I nostri ragazzi isn’t the first time that Dutch novelist Herman Koch’s novel, The Dinner, has been adapted for film. Only a year or so after the Dutch adaptation of the book, we find ourselves with this Italian edition. Showing at the Miami International Film Festival under the novel’s title,…
It’s unsurprising that a film like Kenny Riches’ The Strongest Man would premiere at Sundance — the festival for this strange film — but less surprising that it would make its way back home for the Miami International Film Festival, because this is a movie that couldn’t have been made…
It’s not often we witness a film that has a sympathetic protagonist who happens to be a police officer, much less one that actually deserves the audiences’ attention. But the South Korean film A Girl At My Door, is exactly that. Actress Bae Doona stars as the police chief of…
“I love Miami,” says Spanish actress Paz Vega ahead of her visit for the Miami International Film Festival. “I have a lot friends living there. It is a fabulous city! And the best thing is the people. Every time that I go I have so much fun!” She will appear…
From Sundance to Toronto to South by Southwest, Miami filmmakers have made their mark on the festival circuit. The city’s most buzzed-about collective, Borscht Corp., has had work accepted at major gatherings around the world — but never at the Miami International Film Festival (MIFF). Until now. MIFF, which returns…
There are two kinds of humanist movie. One kind shows human beings struggling against the most unspeakable horrors, sorrows, or injustices and still, somehow, emerging with their essential goodness intact. The second, thornier type portrays people doing terrible things to one another — screaming, cheating, and generally making life hell…
The new Brooklyn is generally derided as a wilderness of double-wide strollers, young men with the facial hair of Canadian loggers circa 1852, and artisanal everything. But in Wild Canaries, a modestly scaled murder mystery/comedy from writer/director/star Lawrence Michael Levine, today’s Brooklyn is a place of danger and intrigue. Just…
Almost immediately after it was released, the 2011 stealth hit Best Exotic Marigold Hotel became more a punch line than a movie. Who knew “older” people were so starved for pictures featuring gorgeously shot exotic locales, not to mention people falling in love, falling out of love, or desperately hoping…
It’s an ironic truth that directors fascinated by robots tend to make inhuman movies. From Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner to last year’s Transcendence, these stories that ponder the gap between man and machine often reveal filmmakers unsure of where they fit in — they get so involved in the question…
Todos están muertos (They Are All Dead) is a weird movie. Humorous, sad, and as sweet as pie. It’s grounded in the lovely magical realism that often seems deeply embedded in Spanish culture. The film focuses on Lupe (Elena Anaya), who was once an eighties rock star and now lives…
The world is a terrible place. That’s the uncompromising truth with which Tina Fey and Robert Carlock begin Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix), their follow-up to the under-seen but culturally monumental 30 Rock. The very first scenes of Unbreakable’s first season, which will be released in its binge-able entirety on March…
Plenty of cities with art cinemas pride themselves on their classic film programming. There’s always some kind of retrospective, screening of an old favorite on 35mm, or just an abundance of restorations or thematic programming. And Miami is finally stepping up to the classic film plate. Every month, the city…
There are five reasons why Fox’s Empire has become a breakout hit, and on this week’s Voice Film Club podcast, we run down why the show, introduced as a mid-season replacement, has surged to nearly 14 million viewers an episode by its eighth week. Joining Voice film editor Alan Scherstuhl…
From Sundance to Toronto to South by Southwest, Miami filmmakers have made their mark on the festival circuit. The city’s most buzzed-about collective, Borscht Corp., has had work accepted at major gatherings around the world — but never at the Miami International Film Festival (MIFF). Until now. MIFF, which returns…
Leonard Nimoy has died at the age of 83. Both on camera and off, he exemplified the best of what Star Trek, and thus humanity, could represent. Part of that was Trek’s writing, of course. But it was Nimoy who took what was on the page — often repaired what…
You may not realize that Cuban filmmaker Jessica Rodriguez makes documentaries. The Havana-born, Madrid-based 28-year-old has a gift for making her subjects forget they’re telling their most personal secrets to an unknown audience. “I think people only tell us what they want to, and the things they don’t say are…
Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem, is a film that makes you want to talk to the movie screen. The phenomena took co-director/co-writer Shlomi Elkabetz and his sister, co-director/co-writer and the film’s star Ronit Elkabetz, by surprise when they premiered the film at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. Speaking via…
Is it possible to essentially like a movie yet feel revulsion toward its script? David Cronenberg’s Maps to the Stars is clearly intended as a sharp satire of Hollywood ambition, vanity, avarice, and emptiness, and in places it’s smart and astringently funny. Yet it seems to fight its own bone…
Spike Lee still summons miracles — but sometimes you gotta dig for them. I can’t exactly recommend Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, his remake/cover/jazz-variation on Bill Gunn’s epochal indie lulu Ganja and Hess, but I can recommend Ganja and Hess, so elusive and bloody and challenging a picture that it’s…
If Grace Kelly had been raised by coyotes, she might have stalked the screen like Focus’ Margot Robbie, a va-va-voom blonde with bite. Robbie is too beautiful to play normal, too sly to play nice. Miscast as a shy saint in Craig Zobel’s upcoming Sundance hit Z for Zachariah, she…
Ten years ago, Wellington, New Zealand, was less welcoming of vampires. When Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi, two unknown comedians, walked the streets in velvet frocks and ruffles for a 2005 sketch, dudes would drive by and scream homophobic slurs. Says Clement, “We were constantly abused.” Over the next decade,…
Many people won’t watch a film based solely on the fact that is was simply nominated for an Oscar. But if said movie takes home a statue, that’s another story. “Academy Award winner” in front of a film title, actor, or director carries weight. So here we are, just days…
