Reviews & Features

A Cottage on Dartmoor

A Cottage on Dartmoor
19 Dec, 1:41 PM

Two surprises lie in store in a viewing of A Cottage On Dartmoor. One is the discovery that an unknown British silent film (to me) should prove to be such a delight, a finely-crafted and visually inventive example of silent cinema at its height. The other surprise is that this should be the work of Anthony Asquith, the son of a British Prime Minister (as everyone likes to mention, in order to stress his upper-class origins) who is known today as a solid practitioner of mainstream products from the days when Britain actually had a properly functioning film industry.

Review by Ian Johnston  /  Comment

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
17 Dec, 3:43 PM

In 1970 the writer Yukio Mishima committed seppuku in the office of a lieutenant general of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. This, for Mishima, was the summation of a lifelong effort to unite “art and action,” the aesthetic and the ethical, his work and his life. Like much of what Mishima did, it was both elaborately planned and deeply enigmatic, at once a social protest, a private decision, and an aesthetic performance. In 1985 Paul Schrader secured funding from Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas to make a film about Mishima’s life: an uncommercial subject, but for someone with Schrader’s interests an irresistible one.

Review by Evan Kindley  /  Comment

Just Tony

Just Tony
15 Dec, 8:28 AM

The visceral joys of the silent B-Western are on full display in Just Tony. Saloon brawls, wild stallions, ten-gallon hats, breathtaking desert ranges, gunfights, fistfights, races, chases—and even a love story to boot. For a 66-minute feature, there’s an incredible number of sub-plots working in conjunction with one another to make the movie all the more thrilling and tense.

Review by Cullen Gallagher  /  Comment

The Marathon Family

The Marathon Family
10 Dec, 2:08 PM

Slobodan Sijan’s The Marathon Family opens with footage of the assassination of Yugoslavia’s King Alexander I. As the King’s motorcade proceeds down a crowded street in Belgrade, a sudden commotion erupts around his car. Soon we see his lifeless body lying in the street, blood pooled around his head. It is 1934, and through this soundless, black & white footage we’ve witnessed more than just the end of the “January 6 Dictatorship”: this is the death of silent film.

Review by Adam Balz  /  Comment

Into the Night

Into the Night
04 Dec, 2:41 PM

There are moments when John Landis’ Into the Night feels like the forgotten gem that you want it to be. It’s hard not to be just a little bit fond of a movie with segments such as the one where its star, Jeff Goldblum, endures several charming bits of comic misdirection on the set of a TV series, failing to distinguish between a prop and the real thing. So it’s a pity that Into the Night ultimately wears out the goodwill that it rightfully earns with a potent premise, an appealing cast, and some quality gags.

Review by Victoria Large  /  Comments (2)

Alibi

Alibi
02 Dec, 8:15 AM

Like many a film of the day, Alibi’s visual style reflects an accommodation made to the arrival of sound, with fluid, expressive sequences that were clearly shot silent and then overlaid with music and sound effects alternating with static dialogue-heavy scenes. The film’s fascination lies in its hybridity, the tug-of-war enacted before our eyes between the two conflicting styles that support silent filmmaking on the one side and sound on the other.

Review by Ian Johnston  /  Comment

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