Cinemadope
Cinemadope: Holmes Sweet Holmes
When it comes to our popular heroes, few if any can match the long and varied history of Sherlock Holmes. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous “consulting detective” made his debut in the 1887 tale A Study in Scarlet, and from the get go Holmes changed the detective game...
Cinemadope: Hello Dolly – One man’s imaginary world
Eighteen years ago, Mark Hogancamp lost his life. That is not the same thing as saying that Mark Hogancamp died, because he didn’t. But when the Navy veteran was beaten so badly in a 5-on-1 attack outside a bar that he ended up in a nine-day coma, large parts of his...
Cinemadope: How Swede It Is
If you’re anything like me, your schedule is a mess this month. End-of-year holidays, school vacations, shifted work schedules and last-minute shopping excursions: it all combines to make December the month where our regular calendars get thrown out the window. So it...
Cinemadope: Beast Mode – New stories in an old world
It’s almost the holiday season once again, which means that in a few short weeks many of us will be revisiting Pottersville, the what-if town that will come to pass if George Bailey decides to end his heroic existence in It’s a Wonderful Life. Filled with seedy bars,...
Cinemadope: Ski Mogul – The legacy of Warren Miller
If you’ve ever been on a pair of skis, you know the feeling: a strange and exhilarating mixture of lightness and speed, freedom and danger, that feels a bit like a giddy dream of flight and a bit like you’re cheating death. And while today’s aerialists — particularly...
Cinemadope: Two stories of Jewish struggle
Like so many, I have been glued to my radio these last few weeks, as ever-changing reports have been released about the death of Saudi journalist and author Jamal Khashoggi. Those horrifying reports have often been paired with reports from the Saudi Arabia-Yemen...
Cinemadope: Legends onscreen and off
Even as a young actor, Robert Redford often carried himself with the quiet dignity of an old-timer. In films like The Sting and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Redford combined his boyish charm and good looks with a steady center that seemed borrowed from an older...
Cinemadope: King of Queen
Few people could command a stage the way Freddie Mercury did. Frontman for legendary rock band Queen as well as a solo artist, Mercury always seemed bigger than his own body; his energy, his sexuality, and above all his voice — that incredible, glass-clear, voice,...
Cinemadope: A filmmaker gets her due
In the world of filmmaking, the French New Wave is the Dylan-goes-electric moment. Rejecting the period dramas that had theretofore dominated screens, the group of European filmmakers who led the new artistic charge instead found inspiration in the modern world, and...
Cinemadope: First Blood – a director sets his direction
If you’re familiar with the name Dario Argento, it’s most likely through his stylishly supernatural horror film Suspiria. That 1977 film, about an American ballet student who gets caught up in an otherworldly conspiracy at a German dance academy, was like a...
Cinemadope: The Informant – A drug war casualty
In regional conflicts around the world, the use of child soldiers has become a sadly common phenomenon. Boys and girls — some still under ten — are pulled or forced into violent, dangerous situations far beyond anything they are prepared for physically or emotionally....
Cinemadope: Hollywood Hilltown — A small town with a big festival
Pull up the details on the Franklin County town of Ashfield, and it might look like a sleepy little drive-through of a place: population hovering somewhere under two thousand, a pizza place that gets good reviews, a lot of trees. You could be forgiven for thinking...
Cinemadope: Starman – the undeniable talents of David Bowie
For all his undeniable talent as a musician and songwriter, the late David Bowie was always an incredibly visual creature. His many guises onstage and off told the story of an artist completely comfortable with the process of reinventing himself, and while some might...
Cinemadope: Women Rockers in Film
When I opened Instagram over my morning coffee one recent morning, the first face staring back at me was that of a blue-haired Alice Bag, the fifty-nine year old punk icon and activist. Still a force after some four decades in the game, Bag and her band had played a...
Cinemadope: Art and the business of art
Like musicians and record labels, the worlds of artists and art dealers have never been quite in the same business. Despite all the often necessary crossover and interaction, there is often a nagging feeling (if our films are to be believed) that while one half of the...
Cinemadope: ‘The Judge’ stirs the stagnant waters of the Middle Eastern judiciary
Back in my art school days, I was always fascinated by my art history classes. Seeing our changing world reflected back at me through the lens of artistic evolution made the lives lived in the distant past seem much more like my own — less a mannered bit of historical...
Cinemadope: Christopher Robin explores what stays with us from childhood
Close your eyes, and think back to the stories of your youth. It’s remarkable, how strongly they stay with us. The recent release of Morgan Neville’s Mr. Rogers documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? put a spell on me, casting me back to my own childhood — Fred Rogers...
Cinemadope: The Theme Song’s the Thing in Mission: Impossible
Film and television may be the land of the moving image, but it has sure given us a lot of great music over the years. Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly, quietly breathing out Moon River. Shirley Bassey’s brassy, wagging Goldfinger. The many themes and soundtracks...
Cinemadope: Mama Africa Miriam Makeba continues to inspire
When the world lost Miriam Makeba in 2008, we lost a great musical and political voice. The first African musician to become a solid international star, her powerful singing crossed national divides without ever losing touch with her South African roots — no mean...
Cinemadope: The private life of iconoclast Grace Jones
Growing up, I wasn’t often presented with images of strong women. You’d see the occasional Rosie the Riveter magnet here and there, but even then it seemed odd to me that it required sending most of the male population to an overseas war before a woman got a chance to...
Cinemadope: Animated summer fare in the Valley
It’s finally getting into the full swing of summer here in the Valley — the asparagus festival has come and gone, the colleges have mostly emptied out, and keeping up with the yard work is beginning to turn downright Sisyphean. If you find yourself longing for a...
Cinemadope: A great time for film lovers to check out Forbes Library
Something I’ve come to love about Father’s Day weekend is my own dad’s profound disinterest in the world of the internet. He doesn’t give a fig for Facebook, has no email address, and if he were ever involved with something viral it would be cause for a trip to the...
Cinemadope: A filmmaker becomes part of an immigrant’s harrowing journey
Open a newspaper, turn on your television, scroll through your Facebook feed: it won’t be long before you’re face to face with the ongoing discussion of the state of immigration in America. To be sure, the current resident of the White House — whose policies have...
Cinemadope: Lowest to Highest at the Ciclismo Classico Bike Travel Film Festival at the Academy of Music
Unless you’re a diehard cyclist, we are just now into the high season for bikes. (You’ll know you’re a diehard if you own snow tires for your ride.) For many, it’s one of the rare enjoyments that span a lifetime; our first great sense of freedom is often found when a...
Cinemadope: Jean Michel Basquiat and David Hockney on the big screen
Movies about painters are tough in the way that movies about musicians are tough: it’s nigh impossible to find an actor or actress for the part that is not only adept in their own chosen field, but also good enough to fake the very real particular talents of those...
Cinemadope: The deadly ‘crime’ of being black
Last month, the story of Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson lit up social media feeds everywhere. Two young black men, they were waiting quietly for a friend at a Philadelphia Starbucks when one of them asked to use the restroom. After an employee refused — they hadn’t...
Cinemadope: Academy of Music hosts history tour, two great films this week
Even in a New England town with a fair bit of history, the Academy of Music in Northampton has roots that run deep. Founded on the vision of philanthropist and Northampton native Edward Lyman, the Academy opened to the public in May of 1891 and quickly became a...
Cinemadope: A courtside seat with Norotious RBG (Ruth Bader Ginsberg)
Celebrity is a funny thing. Usually, it charts along one or two familiar trajectories: the discovery of some young talent, followed by either the long work of career-building or the short decline of a crash-and-burn. But once in awhile, someone captures the public...
Cinemadope: The kaleidoscopic philosophy of jazz percussionist Milford Graves
So few of us follow our deepest drives — it’s a path that leads along high wires and narrow ledges, and for many, the fear of failing big keeps us dreaming small. On the other end of human experience is a man like Milford Graves. Graves is a renowned percussionist who...
Cinemadope: Into the Doc
If you caught the 2016 screening of Khalik Allah’s Field Niggas at Amherst Cinema, you got an early look at the filmmaker’s meditative and searching vision. That film, an hour-long gaze at the faces and bodies of the men and women passing through an East Harlem...
Cinemadope: Getting schooled on schools – A Backpack Full of Cash
American schools — and the teachers and students that fill their halls — have been in the news quite a bit lately. More and more, it seems that the reality of the classroom has become lost in a fog of “thoughts and prayers.” But it isn’t only during the...
Cinemadope: Bringing the Red Sox to Israel
After a long winter, spring has returned to Western Mass. And with it, as hotly anticipated as any crocus, comes a new season of Red Sox baseball. It’s a tradition that we have come to take for granted, and even when it’s not a great season — let’s face it,...
Cinemadope: Andy Goldsworthy makes me want to go outside
Live in New England long enough, and it’s easy to begin to take it for granted. The deeply quiet winters, the burst and blaze of autumn, the summer thunderstorm that chases away July’s heavy heat — our seasonal weather and landscapes become a way to mark our calendar...
Cinemadope: Slavery Then and Now
So much can depend on a word. Ava DuVernay’s 2016 documentary about race and the sprawling prison-industrial complex that has bloomed in modern America is called “13th,” but it could very well have been titled with another single word: “Except.” That word, nestled...
Cinemadope: The Room director returns
When Tommy Wiseau’s film The Room finally found its audience, it was as a famously awful piece of filmmaking — watching it was like seeing a tornado tear through a garbage dump. Whether or not the director has ever fully grasped the workings of his fame is still an...
Cinemadope: Hedy Times
It couldn’t have been easy to be known as The Most Beautiful Woman in the World. But that was the way actress Hedy Lamarr was presented to American audiences by studio head Louis B. Mayer, who came across the star during a European jaunt in the late 1930s. By then,...
Cinemadope: The Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival Returns
Now in its 13th year, the Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival has proven itself to be one of the area’s most popular cinematic traditions. And with good reason: the festival is a wide-reaching affair that brings its offerings not just to one theater, but to screens...
Cinemadope: A Horror Film Stitched Together from Horror Films at Amherst
It’s always been a point of pride at Amherst Cinema that they are no mere movie house. Plunked down right in the heart of the town’s downtown, flanked by coffee spots and park greens, the theater has always been something of a community hub. Perhaps it would have been...
Cinemadope: Oscar Shorts at the Berkshire Museum
The dust may finally be settling on the latest Super Bowl — at least outside of Philly — but for film fans, it’s the coming weeks that are the lead-up to the biggest contest of all: the Oscars. The 90th Academy Awards ceremony is set to go off on the first Sunday of...
Cinemadope: Playing yourself in an Iranian film on a real crime
Review movies long enough, and you’ll hear the tale of Taste of Cherry. The 1997 film from Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami won the Palme d’Or at that year’s Cannes Film Festival, and was hailed by many as a masterpiece. But when it hit theaters in the U.S., there...
Cinemadope: KidsBestFest a February Tradition
We parents of the Pioneer Valley have a pretty sweet deal. You might not realize it if you don’t have kids in your life, but once you’re clued into it you begin to discover that there is a near-endless list of things to do with your little ones. Hayrides, science...
Cinemadope: One Saturday, Many Films
A few years back, I spent most of my weekends running around Western Mass as part of an acoustic jazz band. We played parties, weddings, and a lot of restaurant gigs, but the place I was always happiest to see was the welcoming porch of Elmer’s Store in Ashfield....
Cinemadope: Alone/Together
One of the stranger aspects of moviegoing is that it is at once a grand communal act and an intensely private experience. We gather together in dark rooms as if in secret churches, and when the crowd is right it can feel as if we’ve all been through something together...
Cinemadope: Different Strokes
Few artists have captured the public’s fancy like Vincent Van Gogh. His richly textured landscapes, interiors, and portraits, built up with a painterly impasto as inviting as a rich ganache, seem to grow in popularity with every passing year. And while the calendar...
