Screen
Meta-references are not always good
In the first few minutes of Scream 4, the teenage girls home by themselves on a dark night are watching a DVD and discussing the merits and demerits of the Saw franchise, which one of the girls refers to as “torture porn,” and then brrrrrrrrrrrrp brrrrrrrrrrrrp goes ...
‘Arabian Nights’ at IFS for a three-night event
Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes, but when it comes to the movies, ambition tends to come big. So big that one night...
The power of discussion
The “road trip” might be the ultimate American movie trope — the vast expanse of the continental United States providing a vivid backdrop while the confines of a vehicle pressure-cook characters in the comedy and drama they need to discover the intricacies of ...
Sorry, Malaysian tourism industry!
No Escape feels like it was written by somebody who violently hates the entire Asian continent. Culled from every xenophobic stereotype, down to the eating of dogs, the film plays like a two-hour anti-tourism ad: “Malaysia, You’ll Probably Die Here.” Setting aside ...
‘Somebody’s fool’
Orson Welles needed money. That’s how this story begins. Back in 1946, Welles was putting the finishing touches on an ambitious stage production of...
Missed payoff
Maybe in a few years, the high-flying machinations of notorious Washington puppet-master Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon, his partner in crime, will be funny. But even with Kevin Spacey trying his carnival barker hardest in Casino Jack, it still feels too painfully...
The good lie
Billi (Awkwafina) has come home to China. Specifically Changchun — a city she left at the age of 6, when her father relocated his...
Puttin’ on the ritz
Horror movies are wondrous things. With a horror movie, one can confront their deepest darkest fears and survive them. The rush of adrenaline at the sight of danger gives way to the sigh of relief and chuckle of amusement when that danger is revealed to be harmless. ...
The year in film
Lydia Tár is broken. Pulled from the podium, kicked out of her Berlin apartment, barred from seeing her daughter, the disgraced conductor returns to...
BIFF 2013: Finding light in the darkness
Somewhere in a Ukrainian cave, the film crew for No Place on Earth switched off their headlamps...
How to make friends
A cross far too many stretches of our movie-going lives, we see movie after movie without seeing one that really moves. At once stealthy and breathlessly paced, The Social Network scoots at a fabulous clip, depicting how its version of Facebook founder Mark ...


















