The Filmic 5: The Spring Festival Sabbatical Is Over Edition
Your Weekly Film Superlatives By Critic and Film Scholar Jack Hanley- who is THRILLED to have survived several Spring Film Festivals and Filmic Events. Good to be back- I've missed you.
I. Trailer I Am Loving This Week
I just came across this brilliant little trailer for IS GOD IS- the audacious directorial debut from Pulitzer-shortlisted playwright Aleshea Harris- and it looks absolutely INSANE in all the BEST ways. Imagine a Southern Gothic revenge opera filtered through Zora Neale Hurston by way of hyper-maximalist genre stylism. Throw in some brilliant cameos, neon-drenched iconography, a grindhouse vengeance aesthetic, and a dash of surrealist theatricality, and you've got enough righteous fury to burn the entire mythos of patriarchal America to the ground. In select theaters NOW. Enjoy.
II. Film Take I Am Sold On This Week
I could not stop thinking- nor laughing- at this brilliant point on filmic representation by one of MY favorite actors, RIZ AHMED, from his recent stint on Brett Goldstein's podcast FILMS TO BE BURIED WITH. I know I'LL never think of E.T. the same way again...
“And at the time I thought it was just because, you know, Spielberg is an amazing director, but my friend and co-star of our show Bait, reframed it for me. And so the reason why you found ET so moving, is because first time you saw a brown man on screen, and ET is a little brown man with basically an Indian accent, right? And he was stranded and basically he wanted to go home.
He wanted to go home and he wanted to just phone home. But in those days, remember we went phone cards, long distance calls were expensive. And he's literally got immigration on his case, trying to turf him out of the house.
And so in a way, it was striking some kind of ancestral memory or cord in me. And I thank Gus for reframing that for me."
III. Film Movement I Am Championing This Week
Guilty as charged. Get out there and (re)join the revolution.
IV. Film Essay I Am Loving This Week
I'm always thrilled to see a new essay by my friend and brilliant cinephile Kimberly Lindbergs- I was even MORE thrilled to see her latest take revisiting the cold-blooded neo-noir revenge odyssey POINT BLANK (1967), in which existential alienation, corporate criminality, and Lee Marvin’s terrifying stillness collide in one of the great “death-haunted” American films of the New Hollywood era. If you've known me long enough, I WILL force you to watch this film. In the meantime, enjoy this sharp piece from Beats and Transgressions.
Kimberly Lindbergs
V. Your Moment of Cinematic Zen
Jack Hanley is a film scholar, podcaster, and critic based in Boulder, CO. He is a programmer with the Chicago Underground Film Festival, Slamdance's Indies Awards, and the Boulder International Film Festival. He is one-half of Blindspotting: A Film Discovery Podcast and the founder of the Reel Horrors Short Film Festival. Find him at Kinophilia on Medium and at HanleyOnFilm.com