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Showing posts from 2018

Watch: ALL OF VENOM: Mashup of “All of Me” and “Venom”

Venom , the latest Marvel (anti) superhero film, limps into theatres this weekend with an unimpressive 30% on Rotten Tomatoes . However, I'm sure that won't prevent it from making boo koo bucks at the box office. What I'm more interested in is how Venom will fit into the annals of film history -- because it does! While this isn't my first Venom mashup video (see my The Venom Drop teaser trailer), I do think that my new mashup, All Of Venom , really speaks to what Venom  ultimately will be remembered for:  Tom Hardy 's committed physical performance and how it plays as a companion piece to the 1984 romantic fantasy comedy All of Me starring ( Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin ). In Venom , Hardy's character Eddie Brock gets possessed by an alien symbiote and must learn to share his host body with said being. In All of Me , Martin's character gets possessed by the soul of the recently deceased Edwina Cutwater (Tomlin) and -- yup, you guessed it -- must lea

#InformedImages: “Heat,” “The Dark Knight,” “Cliffhanger” and “Mission: Impossible - Fallout”

#InformedImages is a Free Cinema Now series that studies and brings to light influential films and other examples of moving images that informed and inspired specific visuals in later works. Christopher McQuarrie 's Mission: Impossible - Fallout is a triumph for the M:I franchise. Not only is it a superior sequel in the series, it's the best of the films since the original M:I entry (directed by  Brian De Palma ). Watching Fallout in theatres this past summer was one of the most exciting screening experiences I've had in a very long time. Each action sequence delivers the thrills and each is exceptional in their own right (from an electric HALO jump sequence to a bloody bathroom brawl in a nightclub). Since  Fallout is an important achievement in the action film canon, it is just as important to understand why this film rises above most other action films. A big part of that achievement, of course, comes from the writing, directing, editing, music and the amazing

Watch: "Surveillance & Police States in Night of the Living Dead"

One of the enduring traits of the video essay genre is its invitation to revisit films that -- in all other instances -- have been exhaustively talked about, studied or celebrated and still be able to find new enlightenment in them. Caleb Hutchinson 's video essay  Surveillance & Police States in Night of the Living Dead covers some big ideas (political upheaval, societal unrest and ecosystems, etc.) within its modest three-minute running time. Hutchinson is working on a parallel of plane of thought to George Romero 's iconic Night of the Living Dead and it's fitting that both Romero and Hutchinson subtly instigate so much (inside the viewer) with so little (as far as production resources go). Enough from me. Go ahead and watch for yourself.

#FreeCinemaNow Moves From Chicago To Los Angeles

Some personal news here. For those who don't follow me on social media: I recently made the move from Chicago, Illinois to Los Angeles, California  in early April. The move was spurred by a new daytime television job with CBS, following my previous three seasons with NBCUniversal and Endemol Shine North America. That is why this site hasn't had any new content since late March. As you can imagine, it's been a very busy -- and sometimes stressful -- transition but it's all for a bigger purpose.  Now that I'm a little more settled into Hollywood, my plan is to continue creating both written and moving image content for this site (especially for my #InformedImages video essay series). I also plan to take my DIY Chicago video art aestheticism and embed it into the scene here in Los Angeles. I think it's time to bring that street  flavor to west coast... Anyways, that's it for now. More soon! NC Note : that image at the top is from one of the

Mashup Trailer: Sweet Baadassss Roman J. Israel, Esq.

Last year's Roman J. Israel, Esq. , starring legendary screen actor Denzel Washington , was one of 2017's significant cinematic disappointments. Considering director  Dan Gilroy 's impressive directorial debut Nightcrawler  (starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Riz Ahmed ), Roman was more than just textbook "sophomore slump" material, it was a perplexing exercise that kept viewers asking themselves, "What am I watching?" and "What were the filmmakers thinking?" Roman told the story (I guess) of an idealistic lawyer (Washington) who gets in over his head once he takes over a hostile criminal case from his late mentor and boss...but already I'm making the film sound much more interesting and exciting than it really is. Colin Farrell co-stars as a hot shot attorney and marginal friend to our protagonist but he's underused in the role. As I reflected on the dud that this movie is, not the mention how it unbelievably scored Washington a Best

