A key passage in Tom Wolfe’s blistering architectural critique, From Bauhaus to Our House, recounts a tumultuous public meeting attended by the residents St. Louis’ Pruitt-Igoe housing project, called by the city to get input on how to salvage the seriously deteriorating facility and notable for ending with the assembled tenants joining in on the …
Tag Archive: Social Drama
Dec
12
Cinefantastique Spotlight Podcast: TREK NATION
A son goes in search of the father he never quite knew, and the CFQ crew gets introspective enough to take a nostalgic trip back to explore one of the formative influences on their sense of wonder, Gene Roddenberry’s STAR TREK. Come join our special guest, theofantastique.com’s John W. Morehead, as he joins Cinefantastique Online’s …
Nov
30
Cyril Tuschi on KHODORKOVSKY
“World’s richest political prisoner,” now there’s a term you don’t hear much. And while OWS can make a case that there are select representatives of the 1% that deserve to see the inside of jail cell, in the case of Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, now serving time in his home country for charges of tax …
Oct
21
Cinefantastique’s New York Comic Con 2011: ATTACK THE BLOCK’s Joe Cornish
You gotta love an alien invasion film where the aliens make the serious mistake of trying to invade some council estates (read, “projects”) in London and discover that the street-tough kids there are not going to yield the territory without racking up a body count. That’s the idea behind ATTACK THE BLOCK, Joe Cornish’s directorial …
Oct
01
Jeff Nichols on TAKE SHELTER
Roland Emmerich can bite me. The guy’s been making disaster films since time can remember, yet for all his besetting humans with floods, fires, and earthquakes (and the occasional alien invasion), he’s never managed to make something as resonant, affecting, and powerful as TAKE SHELTER. A film that skirts the line between vivid fantasy and …
Sep
19
Cinefantastique Spotlight: LION KING 3D & MST3K VS. GAMERA
There were no new genre films in theaters this weekend, but there was one old one in a shiny new, 3D coat: THE LION KING 3D, which just so happened to top this week’s box-office. With a prescience befitting a Cinefantastique editor, Steve Biodrowski recognized the film for the hit it was going to be, …
Sep
11
Cinefantastique Spotlight: CONTAGION
Break out the Purell, Steven Soderbergh is in mainstream thriller mode and he’s decided to get under your skin — almost literally — with a tale about a virus that doesn’t know when to quit. CONTAGION follows Soderbergh’s TRAFFIC template, spinning a world-spanning drama of people trying to survive the ravages of a fast-acting and …
Aug
19
John Sayles on AMIGO
Director John Sayles is delving into history again, and this time it’s a little bit of American adventurism in the early twentieth century that’s frequently glossed over in the history books: the Philippine-American War. In AMIGO, Filipino actor Joel Torre plays Rafael, the mayor of a small village who’s forced to accommodate a troop of …
Aug
10
CFQ’s Black Hole Ultra-Lounge: Return to the Escape from the Conquest of the Rise of the Planet of the Apes
A post-show conversation between theofantastique.com’s John W. Morehead and Cinefantastique Online’s Lawrence French and Dan Persons about the PLANET OF THE APESfranchise in general, and RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES in specific. RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES MoCap Comparison: “Revolution Begins” embedded by Embedded Video
Aug
07
Cinefantastique Spotlight: RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
Startling the studios, startling the critics, and startling its delighted audiences, RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES has arrived to prove that a reboot — in the hands of a skilled director and inspired writers, actors and effects artists — does not necessarily need to serve as Exhibit One in the case for the …
