“Kier-La Janisse’s Work Meets a New Feminist Essential in House of Psychotic Women: Rarities Collection”

Downsizing the house to a 4-bedroom occupied by women on different points of the “psychotic” spectrum. Continue reading →

“‘The Hand of God,’ The Eyes of a Boy”

It’s a hand, but made into a fist, but with a single digit raised, and guess which one? Continue reading →

“Federico Fellini: The Essential Films”

Look, you all saw this coming. It’s like Criterion made this set just for me. Continue reading →

“Paolo Sorrentino’s ‘Loro’ Is The Perfect Film For Our Lying Times”

A movie where a woman does a series of cartwheels in one scene, then smash cuts to her landing on a guy’s crotch in a totally different scene. Also a movie about Silvio Berlusconi. Now THAT’S Italian! Continue reading →

Review: Mediterranea, 2015, dir. Jonas Carpignano

“Occasionally, fate and movie release schedules collude with one another to drop a fresh title on audiences at exactly the right moment. That’s more or less the case with Mediterranea, the feature debut of short filmmaker Jonas Carpignano: Check his picture against the United States’ dialogue on immigration, and you may feel the unnerving sense … Continue reading →

Review: The Mafia Only Kills in Summer, 2015, dir. Pierfrancesco Diliberto

“Nun sacciu, non vidi, nun ceru, e si ceru, durmivu”, the old Sicilian adage tells us; “I know nothing, I didn’t see anything, I wasn’t there, and if I was there, I was sleeping.” Had the sage responsible for concocting this well-worn proverb been fonder of brevity, it might make a good tagline for Italian actor … Continue reading →

The Criterion Files: Bicycle Thieves/Gomorrah (pt. 2)

It’s taken me some time, but I finally have the second half of the most recent Criterion Files installment for you to peruse. I realize we’re well outside the week and a half timeline I hinted at in the first part, but by now you should all know me well enough to not take my … Continue reading →

The Criterion Files: Bicycle Thieves/Gomorrah (pt.1)

I’m going to do something a little bit different with this week’s Criterion File– I’m splitting it up into two segments. Why? Simple: the two films I selected for this installment both gave me an enormous amount to talk about, and not just on individual levels, or within the context of themselves, either. On the … Continue reading →