Category: Independent
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Badlands: Deconstructing the myth of America
It’s easy to pinpoint nowadays the moment American cinema began to turn things around in terms of themes and subject matters, when filmmakers let loose their anger and frustration at society as a whole with movies like Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider re-inventing the gangster and western genre and adapting it to the times […]
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Before Sunset: A recipe for the perfect sequel
When telling the continuation of a story, movies often find themselves in the awkward position of having to cover all over again past events for those that may not have seen the previous chapter, and simultaneously drive the actual story forward. The whole endeavor can be problematic: juggling too many storylines, subplots and characters tends […]
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Outcasts and Rejects: The Cinema of Kelly Reichardt
One of the most impressive and unique voices of contemporary cinema belongs to Kelly Reichardt, a filmmaker who strongly believes in the complexity of mundane life as we know it. The simple acts of waking up, getting to work, and having a warm meal before heading back to bed, to Reichardt, constitute an endless combination […]
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The 5 Best Movies of the Decade
2020 is almost here as we are nearing the end of a fantastic decade for cinema. The 2010s have featured a steady rise in the variety of material produced by the world of filmmakers and have offered to audiences some of the greatest cinematic moments we could ever experience. The growth of this medium is […]
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A Woman Under the Influence: Where are the Kids?
Let’s talk about women. Women on screen. Most of the time when we think of women in movies we have a clear image, a predefined vision of what a cinematic woman should be like, look like and act like. And when the tables are turned, and we finally get a performance that does not reflect […]
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Long Distance Call
Relationships. Ugh. Just the sound of this word in a cinematic context makes some people roll their eyes. What else can be said about relationships in movies? After all, we’ve seen all of them, all of them under the same light. Mostly negative. Think Revolutionary Road, American Beauty, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Blue Valentine. Think in the […]
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Child of America
Why are independent movies so important to the film industry nowadays? Look closer and you’ll see that before and after 9/11 independent movies began to emerge onto the big stage. In the last few years there’s been three independent Best Picture winners; Moonlight, Spotlight and Birdman. Among other Oscar winning movies in recent years you have Room, Whiplash, Boyhood, Beasts of the […]
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The Janitor in all of Us
I want to talk about what it means for a character to be ‘contemporary’ because we hear that word being thrown around a lot lately. ‘Contemporary’ best describes something that is happening right now, right this second. It is an observation of the present time and something that applies to a large group of people. Some […]
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And the Oscar goes to…
Today’s topic: this year’s Oscar nominations. Many people tend to ignore the Oscars, simply considering it a celebrity event, and even more people don’t care about Oscar status as a whole. Rightly so. However, it is important to remember that being nominated for or even winning the prestigious golden boy often leads to more possibilities […]
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King of Independence
Today’s topic: the man who keeps independent filmmaking alive. In an era where Hollywood blockbusters have taken over every big cinema theater in every country, independent cinema is starting to take a new turn and progress with time. Think about it, back in the day some of the biggest names were making movies for themselves instead […]