A Fantastic Woman: As The Name Implies

Marina Vidal, our Fantastic Woman

As one of this year’s nominees for Best Foreign Film, Sebastián Lelio’s A Fantastic Woman covers a sensitive issue well, delivering a powerful film worthy of its Oscar nod. A Fantastic Woman follows aspiring singer Marina Vidal (Daniela Vega) through her experiences as a transgender woman who wants nothing more than to fulfill her life goals. Unfortunately, when her boyfriend Orlando (Francisco Reyes) suddenly dies, Marina finds herself unable to properly mourn, as Orlando’s family are quick to throw suspicion and scorn towards our protagonist when they discover her gender identity.

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Bound To Captivate: Sex. Violence. Whatever.

The lack of queer representation within the Miami film scene  has been shattered this year by Flaming Classics. This year’s in-your-face features for the Flaming Classics’ new Sex. Violence. Whatever. series. include Basic Instinct (Paul Verhoeven, 1992), Set it off (F. Gary Gray, 1996), Bound (Lana & Lilly Wachowski, 1996) and the forthcoming The Doom Generation (Gregg Araki, 1995). “These films foreground a variety of queer characters,” Juan Barquin and Trae DeLellis, the Flaming Classic creators, conveyed, “[They’re] also reflective of a time in which the emerging new queer cinema began to touch into the mainstream. All of these films are very much about queer people raging against the system, the patriarchy, and a society that tries to diminish their worth.”

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Road to the Oscars: The Shorts

From now until March 4th, the Oscars hype will follow some of the most popular names in filmmaking. The nominees for Documentary, Live Action, and Animated shorts, however, are rarely as eminent in theaters or for audiences. Short films are neither as accessible or as sought after as films with longer running times. Luckily, now’s the perfect time for you to change that before the Oscars air in March. Theaters like O Cinema and The Bill Cosford Cinema will be playing all of the nominees for the short film categories starting this weekend!

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Oscars Watch Party

Are you obsessed with Awards shows? Can’t get enough of that Oscars buzz? Do you live to see the red-carpet entrances of your favorite celebrities and filmmakers? Well, great news! Here’s your opportunity to watch The 90th Academy Awards with other Oscars fanatics and movie-buffs. The FIU Film Studies Program will be hosting a live screening of the Oscars on March 4th in GC 140 starting at 7 p.m. with food, games, and a red-carpet!

The Haunting Visage of Eyes Without a Face

The unsettling visage of Christiane

On a rare occasion, the passage of time helps a film age like a fine wine. Such a rare example of this phenomenon is best observed in the case of Georges Franju’s French horror film, Eyes Without a Face (1960). Released the same year that Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) was criticized for its “vulgar” shot of a flushing toilet, Eyes Without a Face is a movie that phenomenally blends emotional turmoil with the grotesque into a simple story whose unnerving aura transcends time and language. With four screenings of the film scheduled for this week thanks to the Secret Celluloid Society, now is an opportune time to sit back and re-examine a classic that deserves more mainstream attention than it currently has.

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Winchester Fires Nothing but Blanks

Sarah Winchester deserves better than this dreadful film

To believers of the supernatural, the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California is the remnant of an unfortunately haunted widow, while skeptics see the mansion as a monument to the power of inherited guilt. After consulting with a medium who foretold that the spirits killed by Winchester branded rifles would haunt her until her death, Sarah Winchester’s mansion became legendary for having been under construction every day of her life. The end result was a beautifully ornate mansion that once stood seven stories tall, and was filled with over a hundred and fifty rooms, stairwells and doors that lead to nowhere, and had the chaotic floor-plan of a labyrinth. Knowing this, when I heard there were plans to make a film about Sarah Winchester and her interactions with a psychiatrist, I was genuinely excited by the prospect of a horror film that blurred the line between a genuine haunting and tragic psychological turmoil.

How foolish of me to anticipate a horror film released in February.

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Winchester Prize Pack Giveaway!

To celebrate the opening of the horror/biopic Winchester (starrring Helen Mirren), Allied Integrated Marketing has partnered with the Film Studies program to offer you a chance to win an exclusive WINCHESTER  Prize Pack! Contents include a Black Veil,  an Evil Spirit Kit, a Mini Poster and a $25 Fandango Gift Card!  To enter, follow this link and enter your details.

Winners will be chosen at random before Friday, February 2nd at 11:00AM EST. Good Luck!

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