The new coming-of-age feature Griffin in Summer is already drawing attention for its Tribeca wins and upcoming theatrical release, but for producer Bobby Hoppey, the film carries an extra layer of meaning: it was made in Richmond, a city he’s connected to...
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...
With his flair for visual storytelling, director Wong Hu helped redefine the martial arts genre of 1960s Chinese cinema, weaving together refined storytelling with dynamic action sequences. During the period, in a bid for more creative freedom from the political strife at the time and to fulfill his inner ambitions, Hu moved his production over...