Watch: "All That Jedi" injects "Star Wars" with some Bob Fosse dazzle

Luke Skywalker needs his alien milk just like Joe Gideon needs his Dexedrine. At least that's how I like to imagine things in the movie universe playing out in my head. It's no secret that I thought Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi  had a lot of problems , and in the months since first watching it my disappointment in writer/director Rian Johnson 's film has only grown. As a result, I began creating a mashup in my head, inspired by some of the ludicrous imagery in The Last Jedi (e.g. Rey snapping her fingers to some interpretative dance choreography in front of a mirror...in a cave) to think of how this latest installment would play out in the late Bob Fosse 's universe of divine decadence. Fosse, the celebrated theatre director and Oscar-winning filmmaker, was a consummate creator, always searching for the internal intersection of passion and pain. The (anti)hero of his best film  All That Jazz  is Joe Gideon, the drug-addled, sleepless and charismatic dire

Watch: Errol Morris' 1991 Documentary on Stephen Hawking, "A Brief History of Time"

Yesterday we learned that the brilliant and world-renowned theoretical physicist  Stephen Hawking  passed away at the age of 76. In the early 1960s,  Hawking developed an early form of motor neurone disease, debilitating and paralyzing him throughout the decades. However, he did not let such a devastating physical disability stop him from becoming a truly iconic figure, thinker and leader in the sciences, and in specific, cosmology. Hawking's built a legacy of scientific works, breakthroughs and publications throughout his academic career but it was his best selling book "A Brief History of Time" that caught the eye of acclaimed documentary filmmaker Errol Morris (Oscar winner for  The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara ). Morris' doc A Brief History of Time  looks at the impressive life and work of Hawking, told in the signature way that only Morris can, all scored to a soundtrack composed by  Philip Glass . While the film is ava

Review: "The Strangers: Prey At Night"

It's kind of hard to believe that  The Strangers came out almost ten years ago. I wasn't too thrilled about the film back then and it's slipped from my memory since. Still, it's hard to understand why it took so long for a sequel to get churned out, considering the first film was a surprise hit for a seemingly elementary premise: A couple ( Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman ) is terrorized inside their vacation home by three masked murderers. The money shot in The Strangers , as many moviegoers already know, is of Tyler's character standing next to her kitchen, completely unaware of the murderous intruder slowly appearing the dark background. The shot is unnerving for two reasons: 1.) The evil figure dons a homemade Halloween mask made out of a burlap sack and 2.) The scene takes its time to linger, allowing our eyes to make the horrifying discovery for ourselves. Too bad the rest of The Strangers isn't as clever. It devolves into a "shock horror" gimm

Winnie the Pooh Mashup Trailer: "Christopher Robin & Ted"

"Sooner or later, your past catches up to you." That's the tagline  Disney is going with for their live-action Winnie the Pooh movie Christopher Robin , starring Ewan McGregor . While watching the teaser trailer (which debuted today) and getting my first look at a real life Winnie the Pooh talking bear, I couldn't help but be reminded of  Seth MacFarlane 's Ted , the R-rated comedy which featured a protagonist who's a foul-mouthed talking teddy bear. Ironically enough, MacFarlane's talking bear Ted has a much more cuddly and lovable look to him. Disney decided to give Winnie the Pooh a crude and homely-looking appearance -- not exactly what you'd expect for their intended child audience. So I decided to create this mashup trailer, which rewrites Christopher Robin's (McGregor) backstory to suggest that Ted was his original bear and he just sewed up the teddy bear's parts to look like Winnie the Pooh. Talk about your past catching up to y

Watch: Catherine Grant's Video Remix "Centenary Dream 1918-2018"

In this clever video remix, Catherine Grant takes audio from the season 2 trailer of HBO's Westworld and couples it with tinted footage from the 2015 historical drama  Suffragette , starring Carey Mulligan . The result is a charming and clever video short that plays like a silent film from the late 1920s; the movement seems to slightly pause every few frames, giving everything an archival footage feel, like we're looking at something dug up from the past. It's a neat moving image experiment. Watch Grant's video remix  Centenary Dream 1918-2018 below.

