIPEL)

Reporting from the Denver Film Festival. The animation is stunning. Fluid lines connect all different styles and textures: pencil drawings, cutouts, and computer-generated images. Some of them are on black backgrounds; some of them overlap archival footage of Montreal—the second-largest French-speaking city in the universe—and the thousands of islands that make up the archipelago. Over […]

ARCHIPELAGO (ARCHIPEL)