“I think it’s in my basement…Let me go upstairs and check.”
― M.C. Escher
By Steve Segal
Maurits Cornelis Escher commonly known as M.C. Escher was an artist who has inspired millions with his unique vision. This is made abundantly clear in the film M.C. Escher: Journey to Infinity, a hugely entertaining and informative documentary.
By Andrea Chase
“The night scares me,” says a refugee girl in Gianfrano Rosi’s elegiac documentary, NOTTURNO. Traumatized by the violence she witnessed at the hands of ISIS, she uses a child’s sing-song voice to describe the torture and murders she saw. Rosi may have had that in mind when he named his film, which places the humanity affected by political turmoil in the Middle East at the forefront. He certainly knows where to place the blame for that turmoil. The only context he provides is at the start with a brief history of the fall of the Ottoman Empire after centuries of rule in the region, the destabilizing effects of the resulting power vacuum remain to this day.
By C.J. Hirschfield
“OK, Boomer.”
This is the phrase used these days to mock attitudes of 55-plus year-olds who are perceived as never wanting to grow up, and thinking that the utopian ideals that they had in their youth are somehow going to translate into adulthood.
By Risa Nye
It’s hard not to give in to the urge to use the onion as a metaphor when writing a story that centers on onion rings. But the truth is, The Ringmaster tells a many-layered story that resembles nothing so much as an onion in that it begins by telling one story which gradually peels away to reveal another, closer to the central core of the filmmaker and the main subject of this documentary.
By C.J. Hirschfield
Shanina and Noah
Shanona Tate is one of the frontline workers we have come to revere as of late—a pediatric emergency room nurse who works the overnight shift at a New York hospital. We can bang pots and pans to acknowledge her service and that of other employees within essential industries who must physically show up to their jobs—at whatever hour–but until we really see the economic and psychic toll it takes we can’t begin to understand how our current system is not working for them.
