Guest post by Chris Forrester. In The Watermelon Woman (Cheryl Dunye, 1996), a lesbian video store clerk seeks out the history of a Black film star from the ’30s as she tries to make a movie of her own. Swoon (Tom Kalin, 1992) retells and relitigates the Leopold and Loeb murder case with a more… Read more »
A former protégée of Leonard Bernstein, an EGOT winner, the first woman to lead a major German orchestra, and considered by some to be the greatest living composer-conductor in Western classical music, Lydia Tár is on top of the world… until she isn’t. Publicly confronted with her selfish, abusive behavior, Lydia finds not only her… Read more »
Every month, Establishing Shot brings you a selection of films from our group of regular bloggers. Even though these films aren’t currently being screened at the IU Cinema, this series reflects the varied programming that can be found at the Cinema and demonstrates the eclectic tastes of the bloggers. Each contributor has picked one film that they… Read more »
Guest post by Chris Forrester. “It doesn’t suck,” offers a character at one point in Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls — a tease, or understatement in one way or another, from a film not uncommonly heralded as the worst of all time. In context, it’s a throwaway line of dialogue from the film’s doe-eyed, sharp-witted protagonist; outside… Read more »
Channeling political dissent and creative daring into a revolutionary blend of history, fantasy, cinematic experimentation, satire, anger, fashion, and philosophy, legendary filmmaker Derek Jarman’s Jubilee follows Queen Elizabeth I as she travels 400 years into the future to witness a dystopian London overrun by a vicious gang of punk guerrilla girls led by the new… Read more »
Guest post by Shawn Coughlin. In an interview with Film Independent, director Ondi Timoner recalls her decision to approach Mapplethorpe as a scripted drama rather than a documentary. She explains, “I wanted to bring [Robert Mapplethorpe] alive for you. You know, I felt like, ‘We want to see this man and we want to see… Read more »
