Like all current cinema events, the 2020 iteration of the Bentonville Film Festival is taking place almost exclusively online. Next week, the festival started by Oscar-winner Geena Davis will take place in Northwest Arkansas as pure usual, but with on-the-ground screenings taking place at a local drive-in—with nearly everything else going virtual. Panel discussions, celebrity guests and a great ... more >
Archives for August 2020
ARCHIVES
Screen Comment interviews WENDY GUERRERO, Bentonville Film Festival president of programming
Five years' young this year, Bentonville Film Festival adapts to the pandemic while hewing close to its principle of inclusiveness and diversity
Mick Jagger as art dealer and Claes Bang (“The Square”) as artist team up in “The Burnt Orange Heresy” (review)
Film will be available for streaming starting today
Elizabeth Debicki, Donald Sutherland and Mick Jagger
Directed by Giuseppe Capotondi
It’s a strange time for all of us, and perhaps it’s little wonder that the crop of films being released direct to streaming has itself gotten weird. How else to explain a movie where Mick Jagger plays an arts dealer who may, and this is giving nothing away, actually be the devil in disguise? (in case you don’t guess his name, it is Joseph Cassidy. As Al Pacino observed as Satan in “The Devil’s ... more >
Adapted from the namesake Norwegian novel, “Out stealing horses” | REVIEW
Do you know who you are?
Stellan Skarsgård, Bjørn Floberg and Tobias Santelmann
Directed by Hans Petter Moland
“We decide for ourselves what will hurt” Ah, the past and the memories it leaves us. Be they good or bad they make a home in our mind and soul, guiding our life decisions and shaping who we will become. Sometimes warm, sometimes dark, our remembrances become our true and constant life companions. Hans Petter Moland’s adaptation of Per Petterson’s novel, “Out Stealing Horses” (Ut og stjaele ... more >
Alan Parker left an indelible mark on me
"So say it once, say it loud: I'm black and I'm proud" ("The Commitments")
British filmmaker Alan Parker, who left us on July 31st, 2020, was not a prolific filmmaker. He made just shy of twenty movies but what a heavy footprint these movies left on me. Films like "Angel Heart," starring Mickey Rourke, and Robert De Niro as the devil, "Mississippi Burning" or that terrific film "The Commitments," which came out in 1991, they all made their mark on me, each one for a ... more >
Romola Garai (“Atonement”), poised for greatness, goes behind the camera to make persuasive debut as filmmaker with “Amulet” | REVIEW
Carla Juri, Alec Secareanu and Imelda Staunton
Directed by Romola Garai
The definition of amulet is “a charm (such as an ornament) often inscribed with a magic incantation or symbol to aid the wearer or protect against evil such as disease or witchcraft.” But there is a new definition. “Amulet,” a 2020 film directed by Romola Garai that is subtly eerie and one of the most effectively-directed films of 2020. Romanian actor Alec Secareanu ("God's own country") ... more >