The opening montage of dance clubs and riding motorcycles throughout the Japanese countryside flow along with an eerily tranquil score, letting audiences know from the onset that Ittetsu Nemoto is no singularly-defined monk. Filmmaker Lana Wilson and cinematographer Emily Topper (“After Tiller”) have teamed up with editor David Teague (“Life, Animated”) to explore one man’s…
“It was too directly bound to its own anguish to be anything other than a cry of negation; carrying within itself, the seeds of its own destruction.” In August 1966, Mason Williams hurled a Royal typewriter from the open window of a Buick Le Sabre speeding down Highway 91 outside Las Vegas. Patrick Blackwell photographed…
It’s a crime how rarely cinema objectively explores religion. While there remains plenty of lighthearted, faith-based fare tailored to specific churchgoing demographics, very rarely are audiences exposed to the challenging theological perspectives that lie buried underneath Lifetime-flavored fluff and grim, pessimistic horror clichés. Thankfully, in lieu of a fictionalized analysis, we have Deliver Us (Libera…
“You’re right from your side and I’m right from mine. We’re both just one too many mornings and a thousand miles behind” — Bob Dylan In the Israeli-French co-production West of the Jordan River, Israeli director Amos Gitai (“Rabin, the Last Day”) returns to the West Bank to interview journalists, politicians, non-profit groups, and ordinary…
In Monogamish, director Tao Ruspoli (“Being in the World”) explores the benefits and constraints of the union of marriage while grappling with his own public divorce. The film — part documentary, part self-help journey — opens with Ruspoli penning a letter to relationship and sex columnist Dan Savage. The camera captures Ruspoli as he hand…
89-year-old filmmaker Agnès Varda (“The Beaches of Agnès”) said, “I have a nice relationship with time, because the past is here, you know? I’ve spent time, if I have something of my past, I’ll just make it, nowadays, I make it now and here.” Varda makes both past and present come alive in Faces Places…
When writing about the death of Abraham Lincoln, poet Carl Sandburg said, “A tree is best measured when it’s down.” These words more than apply to the life of photojournalist Chris Hondros, a Getty war photographer and two-time Pulitzer finalist, who left a gaping hole in the world of journalism when he was killed by…