Interview with "Abacus: Small Enough to Jail" Director Steve James

When documentary filmmaker Steve James hits the red carpet at tomorrow night's 90th Academy Awards , it will, in my eyes at least, have been a long overdue moment. James was previously nominated for Best Editing for his 1994 masterpiece Hoop Dreams but that great documentary was inexplicably not nominated for Best Documentary Feature. Now James returns to the Oscar race with the Kartemquin Films production Abacus: Small Enough To Jail , a dark horse contender in the doc feature category. Abacus tells the story of the Sung family, owners of the Abacus Federal Savings of Chinatown, New York, who were wrongfully accused of mortgage fraud by the Manhattan District Attorney, as part of the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis. James sat down with Free Cinema Now to talk about his new film and being recognized by the Academy. Free Cinema Now: How did this project come to you? Steve James: It came to my attention through Mark Mitten, one of the producers, who has known th

Review: "Loveless"

Some people should never get married. Likewise, some people should never become parents. Crudely enough, the protagonists of  Andrey Zvyagintsev 's new film Loveless fit both of those descriptions. The Leviathan helmer returns with another bleak and unflinchingly honest portrayal of family dysfunction and social politics. Loveless is also a commentary on modern Moscow. Zvyagintsev uses the car radio as the film's cultural master of ceremonies, informing the audience of the state of Russia, the political climate and expected societal norms. In fact, the only other time the car radio isn't used for exposition, is when a character turns it into an aural weapon to antagonize another character, by blaring loud metal rock during an inappropriate time. The coal-hearted characters in Loveless listen to the radio, but hardly to each other. Early in the film we learn that Zhenya ( Maryana Spivak ) and Boris ( Aleksey Rozin ) are in the final steps of finalizing their divorce.

Interview with "Edith+Eddie" Director Laura Checkoway

Documentary filmmaker and writer Laura Checkoway 's already exciting life is about to get a whole lot more crazy, in a good way. After her documentary short Edith+Eddie premiered at last year's True/False Film Fest , it went on to a year of positive reception and exhibition that culminated with an Academy Award nomination in January 2018 for Best Documentary (Short Subject) . The documentary short, a Kartemquin Films production that's executive produced by Cher (yes, THAT Cher), follows the country's oldest interracial newlywed couple (Edith and Eddie) as they are faced with a family dilemma that'll forever change their lives. Checkoway caught up with Free Cinema Now while she was in Chicago, not too long after the Oscar nominations were announced. Free Cinema Now: How did the project of Edith+Eddie  come together? Laura Checkoway: A friend texted me a photo of the couple [Edith and Eddie] that was circulating online when they got married at age 95 and

#InformedImages: "The Sacrifice," "No Country for Old Men," "Vertigo" and "Blade Runner 2049"

#InformedImages is a Free Cinema Now series that studies and brings to light influential films and other examples of moving images that informed and inspired specific visuals in later works. Roger Deakins may very well win his first Oscar this Sunday March 4th at the 90th Academy Awards ceremony for Best Cinematography for his work in Blade Runner 2049 . Deakins has never won an Academy Award before -- even though he's been nominated fourteen times -- and industry insiders are predicting that he'll finally get his due this year. (Not that he needs a statuette anyways, since his body of work is staggering and exceptional.) So, for this installment of #InformedImages , I took Deakins' photographic work in Blade Runner 2049 and studied its images closely, to see where its DNA came from. The early scenes definitely evoke Tarkovsky and in specific, his final film The Sacrifice  -- which is interesting when you consider how much that film's protagonist Alexander ( Erl

Watch Sarah Etkin's Video Essay on "Rear Window"

Alfred Hitchcock s' 1954 classic Rear Window has been dissected and rigorously studied in just about every way. There was even a video essay on how Hitchcock employed symmetry in select instances. While certain video essays spell their ideas out, not to mention written essays that like to argue through primary sources (a la footnotes), sometimes the best way to have a fresh approach to the material, is to literally cut it up and see its fragmentation coalesce into something enlightening. That's precisely the approach Sarah Etkin went with in her video essay on Rear Window . As you watch it, you'll see how its effective clashing of intercuts versus repetition begins to form a new narrative language. It's like an anvil fell on the film's reel and condensed it to fragmentary clues that only add to its aura of mystery and trancelike obsession.

