DESIGN: Cultivate Cinema Circle Summer 2016
Month: September 2016
REVIEW: 残菊物語 [Zangiku monogatari] [The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum] [1939]
“Wait for me” Writer/director Kenji Mizoguchi‘s Meiji period-set film about a struggling Kabuki actor and his devoted wife, 残菊物語 [Zangiku monogatari] [The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum], is a heartbreaking display of love’s power to endure no matter the external forces trying to extinguish it. For Kikunosuke Onoue (Shôtarô Hanayagi), the adoptive child of master actor Kikugorô Onoue V (Gonjurô Kawarazaki), fame and fortune meant nothing after experiencing true friendship and affection from his baby brother’s nurse Otoku (Kakuko Mori). She told him the truth about his failings on stage,…
Read MoreREVIEW: Milton’s Secret [2016]
“Without forgiveness the past determines who you are in the present” After finding international success with his spiritual teachings through best-selling books The Power of Now and A New Earth, author and counselor Eckhart Tolle set his sights on children in 2008 with Milton’s Secret and its blatantly synergistic subtitle to those previous works “An Adventure of Discovery through Then, When, and the Power of Now”. Written in collaboration with Robert S. Friedman and illustrator Frank Riccio, this tale focuses upon the titular eleven-year old (soon-to-be twelve) boy as an…
Read MoreREVIEW: Queen of Katwe [2016]
“This is a place for fighters” The story of Phiona Mutesi is perfectly tailored for a Disney-produced true-life inspirational sports drama. As a nine-year old girl living in the Katwe slum of Kampala, Uganda selling maize with her siblings to help support their single mother after their father died of AIDS, who would have expected she’d become Woman Candidate Master at chess? But that’s exactly what happens shortly thereafter, her decision to follow brother Brian to his ministry-financed chess class one day in 2007 changing her life forever. It was…
Read MoreREVIEW: Phantasm [1979]
“You think when you die, you go to heaven. You come to us!” Of course J.J. Abrams would initiate the process of remastering Don Coscarelli‘s seminal Phantasm. Anyone who’s seen “Lost” will quickly notice similarities in their worlds shrouded by mystery devoid of a need or desire to provide explanation. This is what makes them great: they’re intentionally left open to interpretation. We don’t need to watch as the Island is constructed (although subsequent seasons did delve into its history at the behest of fans). And we don’t need to…
Read MoreTIFF16 REVIEW: La Mujer del Animal [The Animal’s Wife] [2016]
“What am I paying for?” Colombia’s tourism department won’t be sanctioning Víctor Gaviria‘s La Mujer del Animal [The Animal’s Wife] anytime soon and I definitely will never be visiting to see how accurate a depiction of life there it proves. This film is two-hours of sadism at the hands of Tito Alexander Gómez Arias’ Libardo ‘Animal’ Ramírez. He rapes, maims, drinks, and rapes again while every village he inhabits turns a blind eye out of fear of repercussion. If I could jump through the screen, steal his Bowie blade, and…
Read MoreTIFF16 REVIEW: Indivisibili [Indivisible] [2016]
“Can we at least see what’s possible?” It starts off so magically with conjoined twins Dasy (Angela Fontana) and Viola (Marianna Fontana) bringing hope and the word of God to the unfortunate souls languishing in poverty just north of Naples, Italy. They’re blissful when singing, eating up the attention and love from their parents Peppe (Massimiliano Rossi) and Titti (Antonia Truppo) despite our knowing that love is steeped in exploitation. This is the life these girls know. They have no computers or cellphones, their cut of the money goes to…
Read MoreREVIEW: Don’t Breathe [2016]
“If we do this right we never have to do this again” The best thing you can do to distance yourself from the big budget remake of a cult classic that serves as your feature directorial debut is to pare things down and deliver an original gem of your own. Fede Alvarez took the criticisms of his Evil Dead—gore for gore sake (something many of its proponents surely use to also explain its greatness)—and decided to utilize them during the writing process on Don’t Breathe. The supernatural aspect is gone…
Read MoreTIFF16 REVIEW: טהורה לעד [Tehora la’ad] [Forever Pure] [2016]
“My heart will always stay yellow and black” Just when you think it can’t get worse—that the vocal, racist minority spewing bile will be extinguished in a show of tide-turning empathy—everything is literally engulfed in flames as a city watches it burn to cheers from a cesspool of hate. This is the 2012-2013 season for Beitar Jerusalem FC in the Israeli Premier League. A soccer team beloved by enough fans to make them a political target for President Reuven Rivlin and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the reason their owner at…
Read MoreTIFF16 REVIEW: Bar Bahar [In Between] [2017]
“Don’t let on that you know what you’re doing” It’s Tel Aviv in 2016 and the parties are wild. Drinking, dancing, snorting, kissing—it’s time for twenty-year olds to have fun and be alive. But whereas in America you’d get looks of jealousy at best or judgment at worst, culture dictates heavier consequences for three Palestinian women living in the Israeli metropolis. There’s the liberal party girl attorney (Mouna Hawa‘s Laila), Christian communist lesbian DJ (Sana Jammalieh‘s Salma), and devout Muslim computer science major Nour (Shaden Kanboura) all trying to embrace…
Read MoreTIFF16 REVIEW: Goldstone [2016]
“This land ain’t no place for a young girl” Another missing girl has Detective Jay Swan (Aaron Pedersen) on the move while the world continues to turn a blind eye. This time it isn’t an aboriginal, though, the aftermath of his work in Mystery Road culminating in a shootout with everyone dead but he a distant memory. The case that has him traveling to Goldstone concerns a young Chinese girl, her place in the desert a curiosity Jay cannot ignore. Haunted by demons that go much farther back than anything…
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