“Look around you, this is the uprising.” When Children of Men was released in 2006, it flopped. It had nothing to do with the filmmaking. Visually, this is one of the most striking films of the last two decades. It flopped because the story was too real. The politics...
Welcome to Virginia, motherland of presidents, a craft beer mecca, and in recent years, a burgeoning home for major motion pictures and television series. Virginia has always been a low key place for the film industry to come knocking when it needed a location. Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" was shot right here in the River City, along with the...
Jeff Goldblum is life; the air we breathe, the water we drink. His genre-defining performance in "Jurassic Park" as mathematician-turned-American hero Ian Malcolm, introduced a generation of teenagers in the 1990s to concepts like chaos theory, and the art of lounging casually with your shirt open; bringing sexy back when Justin Timberlake was...
It’s easy to forget that safety is a luxury, but Richmond filmmaker Jen Lawhorne is prepared to compel us to remember. Her new documentary, “Fata Morgana,” made in partnership with two African refugees, is meant to reveal and examine the hardships and transition process of the African refugee, the global refugee crisis, and what Lawhorne...
"Stand-up is survival. For me that's jazz, that's what I have to do." It is hard to overstate the impact that Robin Williams had on just about every aspect of comedy since he broke the scene in the mid-1970s. His sheer energy, razor-sharp wit, ability to morph his persona into characters both known and unknown, and genre-defining stand-up shaped...
Anger, frustration, sadness, heartbreak. The air in the theater felt heavy. It was as if you could feel the emotions of the audience dance around you from one side of the room to the other. These were the powerful reactions from the crowd following the Institute for Contemporary Art's recent screening of Say Her Name: The Life and Death of Sandra...
In search of something more rough and real, Pilipino director Lino Brocka’s 1975 docudrama, “Manila in the Claws of Light,” is steeped in social realism in its depiction of the lower-class struggle of a young twenty-something named Julio (Bembol Roco). The film follows Julio into the seedy underbelly of Manila on a search for his lost love,...
My summer Monday night tradition for the past several years: drive to my mom’s and make dinner with my grandmother, crack a bottle of wine, plant on the couch by 8 p.m. and glue our faces to the TV to watch 25 men battle over one lucky lady (I’m a purist, I don’t watch The Bachelor. The Bachelorette is where it’s at.) My grandmother and I will...
To kick off the summer, VCU's Institute for Contemporary Art is premiering a free film series to showcase local and national filmmakers in conjunction with their current exhibition, Declaration. Launching today and running year-round, the ICA Cinema Series will offer free movies at the arts center's auditorium once a month along with...
The term ‘Uncle Tom’ conjures up harsh memories of America’s racist past. Yet to author and filmmaker Jared Brock, the phrase is something different entirely. According to Brock, who premiered his latest work at the Black History Museum & Cultural Center last night, it’s in some serious need of clarification or as he says, ‘redemption’. In...