Review: "November"

The protagonist of Estonian filmmaker Rainer Sarnet 's  Where Souls Go (from 2007), a fifteen-year-old girl named Ann, sets the plot in motion when she visits a satanist's website and says a prayer (in an effort to seek solutions) that inadvertently gives her newborn stepbrother a heart disease. Ann also has a poster for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King on her bedroom wall, prominent in many shots of the film. This image is a strong representation of Sarnet's interests: to acknowledge how fantasy (with its mythical creatures and wish-granting powers) shares an overlap with hell (and its evil incarnates). Considering this, it's no wonder that Sarnet chose to adapt Andrus Kivirähk 's novel " Rehepapp ," which focuses on 19th-century Estonian village peasants and the dead souls that lurk in the forest, for his latest film November . How can I best describe November ? Well, it's as if Michael Haneke 's The White Ribbon was re-constr

Watch: Race and Class are under critique in Ephraim Asili's film "MOVIE TOTE"

Some of the more striking works in the (what I like to call) "new cinema" -- moving image art pieces that radically challenge traditional narrative structures -- have emerged from the cinematic movement focusing on the African diaspora . Filmmakers like Amir George ( Shades of Shadows ) and  Terence Nance ( Swimming in Your Skin Again ) have been prolific with moving image works expounding on the idea of Afrofuturism , and thus heightening the arts dialogue on what it means to be an African American today. Which brings me to  Ephraim Asili , a filmmaker whose impressive body of work over the years not only focuses on the African diaspora, but also carries on the renegade visual language of pioneering avant-garde titans like Jonas Mekas . Asili's work ranges from documentary to montage to appropriation art, but the vision is always consistent; a vision that aims to make a clearer sense of the ubiquitous images we take for granted (e.g. the quilted images of Obama in

Video: The 50 Best Films of 2017

At the close of every year, film critics and cinephiles tend to label it as a "good" or "bad" year for movies. Personally, I'm at the point in my life where I think every year is a good year for film. Some years might have more masterpieces in them, sure, but aren't we always discovering new ideas, images and icons when all is said and done? To help make this point, I expanded my best of the year video to include 50 films (in the past, I've done as many as 30 films). You'll notice that certain awards-darlings like Dunkirk and Darkest Hour -- among others -- aren't on my list. They just didn't do it for me, plain and simple. And as opposed to including a shortlist of the year's worst films, like Tulip Fever and Transformers: The Last Knight , I'd rather put a spotlight on the year's most disappointing film: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri . I think a film like Three Billboards can do more harm than a forgetful Mic

Watch the Wandering Odyssey in "Dream Walking: Eyes Wide Shut"

In regards to the moving image essay, Stanley Kubrick 's final masterpiece Eyes Wide Shut has been studied, broken down, built back up and labored over in almost every way. I myself have even tied images of the film to Kanye West in the past. But in addition to Eyes Wide Shut 's haunting portraits of sex and its embedded labyrinth of Kubrick's own personal secrets, I don't believe there's been a video essay on how important the act of "walking" is in the film. Until now. Fabian Broeker 's "Dream Walking: Eyes Wide Shut" makes a good case for paying closer attention to the film's pedometer. It's also nicely edited to symphony music, alternating back and forth from full frames to split screens, giving the whole thing an easy-viewing experience too. Broeker: "Characters retrace their steps, mirror each other and wander aimlessly through imposing, hollow interiors, decorated with bright pinpricks of light. This is Kubrick’s

Watch the Summed Frames of "Post Tenebras Lux" Create Video Art

Carlos Reygadas won the Best Director prize for his visually striking Post Tenebras Lux at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival . The images in Reygarads' film looked like they emerged from a dream; there was a soft focus around the edges of the frame, giving its characters the cinematic equivalent of a screen halo. Now those indelible visuals from Post Tenebras Lux are challenged and intensified in a captivating video art piece by Kevin L. Ferguson . Using progressive summed frames, Ferguson creates a unique side-by-side cine-essay ruminating on two ideas: what we see and how much of it we see in total. On the left side of the screen, Ferguson presents a still from every ten seconds of the first five minutes of  Post Tenebras Lux and on the right side of the screen he sums those progressive frames into ten-second intervals. The result is an arresting piece of moving image impressionism. See for yourself.

