The Wolfpack

THE WOLFPACK
by Francis Friel

Crystal Moselle’s The Wolfpack has been the subject of some very weird scrutiny since it debuted at Sundance earlier this year (where it won the Grand Jury Prize). Questions about exactly when and where and how Moselle met the Angulo brothers, the six imprisoned filmmaker siblings at the center of the film, have been hounding the film since day one. And while a lot of the questions seem to have some merit to them, and I had questions of my own while watching the film, I’m inclined to give all this stuff a pass, because this is simply one of the best movies out there to deal with outsider artists on their own turf.

Mad Max: Fury Road

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD
A Feminist Review by Elliott Marie

I’ve heard a lot of talk about how Mad Max: Fury Road was such a great feminist movie, and I agree with the great, but not so much the Feminist. However, I have to live up to my Feminist Theory professor and appreciate the good things while critiquing the bad. For starters it was a good try, and merely stating you are trying to create a feminist movie is a good move, but they didn’t completely pull their weight.  There are about 5 female characters other than Furiosa in the whole movie. I get that the whole movie has a very small number of people in it, but my problem with this was that all 5 of these women were basically Victoria Secret models with a little dirt on their face.

Oh wait, one of them is…

The Mascot Cinematic Universe (Part One)

THE MASCOT CINEMATIC UNIVERSE (PART ONE)

by Francis Friel

Ladislas Starevich is my favorite animator. The Mascot is my earliest stop-motion memory along with that goof Gumby, both of which used to run as part of the Saturday morning lineup when I was a little kid. It was one of a bunch of shorts that used to run as part of the lead-in to Star Stuff, a locally-produced (in early-80s Philly) sci-fi series about a little boy on Earth whose best friend is a little girl living in outer space (and, somehow, in the future). They’d watch Laurel & Hardy movies together and sometimes cartoons, so I’d always lump Laurel & Hardy and Gumby and The Mascot together in my head, along with another cartoon called Prest-O Change-O (featuring an early appearance of the character that would later evolve into Bugs Bunny). Weird, surreal stuff to be playing at 6am for children. I’d had such fond memories of these bizarre little cartoons and it was shocking when, in my early 20s, I re-discovered them and found that they were actually well known films by important directors. So I looked up more work by Starevich and his stop-motion descendants Jan Svankmajer and The Brothers Quay.

Chameleon: Isabelle Adjani's Incomparable Decade

CHAMELEON: ISABELLE ADJANI’S INCOMPARABLE DECADE

by Matt Hammitt

      "We are all the same, but in different words. In different bodies, and different versions."-Isabelle Adjani in Possession.

Isabelle Adjani is one of the most versatile artists of the 20^th century. Between 1975 and 1985, the French actress put together a resume as diverse and audacious as any in the history of film, and yet she remains an almost completely unknown quantity in the minds of American moviegoers.

We exist in a media landscape where access to foreign films is no longer a prohibitive barrier to interested parties looking to expand their palette. The great filmmakers and performers in Europe have no shortage of advocates and film fans have little trouble exploring their work. Liv Ullmann and Catherine Deneuve are firmly imbued in the canon of great actresses in 2015. Even Adjani’s European contemporaries, like Juliette Binoche or Isabelle Huppert, have received ebullient praise from American critics and film junkies. Isabelle Adjani is better than all of them. For those ten years between 1975 and 1985, she was better than anyone; and she was likely better than any one has been since.

Musicjawn

"CULMINATING IN THE FINAL SCENE AT THE DANCE"
by Neil Cleary-Trask

I often imagine movies or scenes to go along with the music I listen to, and I wanted to assemble a mix that would provide the soundtrack to one of those movies that has a big, third act scene at "The Dance." Hopefully, in listening, it will evoke something like it did for me. 

Featuring Nicolas Makelberge, The Prime Movers, Strawberry Switchblade, Ford & Lopatin, Ashrae Fax, Zola Jesus, Chromatics, John Maus, T'Pau, The Comsat Angels, Naked Eyes, The Creatures, Stereo, Goldfrapp, Talk Talk, A Flock Of Seagulls, Cocteau Twins, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Julee Cruise, and Toms. 

The cover art is a nod to the time period I was mostly inspired by, and the download comes with a printable version of it.

Download Culminating In The Final Scene At The Dance (including printable artwork) here:  

http://www.mediafire.com/?nc998udo8jabnxv

Magic Mike XXL

MAGIC MIKE XXL

by Jaime Davis

If you’ve seen the original Magic Mike, you know it’s not just “that male stripper movie.” Yeah there’s hilarious dance sequences and Matthew McConaughey in chaps and crazed, screaming women and penis pumps and bad acting from actresses who shall remain nameless. But the film, directed in all seriousness by Steven Soderbergh, takes a long, dark look at the world of male entertainers, complete with drugs, backstabbing, violence, and avarice.

So it was a bit of a surprise to me how Magic Mike XXL swapped its depressing worldview for a rosier one. The gang is all back, sans the Pettyfer (yay) and the McConaughey (boo), traveling in an artisanal frozen yogurt food truck from Tampa to Myrtle Beach for some kind of stripper convention (which I assume is a real thing). THIS IS A ROAD MOVIE, YOU GUYS. Which means bring on the fun and the hilarity and the gags and the snags. And there are a bunch of those in Magic Mike XXL.

Isolation Tank

ISOLATION TANK
by Andrew Bauman

In the film Altered States, Dr. Jessup seeks the “first truth” by way of psychoactive chemicals coupled with physical sensory deprivation. To reach his goal he ingests the drug and places himself in an isolation tank, a chamber where he floats in total darkness. Through the use of this tank he allows an experience totally uninhibited – he is cut off from both his body and (for the most part) the outside world. Despite the cerebral nature of his studies, Jessup goes through physical mutations as the experiments progress. The experience's gravity of impact manifests in a tangible form – his body begins to reflect his mind. This mirrors the cinematic experience; the theater is an isolation tank.