After the success of last year’s ‘5 Noteworthy Rock Albums of 2017,’ I’ve decided to stay the course by altering the format with a surprise ‘best of’ list which does not arrive until the beginning of January of the following year. It’s only fair. As an added bonus, that means I don’t have all the other stupid ‘best of’-‘year end’-’roundups’ to compete with. Reflection is … Continue reading A Music List for 2018
A brief journey through the wild world of De Palma’s take on a style akin to the French New Wave. Continue reading TROUT FUN #4: Tijana Perovic on ‘Hi, Mom!’ (1970, dir. Brian De Palma)
At last month’s Berlinale I managed to sit down with a pair of compelling filmmakers for a bit of conersation: Lav Diaz and James Benning. Though the Benning piece still needs some time, my thoughts on Diaz’s newest film, Season of the Devil, are now online over at Photogenie. “Lav Diaz’s latest opens on a paramilitary site, freshly bunkered down and established as local headquarters in … Continue reading Berlinale 2018: ‘Season of the Devil’ by Lav Diaz
This year marked the third edition of the ‘Pop-Kultur’ arts festival in the Prenzlauer Berg district of Berlin, bringing with it a host of local and touring musical acts, as well as artist talks, workshops and film screenings. Unfortunately, the act I was originally most excited to see (Young Fathers) actually dropped out of the festival just hours before it kicked off. The festival had this … Continue reading Festival Coverage: +MLP+ @ Pop-Kultur
In the third installment of TROUT FUN, an ongoing series of articles by guest writers and fellow critics, Tobias Burms joins us again for his take on last year’s coming-of-age-cum-‘Mean Creek’ teen angst picture (from his home nation of Belgium), ‘HOME’. A Larry Clark-lite title of sorts, Belgian flick ‘Home’ made an impression without making a splash. -MLP- The progressive educational model, where children are brought … Continue reading TROUT FUN #3: Tobias Burms on ‘HOME’ (2016, dir. Fien Troch)
Though it’s now been three months since I visited, the Vilnius Film Festival left a greater impression on me as an experience than most of the actual films. Its director surely won’t be happy to read such an opening, but I’ll admit it as a matter of honest disclosure: thanks to my window of free time matching Barrage’s runtime almost to a T, I slammed … Continue reading (Reminiscences of a) Journey to Lithuania: Vilnius Film Festival 2017
Pop-Kultur fest is coming to Berlin, and I’ll be there! The festival features a host of events; from live music and DJ sets to commissioned works, talks, and films. The live acts include a line up of musicians like French indie rockers La Femme, brit hip-hop Mercury Award-winning poppers Young Fathers and U.S. rockers Liars. Those set to spin DJ sets include Alexis Taylor (of … Continue reading Announcement: MLP at Pop-Kultur Fest