Trailer Alert: "Ready Player One" - 'Come With Me' features King Kong, Halo and "Jurassic Park"

The latest trailer for Steven Spielberg 's upcoming futuristic epic  Ready Player One  (based on the popular sci-fi novel by Ernest Cline ) gets the Willy Wonka treatment with an updated cover of the song "Pure Imagination" from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory .  IMDb provides a synopsis for Spielberg's film: "When the creator of a virtual reality world called the OASIS dies, he releases a video in which he challenges all OASIS users to find his Easter Egg, which will give the finder his fortune. Wade Watts finds the first clue and starts a race for the Egg." Tye Sheridan ( The Tree of Life ) stars as Wade Watts, along with a cast that includes Ben Mendelsohn ( Animal Kingdom ) and Lena Waithe ( Master of None ). Previous teasers for Ready Player One showed us popular screen characters like The Iron Giant , The Joker and Freddy Krueger . This latest trailer gives us exciting glimpses of King Kong , the Spartans from  Halo  and the T-Rex

Review: "Black Panther"

Two words: Hype kills. Although Marvel's Black Panther is already estimated to pull in gargantuan numbers at the box office this opening weekend, I'm afraid the overblown hype surrounding the film will outshine any of the film's actual achievements. It's better than Marvel's last outing, Thor: Ragnarok -- but that's not really saying much. Still, Ryan Coogler 's ( Fruitvale Station )  Black Panther offers an agreeable serving of impressive special effects, beautiful art direction and most importantly, a sense of optimism. And these days, we need that more than ever. Chadwick Boseman  reprises his role as T'Challa (a.k.a. Black Panther ), Prince of Wakanda, a fictional country in Africa as envisioned by the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We first met Black Panther in 2016's Captain America: Civil War , where we also witnessed the death of his father King T'Chaka ( John Kani ) after a bombing of an international conference in Vienna. The openi

Watch: "Reading // Binging // Benning" by Chloé Galibert-Laîné and Kevin B. Lee

“Making videos becomes a way for someone to make sense of what they experience.” That line, as said by Kevin B. Lee  in his new collaborative video essay with  Chloé Galibert-Laîné , pretty much sums up the motivation behind every Video Essayist. It's the spur behind every idea for a montage, mashup or academic act of image prodding that results in a video essay. In Lee and Galibert-Laîné's new video essay "Reading // Binging // Benning" (commissioned by the International Film Festival Rotterdam ), the pair employ the desktop documentary genre that Lee made popular with his sensational Transformers: The Premake to make a case on how to present a film neither of them have seen -- Readers by James Benning -- to a crowd of people (i.e. an audience at IFFR). Watch their illuminating and perfectly paced video essay below. a

Watch "Phantom Thread" as a 1980s VHS Commercial

Paul Thomas Anderson 's Phantom Thread has transformed into the damnedest of a work. While I found much to admire in it, I don't consider it to be a bonafide masterpiece . And yet, I find myself drawn back to certain elements that it celebrates, like the cinematic influences it wears on its sleeve (shit, is that a pun?). Maybe I revisit Phantom Thread in my head time and time again because I'm trying to make it something else? Perhaps. Regardless, I got this idea stuck in my brain this morning while making coffee on how I would sell what the movie really is -- a dark romantic comedy -- to a mainstream audience in the 1980s. You know, where you didn't have the luxury of clicking "disc menu" on your Blu-ray remote and had to either hit fast forward on your VCR or actually watch the coming attractions. Then I got the twisted idea of making the movie look like the kind of rom-com Julia Roberts might even have starred in back in the day. So here it is,

Review: "A Fantastic Woman"

The opening sections to Sebastián Lelio 's A Fantastic Woman provide the key to understanding its power and urgency. During the opening credits we see beautiful waterfalls later described by a character in the film as being one of the wonders of the world. Then we're introduced to Orlando ( Francisco Reyes ) a fifty-something divorcée and business owner. Orlando is treating himself to a morning at the spa. Next, we see him tend to some matters at his work desk. On the surface, it looks like another agreeable day in the life of an accomplished man living in modern Santiago, Chile. Then we see Orlando walk into a cocktail lounge with live musical accompaniment. The camera suddenly lingers on the musical band's singer. This is Marina ( Daniela Vega ), a trans woman -- and the film's real protagonist. The filmmaking strategy here is clear: Marina is not only forced to exist in the background of her society, but she's also nudged to back at the outset of her own movie.

Mashup Trailer: #TheVenomDrop

When it was announced that Tom Hardy would play the villainous Venom (from the Spider-Man universe) in an upcoming spinoff, it was like a match made in heaven. Hardy, the brooding and physically imposing screen actor who brought Bane to life in The Dark Knight Rises , just starred in last year's summer blockbuster Dunkirk and before that was nominated for an Oscar for his supporting turn in The Revenant . For months fans online were speculating how Hardy's incarnation of Venom would look like and then it was announced that the teaser trailer for Venom would premiere earlier today. So you can imagine how disappointed a lot of people were when the teaser failed to show a single frame of Hardy as Venom. In fact, if you didn't know anything about the Venom character before watching the teaser, it would hardly make an impression. Twitter user  @IntergalacticQ said it best, "That Venom trailer looks like the trailer for a movie about a man [who's] really anxiou

Trailer Alert: "Deadpool, Meet Cable" -- New Trailer for "Deadpool 2"!!!

