Iranian director Ali Abbasi delivers an intense tale about the treatment of outsiders and the quest for self-acceptance that moves and perplexes. Border is the director’s second feature work, who wrote the film alongside Isabella Eklof and John Ajvide Linqvist. The film’s screening at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival earned it the Un Certain Regard award and it has been selected as the Swedish entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the upcoming Academy Awards.
Due to the history of the industry, it’s rare for a great film of classic Hollywood to be directed by a woman. Thanks to our friends at Miami Beach Cinematheque, a screening of Ida Lupino’s The Hitch-Hiker (1953) is just around the corner. As one of the few true classic noir films, The Hitch-Hiker provides a quintessential noir experience while still having a different story to tell.
As Netflix tries to climb its way into the world of film legitimacy through theatrically-released Netflix originals, fans rush to defend the quality of the company’s works as on-par with other production companies. While Netflix has produced a handful of great shows and movies, like any new production company, they have a hefty number of unwatchable disappointments, and still have to prove themselves to go toe to toe with their larger competitors. In releasing David Mackenzie’s Outlaw King (2018), though this film is more watchable than most Netflix originals, the experience isn’t worth getting off the couch and buying a ticket at the theater.
Whenever a remake of a classic film is announced, fans have reason to be skeptical. Though there’s been great remakes in the past, it’s hard to trust a film one loves in the hands of someone new. Having previously reviewed Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977), I can say that though Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria (2018) literally drains the color that made Argento’s original film iconic, this remake provides an interesting and different experience from its source material which is produced well enough to warrant intrigue.
When it was announced we’d receive a new entry in the Halloween franchise on behalf of Blumhouse Productions, I was highly skeptical. While many were excited, knowing that Blumhouse is responsible for the phenomenal films Split (2016) and Get Out (2017), I was too aware they were equally responsible for movies of pitiful quality such as Sinister (2012), Unfriended (2015), and Truth or Dare (2018). Being a massive fan of John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978), I entered the screening of the latest Halloween film with low expectations. Leaving the theater, I was both impressed by the quality of the latest in a long line of sequels, and equally feeling the sting of knowing how close Blumhouse’s Halloween (2018) came to matching if not surpassing the quality of the original film.
Vintage 1948 still from Bicycle Thieves from the the Miami Beach Cinematheque Archive.
Part of a series reviewing films on the Kanopy streaming service, available to all FIU students, faculty, and staff.
As we close in on the 70thanniversary of the release of Vittorio De Seca’s Academy-Award winning film Bicycle Thieves (Ladri de Biciclette),a newly digitally restored version of the Italian Neorealist film will make its Miami premier at the Miami Beach Cinematheque this Thursday, October 18th, at 7:00 p.m., as part of the World Cinema theme of their Interactive Archives Project. This simply constructed classic, widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time, follows Antonio Ricci (Lamberto Maggiorani), a poverty-stricken man who’s desperate for a job that will enable him to support his inquisitive son Bruno (Enzo Staiola), wife Maria (Lianella Carell), and their newborn child.
After two years of unemployment, Antonio is finally offered a job plastering movie posters around Rome, but the gig requires him to have a bike, which he can’t afford. Out of desperation, him and his wife begrudgingly pawn off their linen bed sheets in exchange for a bicycle. But, in a heart-wrenching sequence, the bike is stolen on his very first day of work.
