In the Richmond of 2005, Teddy Blanks was everywhere—playing packed shows with Ross Harman as the pop duo The Gaskets, writing sharp film reviews and interviews for the early issues of RVA Magazine, and even acting in a short film that, for me, still holds personal...
The latest in a series of period pieces filmed in the river city, Harriet presents us with some pointed questions about this city's ongoing commemoration of Confederate leaders on Monument Avenue. Richmond is quickly becoming the go to place for period films in America - from Lincoln to Mercy Street, our city is undeniably building the foundation...
The latest film from famed director Alfonso Cuarón turns the story of a family's difficulties into one of the year's best films. Roma, a film written and directed by the acclaimed Mexican auteur and Academy-Award winning Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men, Gravity), might just be the best film of the year. Cuarón, known for his exquisite visual...
The second annual Pocahontas Reframed Film Festival brought artistic creativity, community involvement and cultural education to Richmond. Held at the historic Byrd Theatre, the festival presented films ranging from full-length documentaries to five-minute short films. The four-day event sought to promote and celebrate native culture while...
Directed by Hal Ashby (Being There, Harold & Maude), 1975’s Shampoo is a multifaceted comical look at sex, politics, gender, and well, hair. Set on the day that Richard Nixon won the 1968 presidential election, Shampoo stars Warren Beatty as George Roundy, a handsome lothario and hairdresser from Los Angeles who aspires to one day open his...
Last Friday night, The Virginia Film Festival offered the chance to catch what can only be described as a bona fide classic. Emerging as a tense and raw debut from the impossibly young Hughes brothers, 1993’s Menace II Society acts not only as cautionary tale, but a transfixing immersion into the darkest parts of Watts, Los Angeles in the early...
VCUarts’ Cinema is screening Michelangelo Antonioni’s bizarre counterculture masterpiece, Blow-Up, this Sunday at Grace St. Theater as part of VCU’s fall Cinematheque series. The film was hugely influential at the time of its release in 1966, and was the influential Italian director’s only brush with mainstream success. The film, based on a short...
Olivier Assayas’ 1994 Cold Water succeeds in not only being a brief portal into the doomed romance of two French teenagers deep in the throes of love, but also a deeply personal representation of a specific time in the director’s own adolescence. Originally conceived as a 50-minute made-for-television episode, Cold Water, or L’eau Froide, is...
Any holiday season, religious or otherwise, is a special time -- especially for TV networks. From the ringing of holiday bells to a 17-hour marathon of a killer in a goalie mask hacking people to death, it evokes a rush of nostalgia in viewers, and brings corresponding high ratings to networks. It's a reciprocal tradition that pop culture shares...
Before striking it big with the 1985 comedy-drama “Desperately Seeking Susan,” director Susan Seidelman made her independent feature debut with “Smithereens,” an entrancingly small tale with enough veracity and character that it was the first American indie to be screened at the Cannes Film Festival and eventually would live on in the punk film...
