Piaffe, Ann Oren’s lusty ASMR-laden debut feature in 16mm, pivots around a timid young woman named Eva (Simone Bucio) having to play substitute Foley artist to Zara (Simon(è) Jaikiriuma Paetau), her troubled sibling holed up in a psych ward. Their shared apartment is a ready-to-go sound studio, where pairs of brogues and boots are purposefully … Continue reading
Emily Colucci, Filthy Dreams. That’s how I signed the guestbook for Carrie Schneider’s exhibition I don’t know her at CHART. I don’t usually bother to write in exhibition guestbooks. The only major exception is the book for Stranger Than Kindness: The Nick Cave Exhibition in which a placard assured us fanatics that he would receive it. … Continue reading
David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future presents us with a decaying modern civilization seamlessly coinciding with the moldy wear and tear of contemporary Athens — a fitting shooting location for a sci-fi dystopia that forgoes the polished surfaces, spacefaring, and multiverse traversal that other sci-fi dystopias depict. This version of the future offers up a … Continue reading
Are you sick to death of sleek cinema? An overbearing aesthetic that has trickled down so far that even the most whacko experimental films and unhinged underground movies strive to achieve a similar spotless surface perfection as those boring big-budget Hollywood films? Blech! Give me the awkward, the uncanny, the janky, the shonky, the half-baked, … Continue reading
An ill-fated trip to America’s heart of darkness–Florida–that becomes a whirlwind of sex work and crime. A doomed friendship forged over stripping and text messages. A montage of the most repulsive dicks you can imagine. It’s no question that Zola, the cinematic adaptation of A’Ziah “Zola” King’s jaw-dropping and riveting 148-tweet Twitter magnum opus directed by … Continue reading
Remember that subaquatic ‘eye of fire’ boiling like a cauldron in the Gulf of Mexico a few weeks ago? Another chapter in our woeful history of blowouts, releasing millions of gallons of crude oil into the open sea, presenting us with mortifying images of dead and near-dead oil-slicked marine creatures gasping for air. Continue reading
The inventor Nikola Tesla had a proclivity to give himself electrotherapeutic shocks. According to biographer Richard Munson, Tesla suffered debilitating depression, and it was not unusual at the time to deploy mild shocks to treat such an ailment. Each morning he would disrobe and stand naked upon his “vitality booster,” gradually administering higher doses. Michael … Continue reading
Michelle Handelman’s tantalizing and provocative 1995 documentary BloodSisters: Leather, Dykes And Sadomasochism is celebrating its 25th Anniversary this year, which will be celebrated with a digital screening at OUTFEST Los Angeles LGBTQ Film Festival starting on August 26. When I first sat down to watch it on my tiny laptop screen, I was filled with … Continue reading
When I was eight years old, I wanted to be Tonya Harding. Well, at least momentarily. Playing outside on a particularly frozen day in 1994, I pretended to be figure skaters with a friend. Did I want to be Nancy Kerrigan with her perfect brunette ponytail, Vera Wang-designed white costumes and sophisticated poise? Hell no. … Continue reading
Park Chanwook’s latest masterpiece The Handmaiden is a wonderfully claustrophobic, seductive thriller set in 1930s Korea, without any white persons appearing to save the day or infiltrating the plot. The film has received resounding praise from critics and audiences alike, proving once and for all that despite having no literal projection of themselves within the storyline, white audiences can find an all-Asian movie both entertaining and valuable. The film’s lucrative success condemns any excuses for whitewashing in order to appeal to Western audiences, which was most recently used by Chinese director Zhang Yimou in his film The Great Wall. Continue reading