From Gentlemen of the Shade: Jen Sookfong Lee
RISK, ON AND SCREEN OFF At 15, when I first watched My Own Private Idaho, my sexuality was still a fetal idea. But even though there are few women in the film, the experiences of Mike, Scott, and their group of street hustlers carry many of the same ideas of risk that shadow young women...
Cornelia Barber: Looking at Emma’s Dilemma
“There is No Scene Here” Looking at Emma’s Dilemma (Henry Hills, 2012) by Cornelia Barber To look is to be curious, to be interested, to lower yourself. No one you look at is worth it. Looking is always demeaning. The word conversation is banished. I think that’s what best conveys the...
Danielle Bobker: Belle, A New View of 18th Century Racism
Belle: A New View of Eighteenth-Century Racism by Danielle Bobker Belle (2013), directed by Amma Asante and written by Misan Sagay, tells stories that are by turns deeply familiar and completely fresh. You need only to have read a Jane Austen (1775-1817) novel or two, or seen any of the movie adaptations, to guess the...
Jacqueline Valencia: The Need for Lonely Women Film
‘The lonely man’ film is a term that I learned from writer/director Paul Schrader when he introduced Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver at the Royal Theatre in Toronto in 2013. Schrader penned the film during a deep and paranoid depressive state. As a woman, I identify with Travis Bickle’s awkwardness with social constructs, his isolation, and...
In Conversation: Meredith Evans & Danielle Bobker
Why we love Paolo Sorrentino’s This Must Be the Place M. “Why we love This Must Be the Place” is a pretty good title for our discussion of Paolo Sorrentino’s 2011 film. I’m glad you floated it. Trying to articulate why we love a particular book or poem or movie is often what we, as...
Jacqueline Valencia: Two Short Takes, Upstream Color and Sound Of My Voice
Film: Upstream Color Director: Shane Carruth Writer: Shane Carruth Cast: Amy Seimetz, Shane Carruth, Andrew Sensenig, Country: USA Year: 2013 Upstream Color is the latest sci-fi offering by Primer director Shane Carruth. After Kris (played seamlessly by Amy Semeteiz) endures an abuse, she must learn how to rebuild her life and ultimately her identity. She...