Josh Brolin is certainly the "Marvel Man of May." On May 4, 2018 Brolin once again hits the screen as the super villain Thanos in  Avengers: Infinity War. Then, two weeks later he'll command the screen as the  X-Force hero from the future Cable in Deadpool 2 . It's crazy. Brolin should give his agent an early Christmas gift. This morning 20th Century Fox dropped the latest trailer for Deadpool 2 and it gives us our first real taste of what to expect from Brolin's Cable. Of course, because Deadpool ( Ryan Reynolds ) always has tricks and jokes up his sleeve, it's best to just stop reading this and watch the trailer below.

Watch: "Call Me By Your Fruit"

Food was used in pretty startling ways on the big screen in 2017. Tea was in those hypnotic cups that sent black people to the Sunken Place in Get Out . Poisonous mushrooms plagued the characters of Phantom Thread and The Beguiled . Not to mention,  A Ghost Story  made us watch Rooney Mara eat half a pie in a single take that lasted almost five minutes. Yet, the most memorable -- and outrageous -- use of food in the cinema of 2017 was...sexual. Yes, sexual. And not just in one movie, but two movies! Tiffany Haddish demonstrated oral sex on a banana (that was being gripped by a cut open grapefruit) in Girls Trip , while  Timothée Chalamet climaxed into a peach in Call Me By Your Name . If only Jason Biggs knew he would be a trailblazer for fucking an apple pie back in 1999's American Pie . Enjoy the NSFW (or not safe for lunch?) video below. It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "food porn."

Trailer Alert: "Solo: A Star Wars Story"

During last night's Super Bowl broadcast a forty-five second TV spot for the new Star Wars film Solo: A Star Wars Story debuted. At the end of the TV spot, it said the full length teaser trailer would drop on Monday. And, here it is. Oscar winner Ron Howard  ( Apollo 13 , A Beautiful Mind ) took over directing duties after  Phil Lord and Christopher Miller ( 21 Jump Street , The Lego Movie ) were fired from the film. If you consider that dramatic change in creative vision, coupled with the recent backlash over Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi , it's safe to say that a lot will be riding on how audiences respond to this new film. I personally think the previous Star Wars Story spinoff Rogue One is the best of the last decade, so I'm optimistic about this new installment. Watch the trailer for Solo: A Star Wars Story below and let us know what you think!

Watch: "Possessed Processed"

The  International Film Festival Rotterdam 2018 is in full swing and one of the films that's getting the most amount of buzz and academic analyzing is  Metahaven and Rob Schröder 's Possessed ( watch the trailer ), an essay film that explores the idea of "self" in the age of social media. Screen Daily did a really insightful interview with the filmmaking team behind Possessed but something really interesting just happened with a group of video essayists, in regards to the film, that can articulate what the film means in a way that's more powerful than a standard question and answer format. The programme Critics' Choice commissioned a group of essayists (including Catherine Grant , Scout Tafoya and Irina Trocan , among others, all going by the name of  Team Metaprocessed )   to dive into Possessed and assess what their impressions were, figure out what Possessed aimed to achieve and then render that into their own responsive essay film. T

Trailer Alert: "24 Frames"

For those cinephiles living in New York, the must-see film this weekend is the late Abbas Kiarostami 's 24 Frames, which will playing exclusively at the Film Society of Lincoln Center . Kiarostami, a celebrated Iranian filmmaker, passed away in 2016. His best film, Taste of Cherry , won the coveted Palme d'Or at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival . Now, the theatrical exhibition of his final film 24 Frames -- which Kiarostami made during the last three years of his life -- is made possible by Janus Films . 24 Frames is mostly comprised of a series of vignettes (roughly four minutes in length apiece), that each bring to life a still image created by Kiarostami himself. As you can see in the trailer below, the results are hypnotic and gorgeous. Martin Scorsese said, "Kiarostami represents the highest level of artistry in the cinema." See for yourself.