“That’s a wrap on the cigarette wrangler!” comes a cry across the Herring Cove Beach parking lot. It’s Wednesday, March 23 and a crew has just finishing filming the first […]
Film
INDIE SCREEN
A Mixed Bag of Oscar Hopefuls
Spanish moms, a pretender to the Scottish throne, and a child of deaf adults
As fans of Spanish writer-director Pedro Almodóvar well know, his films combine personal narrative obsessions and familiar stylized production design with a kind of raw, emotional reality that we all […]
ARTISTS
Capturing the Queer Collective Consciousness
Georden West explores ‘unseen and liminal spaces’
In the stillness of the night, small creatures travel unseen through a rectangle of dust on the floor of the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. These “gallery ghosts” leave faint […]
INDIE SCREEN
Awards Season Movies Look Back in Angst
With nostalgia comes romance and regrets
As a filmmaker, Paul Thomas Anderson has been compared to Orson Welles, and there’s a grain of truth to that hyperbole: both are fiercely creative and indulgent. Anderson, who exploded […]
STREAMING
Binge-Watching Without the Guilt
Picks by Independent staff and contributors
The White Lotus, HBO Max Although Mike White’s new series is set at the posh, isolated Hawaiian resort of the title (actually, the Four Seasons in Maui) and filled with […]
INDIE SCREEN
The Wild, the Innocent, and the 125th Street Shuffle
Streaming the highlights of an end-of-year season
The title of Jane Campion’s haunting new film, The Power of the Dog (streaming on Netflix), comes from Psalm 22 in the Bible, which reads (in the King James version), […]
INDIE SCREEN
A World on the Eve of Destruction
Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner revive West Side Story
When Jerome Robbins — born Gershon Wilson Rabinowitz on New York’s Lower East Side — first came up with the idea in 1947 for what would become the musical West […]
INDIE SCREEN
Midnight in the Cinema of Good and Evil
Three idiosyncratic new films explore human frailties and gumption
The 2016 movie Jackie, which stars Natalie Portman as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and is directed by the Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín, was an unexpected gem. It delved into the mind […]
INDIE SCREEN
Whose Legacy Is It, Anyway?
Three biographies take the lives of pivotal figures into account
Though he was an African American born into poverty in 1931 in rural Texas, picking cotton as a young child alongside his single mother, Alvin Ailey lived a life of […]
INDIE SCREEN
The Monstrous Cost of Art
Good, bad, or ugly — is it worth it?
Seeing Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris is a less-than-contemplative experience. The Renaissance painting is housed in the high-ceilinged Salle des États, which is filled with […]
FILM FESTIVAL 2021
Richard Linklater Is Quite Comfortable on the Edge
The Provincetown film fest celebrates Austin’s indie maestro
For filmmakers honored by the Provincetown International Film Festival, John Waters is a dream date. Waters was dubbed Filmmaker on the Edge at the festival’s debut, in 1999, and he’s […]
FILM FESTIVAL 2021
The Outer Cape’s Local Filmmakers Are a Fest Highlight
Zooming in on short documentaries by Fermín Rojas and Michael Cestaro
This year’s “hybrid” Provincetown International Film Festival — both live and virtual — marks the return of the annual event’s extraordinary bounty. There’s a rich collection of narrative and documentary […]
MOVIES
A Cape-Shot Feature Launches the Provincetown Film Fest
Screenings begin Tuesday at the Wellfleet Drive-In
“We all have loss,” says Paul Riccio, the director and co-writer of Give or Take, a new feature film shot here on Cape Cod — mostly in Orleans — that […]
INDIE SCREEN
Three Films That Alter Perceptions
With Oscar finding a new normal, documentaries lead the way
It was a strange Academy Awards in 2021. Diversity was the most visible change in the world of Oscar glitz, but the pandemic, with its enforced social distancing and lack […]
CINEMA
‘Hybrid’ Provincetown Film Fest to Honor Linklater
In a move toward normal, there will be some live screenings
Closed since the Covid lockdown in March 2020, the Waters Edge Cinema in Provincetown is finally reopening. The reason: the 2021 Provincetown International Film Festival (PIFF), which will be running […]
