The Filmic 5
Your Weekly Film Update By Critic and Film Scholar Jack Hanley
Beloved readers- I hope this finds you all well! I'm thrilled to be back from a bit of a sabbatical working and attending some Fall Film Festivals (my favorite time of year!). Let's get into the 5!
I. Film I Am Loving This Week
REBEL RIDGE (Dir. Jeremy Saulnier)
A neo-Western for our era with real political bite and a brilliant (and much needed) subversion of the American “revenge” narrative- REBEL RIDGE proves a HIGH NOON for this moment. A refreshing return to BLUE RUIN form for Jeremy Saulnier. Streaming now on NETFLIX.
II. Challenge I Am Loving This Week
As we approach "Spooky Season", I am anxious to once again take on a film viewing challenge that honestly look forward to all year- the "31 Days of Horror In October Film Challenge".
The format is simple- watch one horror film every day (preferably a new discovery or older blind-spot) in the month of October. There are many recommended streaming sites to help you along with some amazing curation for just such a challenge (MUBI, Criterion Channel, TCM, Kanopy), and I highly encourage you to post and share your viewing experiences (and thoughts!) with your cinematic friends and family. I know I will.
Don't know where to start? Our friends at Letterboxd have a MARVELOUS list to get you going- 31 Days of Feminist Horror Films, based on the 31 Days of Feminist Horror Films series on the Black List Blog, created and written by Kate Hagen. Find the list here: https://letterboxd.com/theblcklst/list/31-days-of-feminist-horror-films/
Happy Watching!
III. Podcast Discovery I Am Loving This Week
The Final Girls: A Horror Film Podcast
This weekly podcast is dedicated to exploring horror film and TV history through a female lens. Each series dissects a trope to death through deep dive conversations hosted by the brilliant film critic and author Anna Bogutskaya.
Find this cheeky and clever podcast (now on Season 7) on Apple Podcasts!
Click here to follow and subscribe!
IV. Film Trailer That Blew Me Away This Week
One glimpse of this visual aesthetic had me hooked- I cannot wait to see this film.
Via the website: "Set in the mid-1960s, The Featherweight presents a gripping chapter in the true-life story of Italian-American boxer Willie Pep (PLAYED BY James Madio)—the winningest fighter of all time—who, down and out in his mid-40s and with his personal life in shambles, decides to make a return to the ring, at which point a documentary camera crew enters his life. Painstakingly researched and constructed, the film is a visceral portrait of the discontents of twentieth-century American masculinity, fame and self-perception."
V. Film Essay And Commentary I Am Loving This Week
PEEPING TOM: Essays and Film Commentary By Laura Mulvey
Filmmaker and theorist Laura Mulvey is the author of the 1975 essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema", a groundbreaking work on feminist theory that deconstructed what she termed "the male gaze". A Collection of her more recent writings has been published by the BFI as Fetishism and Curiosity (1996).
Our friends at the Criterion Channel have recently re-released the 1960 Michael Powell masterwork with new essays and a marvelous commentary by Mulvey that- quite literally- forever changed the way I view this (and many other) film(s).
Find her short essay HERE, and watch this amazing film (and commentary) via The Criterion Channel by clicking HERE.
That's all for this week. Get out there and watch something LIFE-CHANGING.
Jack Hanley is a Boulder-based film scholar, podcaster, and critic. He is a programmer with the Chicago Underground Film Festival and Boulder International Film Festival. He is one-half of Blindspotting: A Film Discovery Podcast and Flicker with Jack and Scott on YouTube. Find him at Kinophilia on Medium and at HanleyOnFilm.com
