“She looks alarmed, and it is the same disingenuousness that marked the bad acting of so many of Emily’s friends … when they pretended to be actors in their community theater dramas …” – Chris Bohjalian, The Night Strangers “It’s very hard to insert nudity into an Ibsen play.” – Patrick (Kevin Broccoli), “Amateurs” “No […]
To follow up my previous piece about the great films showing at Il Cinema Ritrovato next week, I am reviewing another film that will be shown during the festival: Investigation Of A Citizen Above Suspicion, a fascinating, but somewhat forgotten thriller that won the best foreign film Oscar in 1971. Investigation… concerns a police detective who kills his girlfriend […]
One of the great things about writing for Motif is cluing people in to theatrical events that otherwise might go unnoticed by the general film-going public. Next week the Italian Studies Department at Brown University will present a touring version of Il Cinema Ritrovato, a yearly festival held to showcase the restoration work performed by the […]
Dave Borges recently debuted his new film, One Foot in the Grave, at Cable Car Cinema in Providence. It was shown to a sizable audience of mostly cast and crew, and it was paired with Bryan Casey’s shorter thriller He Never Said a Word, a film that Borges helped to edit. Both films were commendable. He Never […]
For my first official review at Motif, I couldn’t have lucked out more since What We Do In The Shadows is such a treat of a film. Brought to us by the creators of “Flight Of The Concords,” this horror comedy from New Zealand defies the limited expectations that come with the description “comedy horror […]
Criticism is not about the conscious refusal to distance oneself from the audience, but about trying to explain why or why not a prospective audience member would want to invest in experiencing a particular work. Every film has some plausible audience, but some films are cynically made for an audience of idiots and it is […]
Providence’s venerable Brooklyn Coffee Tea House will be no more after April ends. The venue for independent films will be renamed Rhodywood Studios, owner Anthony Demings announced recently. The Brooklyn has experienced an upswing in film activity over the last few years. Several independent filmmakers have used the property as a location for their projects, and […]
“A lot of people don’t emphasize the business aspect in the academy. How do you make a living?” asked Jim Jermanok rhetorically, explaining the focus of his workshop, Successful Film Producing and Financing: Making Your Film Happen, to be offered at the Brooklyn Coffee and Tea House in Providence on Fri, Feb 21. Jermanok said […]
The 2015 annual Providence French Film Festival is dedicated in memory of its long-time director, Shoggy Waryn, who passed away only days before the opening of the festival last year in February 2014. Waryn, a native of France, was active with the festival since joining the Brown University faculty in 2001 and became the festival […]
Last year, I planned on attending Providence Children’s Film Festival (PCFF) and even showed all the preview clips to my boys so they could select their favorite (Moon Man). Sadly, we missed out on getting tickets because they sold out – quickly – and even my Motif creds couldn’t get me a pass. Many of the other […]