Film
Pick of the Day 4/13: Brain Damage at Amherst Cinema
It’s Friday the 13th and if you were a big humdrum, you’d watch Friday the 13th. But because you like to think outside the box, your best bet for horror tonight is Brain Damage! Here’s how Amherst Cinema describes this…uh…film. ...
Pick of the Day: Foxtrot at Amherst Cinema
Michael and Dafna’s son Jonathan is killed while serving in the Israeli Defense Forces; they experience gut-wrenching grief when army officials show up at their home to announce his death. The family’s overzealous mourning, as well as the army’s...
Pick of the Day: Panique at HCC
Catch the tail end of Holyoke Community College’s 2018 French Film Festival. Bring your escargot and beret to watch Panique, a 1947 adaptation of Mr. Hire’s Engagement by Belgian crime writer Georges Simenon. It’s a “bleak picture of human nature at its vilest...
Drummer for ‘Black Panther’ soundtrack visits Pioneer Valley for first view of film
Black Panther smashed global box office records when it opened in February, and like any good action movie part of the magic of Black Panther is the soundtrack. While watching the movie, there’s one part of the soundtrack that you might not notice at first: the tama,...
Pick of the Day 3/27: Chinatown at Amherst Cinema
Tonight at Amherst Cinema, Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway star in the 1974 mystery classic mystery Chinatown. The omnipresent Wikipedia describes it as having “many elements of film noir, particularly a multi-layered story that is part mystery and part...
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...
Pick of the Day 3/25: Ingmar Bergman’s Seventh Seal
Okay, if you’re into the Grim Reaper, a disillusioned knight, the plague, a terrible stage performer who sees visions, chess and the oh-so-fun Crusades, then you’ll be into Ingmar Bergman’s classic film The Seventh Seal. It involves a lot more but...
Pick of the Day 3/20: PVJFF Raise the Roof
Boston artists Rick and Laura Brown of Handhouse Studio embarked on a 10-year journey to reconstruct the elaborate roof painting and ceiling of the Gwoździec synagogue. The project involved over 300 students and professionals from 16 countries. During those years...
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...
Pick of the Day 3/19: East Jerusalem, West Jerusalem
As part of the Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival : Released in 2014, East Jerusalem West Jerusalem is a musical documentary which follows Israeli singer-songwriter David Broza as he records a new album with a mix of Israeli and Palestinian musicians. Broza is able...
Pick of the Day 3/13: Netflix
If you haven’t noticed, winter and spring are in an epic battle for dominance; my money is on spring because nobody puts spring in a corner. Today, however, winter is landing another merciless flurry of punches and opening a great big can of whoop a**. And if...
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...
Pick of the Day 3/7: Adam Benzine’s Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah
The Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival will screen a special director’s cut of Adam Benzine’s 2015 documentary, Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah. It took French journalist, philosopher, and filmmaker Claude Lanzmann, 12 years to make his...
Pick of the Day 2/28: Countdown Zero at Forbes Library
It’s kind of a bummer, but real life usually is. The 2010 documentary Countdown Zero (as part of the Forbes Library’s Resistance Film Series) traces the history of the atomic bomb from its origins to the present state of global affairs. It argues that the...
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...
Pick of the Day 2/24: Telluride Mountain Film Festival at Hampshire College
Hampshire College invites you to enjoy a few hours of action packed films from the Telluride Mountain Film Festival. Mountainfilm travels year round and worldwide with a selection of its best short films. This year, 13 films are screening at Franklin Patterson Hall...
Pick of the Day 2/19: Hidden Figures at Amherst Cinema
Hidden Figures As Elon Musk’s Space X program soars, NASA’s illustrious history seems a little dull. One way to put back the shine is to see Hidden Figures, the three time Oscar nominated film starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monae....
Blaise’s Bad Movie Guide: “Son of The Pink Panther” falls far from the tree
It may come as a surprise to my faithful readers that I actually own a few classy movies — notably, the well-regarded “Pink Panther” series starring the great Peter Sellers as Detective Inspector Clouseau. After Sellers’ death, the producers unwisely decided to try to...
Things To Do: Love, Anime Style, at Tower Theaters
Valentines Day, February 14, catch Cardcaptor Sakura: The Sealed Card. Romance and intrigue, Japanese anime style. South Hadley’s Tower Theaters, 19 College Street, South Hadley. 9 p.m. $12.50 in advance; $14 at the door. towertheaters.com. — Gina...
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: 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...
Stream Queen: Distract Your Family with These Jolly Seasonal Picks
If you’ve turned on a radio recently or gone into any store, you may have noticed that the holidays are approaching — some faster than others, as Hanukkah began this week. For most of us, that means that it’s time to prepare for family gatherings, gift exchanges, and...
Literally, what would Jesus do? A chat with Jesus Christ Superstar’s Ted Neeley
Ted Neeley is not the second coming of Jesus Christ. But he does play one in the extremely popular show and accompanying 1973 movie Jesus Christ Superstar. The show went from being protested in the streets to one of the biggest Broadway sensations, touring around the...
Blaise’s Bad Movie Guide: The Crawling Eye
I recently had the opportunity to visit the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem and view an exhibit by Kirk Hammett. “Kirk who?” you ask. Why, none other than the lead guitarist for the thrash metal band Metallica. Can’t say I was ever a fan, but Hammett’s collection on...
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...
This Halloween, Let These Psychological Horror Movies Brainwash You
The leaves are changing, there’s a chill in the air, and every cafe has restocked their pumpkin spice syrup. Fall is finally here, and if you’re interested in movies, that means two things: nearby Oscar season means there are finally some good films in theatres again,...
Stream Queen: Shudder Offers Thrills and Chills for Cheap
If you’re anything like me, you’ve shuffled through the Horror section on Netflix, glassy-eyed yet hopeful that somehow, while you weren’t looking, they added something worth watching. It feels like you’ve seen everything in this section worth seeing, and next month...
Stream Queen: Shows and Films to Lose Your Sanity To
For all the amazing potential of life, sometimes things just suck. In times of confusion and desolation, we often turn to art. Maybe we want to use fictional problems to understand our own real ones, or maybe we just want to turn something on as a distraction. Hard...
What the Film? It’s Northampton Film Fest
A birdboy, 1900s Northampton, virtual realities, silly horror, and brimstone are among this year’s offerings at the Northampton Film Festival. Now in its third year under the leadership of Northampton Community Television, the annual multi-day event gets going...
Craving Cool Independent Films/TV Online? Check Out Seed & Spark
In this ever-expanding world of streaming platforms, it can be difficult to look outside the Big Three: Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime. Viewers mainly feel constrained to these options because of their connections with major networks, their buying power for big-name...
Gotta Get ‘Back To The Future’
Northampton Community TV’s Crowdsourced Cinema project has spawned shot-for-shot remakes of Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Princess Bride. But this year’s title — the time travel epic Back to the Future (aka my favorite movie OF ALL TIME) — meant the...
Cinemadope: Actor-in-Chief, Reagan forever changed the role of US President (Spoiler! Not for the Better)
With the ongoing avalanche of reporting on Russia and that nation’s relationship with our current president, it feels almost quaint to look back on the days of the Reagan era. Certainly there was international intrigue then, but today, the jelly beans and faux...
Cinemadope: How Reagan Forever Changed The Presidency
With the ongoing avalanche of reporting on Russia and that nation’s relationship with our current president, it feels almost quaint to look back on the days of the Reagan era. Certainly there was international intrigue then, but today, the jelly beans and faux...
Stream Queen: Movies And Shows The Critics Got Wrong
Since its inception in the late 19th century, film has evolved from a seemingly trivial medium into one of the most wide-reaching and popular industries. Film criticism has grown right along with it, as academic and journalistic reviewers endlessly argue over film’s...
Discussing Far Out Films in the Forbes Library Basement
I’ve always been interested in surrealism, but never quite enough to actually do any research into it beyond looking at some Salvador Dali paintings. But one reference to a surrealist work stuck with me. In the 2011 Woody Allen movie Midnight In Paris, the surrealist...
Cinemadope: It Takes Two To Go Down In A Bloody Shootout
For as long as stories have been told, they have been told about pairs: Odysseus and Penelope, Arthur and Merlin, Bugs and Elmer. It’s a rare tale that doesn’t focus, in some way, on that essential human desire to connect. It can bring us to ecstasy or despair —...
StreamQueen: Indie Films Coming Off the Festival Circuit You’ve Gotta See
Though digital media has forever changed the face of filmmaking, there’s still one key way independent filmmakers can premiere their work: by entering it into the festival circuit. Each year many films, spanning all lengths and genres, debut to those lucky minority...
Cinemadope: That Time the MoMA Refused to Return Nazi-Stolen Art
My first exposure to Egon Schiele came via Deane G. Keller, an artist and professor whose figure drawing classes remain one of my most lasting memories of art school. We had been working on some hand studies when he suggested I might enjoy the Austrian artist’s work,...
Cinemadope: ‘Wanna-Bes Need Not Apply,’ Documentary on Madonna’s Back-up Voguers
“Wimps and Wanna-Be’s need not apply!” That was the tagline of a print ad announcing an open audition for “FIERCE Male Dancers” who wanted to earn a spot on Madonna’s controversial, ground-breaking Blond Ambition Tour in 1990. It would have been a dream job for any...
Stream Queen: Video Soundtrack Of Your Summer
When Queen released their music video for “Bohemian Rhapsody” back in the ‘70s, it’s doubtful they thought the medium would ever become as quintessential as it has today. In this millennium of viral content and streaming video, music videos have become an artist’s...
Cinemadope: I Like Mike, Michael Keaton doesn’t get enough credit
In film, there have always been levels of stardom. There are those stars whose wattage is measured in tooth whiteness, and whose films are expected to earn many millions based more or less on their mere presence — your Pitts, your Cruises, your Lawrences. Then there...
Blaise’s Bad Movie Guide: Wonder Woman’s Got Nothing on Feline Empowerment
For Father’s Day, I was treated to a screening of the new Wonder Woman movie. My daughter summed it up well: It was better than good, but not great. What I cannot understand is the fever this movie has generated. Women-only showings? Were there any women-only showings...
Cinemadope: Better Than Finding A 45-Year-Old Porno
Many years ago, I found myself deep in the basement of the old Pleasant Street Theater (now the location of McLadden’s pub in Northampton), cleaning out some old storage lockers. From one of them, I pulled out a dented, dusty, film can, a flat circle of metal about 15...
Long Live the Staycation! Why Leave Western Mass?
Hanging around the house is something we all do, but usually in an unfocused, squished-between-chores-and-obligations sort of way. But when you stay home for vacation, your dwelling can become a sanctuary, free from the day-to-day grind. If you can’t afford to get out...
Cinemadope: City Mouse, Rat Film exposes who the rodents really are in Baltimore
Fans of filmmaker John Waters might be familiar with the director’s odd fascination with rats. They crop up with some regularity in his life and work — from the original poster for 1977’s Desperate Living, which featured a cooked rat on a restaurant dinner plate, to...
Cinemadope: Mad Max ‘Black & Chrome’ Escapes Hollywood’s Color Crutch
There has been a trend in Hollywood filmmaking that, for the last decade or so, has steadily changed the look of our blockbusters. It’s a pervasive change, but one that has happened gradually enough that many people aren’t even aware that it has been happening, quite...
‘Ask a Punk’ Documentary on Western Mass DIY gives glimpse into growing music scene (w/vid)
Amherst College junior Brian Zayatz’s new documentary, Ask a Punk, opens on a dark basement. You can’t see much other than some hazy Christmas lights in the frame. Some very involved yet calming music — tritones soaked in reverb — plays in the background. This...
Cinemadope: It’s Going to Be a Damn Fine Reboot, and FREE Streaming Movies )w/vid)
Amherst Cinema is gearing up for the return of Special Agent Dale Cooper. Kyle MacLachlan returns to TV this week in his early role as Cooper, the FBI man who got tied up in the death of Laura Palmer and the mysteries of Twin Peaks when the show of the same name first...
Cinemadope: Would You Take a Bullet for Art? Documentary on full-throttle artist Chris Burden (w/vid)
For such a rich subject, films about art and the people that make it all too often feel either forced and flat or ridiculously over the top. Better, usually, to take the documentary route, and let the art speak for itself. That’s the course taken by directors Timothy...
Blaise’s Bad Movie Guide: ‘Bad Channels’ Tune Into 666 … if you dare (w/vid)
I was saddened when I heard the news that Paul O’Neil, the founder of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, had died. It seems my favorite bands have either passed away (the Ramones, the Cramps), or are eligible for AARP but continue to stumble on. In addition to Sparks and...
Rabbit Season: ‘Donnie Darko,’ cult classic about a boy and an apocalyptic bunny, returns to the screen
In the world of film, it is sometimes depressingly simple to point out why a given film is popular: perfectly groomed stars with gleaming teeth, things going boom, good over evil. I get it — we are, by and large, easy to please, and that’s okay. It’s just not that...
Stagestruck: ‘Life in the (413)’ skewers local culture Saturday
Back in the day — way, way back — live radio drama was a staple of the airwaves. As script-toting actors gathered around microphones, their dialogue was peppered with live sound effects, backed by a live band and punctuated with live commercial breaks, often with a...
Cinemadope: This Is Spinal Tap deadpans for gold
While the idea of a “mockumentary” now seems almost old-hat, in 1984 director Rob Reiner gave birth to the zany medium. His ridiculously entertaining satire about life on the road with aging, British metal band Spinal Tap during their American comeback tour was mostly...
The DO NOT WATCH List
This week, our resident Stream Queen Lena Wilson offers a journey into some high-minded flicks beyond old Cheech and Chong movies (see pg. 18). But Advocate staff thought it equally important to share a blacklist of movies and TV shows to avoid when high — at...
Stream Queen: Blazing flicks to watch while high
It’s 4/20, and whether you consider today a national holiday or just a chance to gather some friends and smoke, you’ll probably end up watching something. Thankfully, now that it’s no longer the ’70s, stoners can open Netflix or YouTube and watch something unique and...
Film Screening: Holding Hands with Ilse
Strangers No More In the 1950s, Hampshire College professor Abraham Ravett relocated with his Polish Jewish family from Eastern Europe to the United States. Ravett was just three at the time of the move, but he carried with him a memory — and a single black-and-white...
Cinemadope: Hopptornet, a documentary that pushes people to jump
Maine Course Like so many of my middle-aged compatriots, I seem to have adopted food as a new hobby. Not cooking, necessarily — quite a bit of this particular enterprise is taken up simply by watching other people cook, it turns out — but eating, at least. And what...
Spring Arts Preview: Top Valley Events (April-June 2017)
Tweet Puppets for the People From its founding in New York’s Lower East Side in 1963 to its decades-long residence in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, Bread & Puppet Theater remains one of the country’s most inventive and internationally recognized performing...
Stream Queen: From Low-Budget Dreams to Indie Esteem
In our world of studio filmmaking driven by franchises and sequels, creators looking to develop original ideas are often restricted to independent production. While indie filmmaking means working on a shoestring budget, it also often means the cast and crew are...E-Edition
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