At their worst, the four documentaries that have examined the tragic case of the West Memphis Three have felt like the work of master ironists. Telling the story of three Arkansas teens convicted of child murders just because two of them wore black and had an interest in the occult,…
Nicholas Stoller’s hilarious Neighbors splashes into summer with the satisfying swish-plop-hooray of a winning beer pong serve, making the director, who also wrote March’s Muppets Most Wanted, the first filmmaker in history to simultaneously have in theaters both a kiddie flick and an R-rated comedy where two men sword-fight with…
The landmark 1996 documentary that introduced audiences to the West Memphis Three, three teenagers — Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley, and, of course, Baldwin himself — wrongly convicted of murdering three 8-year-old boys. Jason Baldwin had already been in prison for several years when his friend Mojo shook him awake at…
“There is more space in the house now,” says the wife of Sigurdur “Siggi” Hjartarson. It’s her only comment regarding her husband’s decision to display his collection of hundreds of carefully preserved mammalian penises — we’re talking the whole spectrum, from a mouse to a mammoth sperm whale organ —…
Everything in the opening scenes of Jeremy Saulnier’s nerve-wracking revenge drama Blue Ruin is the color of a bruise, from the ocean to the bullet-hole-pocked 1996 Pontiac Bonneville that homeless near-mute Dwight (Macon Blair) calls home. It’s fitting. Dwight has never overcome the pain of his parents’ murder when he…
When an actor as talented as Philip Seymour Hoffman is lost, those who appreciate his work often flock to re-experience it. Three months have gone by since Hoffman’s passing, but there’s still a plethora of work by the man yet to be seen. One of those unreleased films, which has…
We’re so accustomed to younger women dating older men that we don’t even flinch anymore, but when it’s the other way around, we’re so taken aback that we even come up with a nickname for women who date younger men: cougars. Even more out of the ordinary is a same-sex…
A young filmmaker like Xavier Dolan doesn’t come often. Actor, writer, director, editor; the man seems to have a grasp on everything he’s given queer cinema so far. Even so, his three first features have had a tinge of film school student to them. But Tom à la ferme (Tom…
By the time Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker in Christopher Nolan’s 2008 The Dark Knight was finally seen by critics and audiences, talk of a posthumous Oscar reached a fever pitch. Naturally, the inclination to compare Ledger’s work to past posthumous landmarks proved tempting, and many lists were compiled…
The chance for classics and genre flicks to come around Miami are slim, and when we do get lucky, it’s usually limited to some of the most overpriced scenarios possible. The thought of being able to step into a pretty cool place, drop less than ten bucks, and watch an…
Michelle Ehlen, director of Heterosexual Jill, playing Sunday, May 4, as part of the Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, likes to mess with people’s minds – well, at least the parts of people’s minds that formulate stereotypes about gender and sexuality. Her previous film, Butch Jamie, played with gender…
When Cultist sat down for an outdoor chat with John Turturro in the garden of The Standard Hotel, the actor and director was coming down from the high of the night before. His new film, Fading Gigolo, which he directs and stars in opposite Woody Allen, just played to a…
Like shooting a Fassbinder film, running a film festival can be a frenzied, grotesque circus. It comes as no surprise that only one person stepped up when Franc Castro, former Executive Director of the Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, stepped down last year. “I was the only one who…
When Humphrey Bogart’s son, Stephen Bogart, decided to start a film festival dedicated to his father, the Naples, Florida-based writer knew the perfect city: Key Largo. It happens to be the title of the film set in the well-known Upper Key. Directed by John Huston, Key Largo stars Bogart and…
The Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival marks its 16th anniversary with ten days of great works, both silly and groundbreaking, offering more than 60 films representative of 20 countries. The festival has come a long way from its humble beginning as a three-day weekend affair. It has compiled a…
Although it’s based on the true story of the illegitimate daughter of a Royal Navy captain and an enslaved African woman, Amma Asante’s Belle’s richest inspiration comes from a painting. A 1779 double portrait hanging at Scone Palace in Scotland, it shows a pretty blonde teenager decked out in typical…
The vampires that walk among us — and they do — are not the Twilight kind or the True Blood kind or even the Buffy kind. In the world of Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive, the director’s most emotionally direct film since Dead Man and maybe his finest, period,…
Still mad you didn’t meet James Franco last year when he promoted the Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival’s screening of his film Interior. Leather Bar.? Don’t fret. Franco’s impish grin and squinty gaze may be gone, but he’s not the only creative genius making LGBT films. MGLFF features 65…
The temperature hangs in the mid-70s in Miami, and New York City-based actor/writer/director John Turturro remarks, “It’s just so nice to be outside. I’m so happy to be outside.” Though it’s breezy, his neat crop of salt-and-pepper hair remains unshakable. He sits in the shade of a large gazebo at…
One of the great pleasures of regular moviegoing isn’t seeing great films. It’s finding the little oddballs, the modest entertainments that miss just as often as they hit but leave you with the feeling that someone poured heart, soul, and a sense of humor into the work at hand. Fading…
Tom Hiddleston can pull off extreme looks. In The Avengers, he strutted around in Loki’s two-foot horned helmet. For Midnight in Paris, he finessed F. Scott Fitzgerald’s prim finger waves. And in his latest, Jim Jarmusch’s vampire romance Only Lovers Left Alive, Hiddleston lounges bare-chested in velvet-cuffed robes. The only…
Outrageously enough, the moral of Moms’ Night Out seems to be that moms should never get a night out. This Mother’s Day weekend release is pretty much a PG-rated The Hangover, but with an ill-fitting God angle that slowly wedges its way into the movie — an agenda that, in…
