culture
Never thought much about Japanese pop idols? Then this disturbing yet insightful documentary, Tokyo Idols, from Kyoto Miyake definitely will.
In Between is a compelling study of Arab women in today’s Tel Aviv that’s delightful and eye-opening in equal measure.
Australia Day is a Crash-style drama that contrasts 3 different minorities facing persecution and racism on the backdrop of Australia Day.
Bad Rap documents the hard time Asian Americans have getting into the American hip hop scene, but should’ve offered a deeper exploration.
Cairo Time is a romantic drama from 2009 set in Egypt that focuses on different women and their perception about relationships and life.
2016 saw a burst of right-wing ideology in mainstream and indie cinema, which, scarily enough, seemed to foreshadow the rise of Donald Trump.
Recently, I spoke with filmmaker Phil Giordano. Originally from Staten Island, New York, he elected to take the NYU’s Directing Program in Singapore, which is where he lives today. In 2010 he released the controversial short film The Empty Playgound, about a man struggling with inner-demons who tries to abduct a young girl from a playground.
One of the most poisonous societal ideals is that of masculinity. There’s nothing wrong with being proud of one’s manhood. But there is much terribly wrong with convincing boys and young men that their masculinity is marked by not showing emotion, never admitting to any abuse they may have experienced, or forcing them into a space where they feel their only option is physical violence versus confronting their rawest emotions.
A while ago, I had the pleasure to be introduced to Lulu Wang. Before I got to watch her first feature film Posthumous, I got to watch her short Touch (watch Touch here). While watching that, I knew I was in for something great with her first feature.
In the beautiful desert landscape of Gujarat, India, director Leena Yadav introduces us to a world of friendship, suffering and heartbreak within a story of four women, trying their best to overcome their individual struggles. Parched explores the ideas of tradition, culture and misogyny in the heart of rural India but with a compelling characters and strong friendships that feel universal to us all. Tradition & Culture The story centers around four women:
As soon as Justus D. Barnes fired point-blank at the audience in Edwin S. Porter’s influential The Great Train Robbery, the idea of violence to control an audience was introduced.
I first watched Party Monster a couple of years ago, when once-infamous club promoter Michael Alig was released from prison, where he served 17 years for brutally murdering his drug dealer. The 2003 biopic, based on James St James’ memoir, “Disco Bloodbath”, flew under the radar during its initial release. But the film’s subject, “Club Kids” of ’90s Manhattan, once commanded TV screens across the country.
As a society, recent events have left us more divided than ever. The people on one side of this socio-political argument are trying to undermine unrepresented voices in the culture by calling for a cry back to the “good old days” and using hateful rhetoric in order to get what they want. The other side are being labelled as mere “liberals” with a politically correct agenda that isn’t attuned to the desires of the majority of people.
Director Yorgo Lanthimos first grabbed the world’s attention with Alps and the seismic Dogtooth. Recently, he sprung another biting, absurdist satire into the festival circuit with The Lobster. It takes place in a world in which relationships are mandatory; the characters, all newly single, or newly of age, are detained in a hotel that works, basically, as a deadly speed dating service.
Aside from sports bloopers, a few Hemingway novels and stock footage I don’t know much about bullfighting. Common sense dictates that provoking a bull to charge you to stab it going to be dangerous, and there’s bound to be a daredevil mentality to being a matador. With that rudimentary knowledge, it felt like Gored would provide some insight into bullfighting, the cultural identity of matadors, and the passion of its subject.