Cinemadope: True North
As the father of three little kids, I’ve come to regard the entertainment world — especially television and movie fare — as an ever-shifting battlefront. I’m not interested in shutting them off from the experience, but figuring out how to make it both enjoyable and...
Cinemadope: Guiding Light
It’s tough to start a new year on a sad note, but it was only after the last Cinemadope’s deadline that I got the news that Duane Robinson had passed away. The driving force behind the revival of the Academy of Music in Northampton, and its enthusiastic and dedicated...
Cinemadope: Changing Focus
With the new year scratching at the door, it’s natural to take a reckoning of the one gone by. People tend to focus on the big changes — smoking, the gym, a reading list — but mixing up the smaller things can make a big difference too. Try getting your coffee at a...
Cinemadope: Life Goes On
Speak of nuclear winter, and my thoughts go not to bleak, windswept plains. There are no undead hordes clawing at my clapboards, no marauding gangs out collecting rainwater. In my (admittedly hopeful) imagined ruins, we can all rely on the safety of one thing: the...
Cinemadope: Beuys Club
Even among artists, Joseph Beuys has often flown under the radar, someone known more for his enduring impact than his individual works. During my days in art school, Beuys was a name dropped conspicuously into conversations by those who wanted to make sure you knew...
Cinemadope: Into the Woods
The Valley and the Berkshires have long offered a snug home — or a cozy getaway — for artists, musicians, and playwrights looking for a nourishing balance of quiet and culture. For visiting New Yorkers, especially, it seems to be an irresistible draw as a spot to...
Cinemadope: From Punk to Monk
We all die. That great inescapable fact is the one sure thing we all share, but how the knowledge of it affects each of us is a profoundly personal thing. Some people rarely think of it until it is upon them, while others dwell in thoughts of dying. Some are paralyzed...
Pixar Strikes Again With More Diversity in Coco
Pixar has had a remarkable run. Beginning in 1985, with Toy Story, the animation studio has produced a body of work that has set — and maintained — a high bar for mainstream animation. While the Toy Story franchise proved to be the gift that kept on giving (a fourth...Cinemadope: Bold Ballet on Screen
As the days grow shorter here in the Valley, we begin to hear whispers of that famous annual December celebration. Children look forward to it for months, and adults go shopping early to make sure they get everything they need before the best stock is sold. I’m...
Cinemadope: A Fan Steps into the Spotlight in “Good Ol’ Freda”
It’s a fool’s game to think that the past can’t be topped, but let’s play it for a moment: can there ever be another phenomenon like the Beatles? Whether you count yourself a fan or not, the band — their impact was never only about their music — set off a sea change...
Cinemadope: Decay Okay
When my grandfather died, some years ago now, my mother and I spent the days that followed going through his apartment to sort through the belongings he’d left behind, trying to figure out what we should keep and what we could safely shunt along to the garbage heap....
Cinemadope: Calling in Sick
When we write the history of the last decade, the smartphone will surely loom large. Since 2007, when the iPhone was unveiled, these little packages of silicon and glass have become almost literally an extension of ourselves, attached to the ends of our arms to...
Cinemadope: Blank’s Canvas
In his four-plus decades of filmmaking, director Les Blank (1935-2013) embodied the best of American documentary filmmaking. While his best-known work remains Burden of Dreams (a wild look at the insanity that was the production of his fellow director and friend...
Cinemadope: Films Fulfilling Three Kinds of Dread
It’s October in New England, and that means it’s time for some annual traditions. Some are timeless, passed down through the generations—apple picking, hayrides—while others are more recent, and hopefully less long-lasting—the inane back and forth bickering of the...
Cinemadope: Dick Pics
It would be unfair to the memory of Philip K. Dick to say that he’s having a resurgence. The author, who passed away at the age of 53 in 1982, has been more visible than usual of late thanks to a few headline grabbing adaptations, most notably the sci-fi sequel Blade...E-Edition
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