Borscht Film Festival Celebrates Its Tenth Edition With a Viking Funeral

For the past few months, Borscht Corp. has been steadily teasing the death of its Borscht Film Festival in anticipation of the fest’s tenth edition, Borscht Diez. Evident in the hashtag #pray4borscht, the ability to light a candle and sign a guestbook to join the filmmaking nonprofit’s mailing list, and the brilliant memorial website on which users can leave a tribute, the dedication to the death of the Borscht Film Festival is wild but no stranger than anything else the collective has done in its decade-long history of filmmaking.

The Latest Journey to the West Barely Gets Released in the U.S.

How do you sell an international comedy-action superstar to an American audience? Sony Pictures, the distributors of charming Hong Kong action-fantasy Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back, still haven’t figured out how to pitch comedian-turned-filmmaker Stephen Chow outside of Asia, especially since Chow has stopped starring in his…

Classic Films Playing in Miami This February

A new year kicks off, full of film festivals, and the call of awards season catch-up beckons. For those who want a little more history and a little less Oscars, though, there’s always Miami’s bundle of classic film showings. So what’s happening this month? Here’s everything you have to pick…

The Walking Dead‘s Walker Stalker Cruise Sails From Miami

How much do you love AMC’s The Walking Dead? Do you find yourself imagining what it would be like to be on the show, trying to survive the zombie apocalypse alongside the remaining survivors? Do you care so much about certain characters that you become physically ill when they are killed? Are you so obsessed that you would consider taking a vacation to a private Bahamian island with some of the cast and crew?

Alain Guiraudie’s Latest Anarchic Adventure Finds a Way to Right Itself

In Staying Vertical, as in nearly all of French filmmaker Alain Guiraudie’s tonically unorthodox work, the emphasis is on the abundant possibility of pairings and practices when people get horizontal. Filled with quite literal chubby-chasing, Guiraudie’s sexually anarchic romp The King of Escape (2009), for example, centers on a middle-aged…

James Baldwin Speaks to Now in I Am Not Your Negro

Like Ava DuVernay’s 13th, Raoul Peck’s I Am Not Your Negro travels a straight, well-researched path from the darkest tragedies of American history to the ones that plague the country today. Both films filter African-American life through the prism of the societal construct called race, but while DuVernay’s dissertation focuses…

Toni Erdmann Toasts the Hilarity of Everyday Humiliation

Delving into microeconomics and macroaggressions, Toni Erdmann, the dynamite, superbly acted third feature by writer/director Maren Ade, is social studies at its finest. This quicksilver, emotionally astute comedy operates on many different registers and moods: Whoopee cushions and gag teeth are part of the fun, but so too is a…

The Magicians Pushes Fantasy to Its Limits

Take it from the network that rebranded as Syfy: The best trick in The Magicians is its phoniness. The actors share a broad house-style stiltedness and uniform, plasticine good looks — even the same haircut. The sets, costumes and special effects, while often inventive (a baddie with a head made…

Miami Film Festival 2017 Reveals Its Lineup, Headlined by Richard Gere

Miami is still on a film high from the spotlight that’s been placed on Moonlight and the city’s many festivals, from the Miami Jewish Film Festival to Borscht, taking place this time of year. But no film event is quite as big as the Magic City’s staple, the Miami Film Festival. The 34th edition will kick off big, with the March 3 opening night featuring actor, producer, and humanitarian Richard Gere in attendance.

Rest in Peace, Mary Tyler Moore, Reluctant Feminist Icon

Mary Tyler Moore, who died Wednesday at 80, was a reluctant feminist. She wouldn’t even call herself one at all. In 1970, when Moore embodied the character of flighty, 30-year-old single TV news producer Mary Richards on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, there was no other such woman portrayed on…

Moonlight Wasn’t the Only “Real Miami” Movie Released Last Year

We all know what Miami looks like in the movies. It’s the same scene every time: a plane flies over a nonexistent “Miami” sign and whisks us into a flashy world of clubs, beaches, and salsa music. It’s the city of Miami Vice, or this year’s War Dogs, the based-on-real-events story of two South Beach schmucks who become unlikely arms dealers. It’s the Miami that gets sold to tourists, the one we construct at work in hotels and bars.

Don’t Expect Gold to Set a New Standard for Crime Capers

Gold’s value lies chiefly in the hearts and minds of those who seek it. The noble metal has driven humans to perpetrate ignoble acts on their quests to unearth it since at least 5000 B.C.E., when slaves divined for golden veins to lavish their Pharaohs with jewelry. The Incas even…

Moonlight Earns Eight Oscar Nominations, Including Best Picture, Best Director

The Oscar buzz for Moonlight began shortly after the film started making the rounds at festivals such as Telluride and Toronto. By the time of its wide release in November, the buzz had grown into near-universal critical acclaim. At the Golden Globes earlier this month, the film won a statue for Best Picture, Drama, making recognition from the Academy Awards pretty much inevitable.