Screen Anarchy

One of my favorite films of all time is Gust Van den Berghe’s Lucifer, a film that is so stylistically audacious it is hard to compare it to anything else. Based on a famous Flemish version of the Lucifer-story and set in Mexico, that entire film is shot in a circle aspect ratio. It is a film that calms the viewer into a sense of safety with its deceivingly simple story and hypnotic pace, until a final rug pull turns everything on its head. It is an ending that feels like a betrayal, deliciously, devilishly so. Now Van den Berghe is back with The Magnet Man (originally De magneet man), an equally allegorical tale with roots in historical Flemish religious and cultural practices. In the…

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The lineup for the 13th annual Blood In The Snow Film Festival has been announced.    Lowell Dean’s Dark Match is the opening night film while Vivieno Caldinelli’s Scared Shitless is all set to close out the six day event. Both are fine Canadian genre films that have been enjoying healthy runs on the festival circuit since the Summer, as has Self Driver from Michael Pierro, which was the Best First Feature Award winner at Fantasia.    As expected, the home town audience here in Toronto will get to watch some of the Canadian horror antho series, Creepy Bits, made by a slew of locals in the suburb of Hamilton. Poor Agnes’ Navin Ramaswaran is returning with their new film, Invited.    BiTS has massive short film…

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This news hit the trades a few days ago, over at Variety, and if you haven’t read up on it now is your chance.   Production has begun on a new thriller in the UK called Retreat. It will be the debut feature film for deaf writer/director Ted Evans. On top of that their thriller will star an all-deaf principal cast as well.    Raised in an isolated deaf community, cracks begin to appear in Matt’s seemingly idyllic world when the arrival of enigmatic outsider Eva forces him to question the realities of his identity. Is Matt prepared to discover what lies beneath the surface of his supposedly utopian community and the costs demanded to maintain it? ScreenAnarchy’s parent company XYZ Films is handling worldwide…

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Horror fans, don’t be blue! Just because the Halloween season concluded yesterday, there are still plenty of frightening flicks that await your discovery and/or revisitation. Our favorite horror-focused streamer, Shudder, announced their slate for the Fall and Holiday seasons last month. Next week will see the unveiling of Black Cab, starring Nick Frost in a truly evil role (pictured above, looking like I do every time I drive my car), with Jayro Bustante’s Rita hitting the service on November 22. Our own J Hurtado described the latter film thusly in his review from Fantasia this summer: “Though the film details horrific events in ways close enough to the true tragedy at its core, it barely skirts the horror label, rather placing itself in the world…

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Anticipation for the next Star Wars series, Skeleton Crew, is building and this new trailer builds on top of that. By all appearances it looks like things are back on track, getting ready to deliver some good old fashioned, rollicking space adventure.   We’re ignoring that online fandom is already drawing lines in the sand before a single episode airs. We have… hope… for this new series. Check out the new trailer below the official announcement.    The first two episodes of Skeleton Crew air on Disney+ on December 3rd.    Disney+ released a brand-new trailer and poster for Lucasfilm’s “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew,” a fun and exciting, original, live-action series starring Jude Law as a mysterious character (“Jod”) whose true motives are shrouded in…

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Back in 2016-2017, director Yamada Naoko shook up the anime industry with her high-school bully drama A Silent Voice. The film took an uncommonly candid view of life in school, with people often doing stupid things while still totally unaware of the gravity and possible consequences of their actions. It told a bullying story as seen from the viewpoint of the bully, showing the life-altering effects of the incidents on everybody without demonizing anyone. Even with its heavy subject matter, It picked up accolades and awards worldwide. Her new film The Colors Within is a lot more light-hearted, even if it plays with the same tropes. Not bullying this time, but the uneasy miscommunications between young people in high school, getting to grips with their…

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As a commercially oriented, artistically ambitious, innovation-embracing filmmaker, Robert Zemeckis (Death Becomes Her, the Back to the Future trilogy, Romancing the Stone) enjoyed an unparalleled pre-21st century career where box-office, critic-approved hits far outweighed the occasional misses or missteps. Awards recognition wasn’t a matter of if, but when. Nominated for several Academy Awards, Zemeckis won a Best Director award in 1994 for Forrest Gump. As Forrest Gump’s title character, Tom Hanks won his second back-to-back acting (Hanks won his first for Philadelphia a year earlier). Seven years later, a second Zemeckis-Hanks collaboration, Cast Away, proved almost as commercially and artistically rewarding. It was The Polar Express, their third time as director and actor (motion-captured via relatively new tech) that doubled as the first major misstep…

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Directed by Clint Eastwood, the film stars Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, J.K. Simmons, Kiefer Sutherland, Chris Messina, Gabriel Basso, Zoey Deutch, Cedric Yarbrough, Leslie Bibb, Amy Aquino, and Adrienne C. Moore.

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Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin star in a film written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg.

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Revisiting cinematic legacies has become a genre unto itself.   In 2021, the Tribeca Film Festival showcased Eddie Martin’s documentary The Kids, a behind-the-scenes expose of Larry Clark’s cult classic, revealing a web of collective trauma, exploitation, and victimhood. This year’s edition shines a similar spotlight on Kevin Smith’s cherished yet problematic rom-com Chasing Amy, all through the lens of director Sav Rodgers.   Rodgers gained viral attention following a TED talk where he credited the film with saving his life as a queer kid. His talk resonated widely, even prompting Kevin Smith to reach out.   The same film, however, has been criticized for presenting a cishet white man’s conception of queer life that lacks genuine representation. Elizabeth Sankey’s docu-essay Romantic Comedy critiques the…

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