Discovering good movies, one bad movie at a time

A review requested by K. Rice, with thanks for contributing to the Second Quinquennial Antagony & Ecstasy ACS Fundraiser. In requesting a review of Paheli as part the Second Quinquennial Antagony & Ecstasy ACS Fundraiser, K. Rice noted that I’ve never once in almost ten years reviewed a Bollywood film, and wondered if that was […]

These Birds Walk is a documentary about the life of poverty-ravaged boys in Karachi, Pakistan; and it is unmistakably made for a Western audience.This bothers me more than it has any reason to, for the film is absolutely not a sad-eyed ethnography or exotic exploration of culture – no Slumdog Millionaire or the like here. […]

Screens at CIFF: 10/16 & 10/18 World premiere: 10 May, 2013, India You tell me if this sounds appealing or hopelessly stupid: modern stoner comedy classic Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle meets infamously terrible video game adaptation House of the Dead. I can’t actually say what it sounds like to me at this […]

Screens at CIFF: 10/11 & 10/13 & 10/15World premiere: 18 May, 2013, Cannes International Film Festival The “what if?” film – watching as a situation plays out in vastly different ways, based on very small choices made by characters early on – is inherently gimmicky, but that doesn’t mean the gimmick has to be bad. […]

Bol

Screens at CIFF: 10/10World premiere: 24 June, 2011, Pakistan Indian cinema is not a specialty of mine. And this doesn’t necessarily matter, because Bol is a Pakistani movie – the highest-grossing Pakistani movie in history, no less – but its DNA is Bollywood.* Living in a cultural hegemon, and never having really thought about the […]

Screens at CIFF: 10/8 & 10/9 & 10/11WORLD PREMIERE I’m in no position to make pronouncements about Indian cinema, so I’ll defer to the experts: and they inform me that right now, that country is on the cusp of a New Wave, in which the traditional Bollywood entertainments that maybe you and certainly I think […]