Tag: Limited release

New in Theaters: ‘Brooklyn Castle’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - NewLeave a comment

The fresh new documentary Brooklyn Castle has an unlikely band of protagonists—a record-breaking and mostly minority chess team from an unassuming Brooklyn neighborhood—and a welcome, optimistic take on the modern school. My full review is at Film Journal International:

When documentaries take on schools as a subject, the film is either a lament for a nation’s crumbling educational edifice or a feel-good film about a band of plucky upstarts defying the odds. In either event, the assumption is generally that things are fairly horrendous, school-wise, and that only particularly lucky or unique groups can hope to win out. What makes Katie Dellamaggiore’s Brooklyn Castle so wonderful and fresh-feeling in many ways is how it neatly skirts those preassigned roles for the students, parents and teachers it follows around…

Brooklyn Castle is playing now in very limited release.

You can see the trailer here:

New in Theaters: ‘Split’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - New, OmniculturalLeave a comment

Just in time for the election comes Split: A Deeper Divide, a documentary about the nation’s partisan divide. My review is running now at Film Journal International:

The nation is hopelessly divided; Washington is broken; people only listen to news pre-slanted to their ideology; there is no room left for even-tempered discourse. We have heard all this before, which doesn’t mean that Split: A Deeper Divide, a film about the state of American political partisanship, doesn’t tackle a worthy subject. (That would be like saying that since we have already been told war is hell, every war film after All Quiet on the Western Front has been a waste of time.) But it also doesn’t mean that this film brings anything new to the topic.

Split: A Deeper Divide is playing now in limited release and will be expanded to other markets later in the month.

You can watch the trailer here:

New in Theaters: ‘Six Million and One’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - NewLeave a comment

 

My review of the new documentary Six Million and One is running now at Film Journal International:

Some of the most discomfiting imagery in films about the Holocaust comes not from wartime footage showing the savage effects on the prisoners or even the ghostly sites themselves. What creates the most emotional dissonance is more often the sight of these places of unbelievable butchery now sitting in well-manicured European suburbs, woven fully back into the fabric of everyday life. It begs the question: How does one live in the shadow of the unimaginable? In David Fisher’s emotional and acidic documentary Six Million and One, he digs into this question on a broader level, in effect asking: What is the point of memory? What and whom does it serve?…

Six Million and One is playing now in very limited release.

You can see the trailer here:

 

New in Theaters: ’17 Girls’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - New, WorldLeave a comment

My review of the new French film 17 Girls is running now at PopMatters:

Like any good story about an epidemic, 17 Girls starts with a wholly unremarkable incident. High school student Camille (Louise Grinberg, one of the troublemakers in The Class) finds herself in a family way. But instead of hiding in embarrassment or trying to ignore her swelling belly, she flaunts it. Because Camille is the queen bee, her pregnancy begins to look attractive to her buzzing followers. Within months, bellies begin swelling all over town, and the girls are making plans for what they’re going to do with their babies. Among the things they don’t include in their agenda: not smoking or drinking while pregnant, or considering any of the complications that come with being a single teen mother…

17 Girls is playing now in limited release; make sure to check it out.

The trailer is here: