Every summer, the historic Tennessee Theater offers Knoxvillians a chance to see a select few classic films on the big screen through their “Summer Movie Magic” series. In the case of ‘Vertigo’, which opens this year’s “Summer Movie Magic” series this next weekend, any newcomers would be wise to leave all expectations at the door.
Preview: The Historical Absurdism of ‘Zama,’ Courtesy of Public Cinema
By Andrew Swafford Zama was one of the most widely celebrated films of last year’s festival circuit, but early reviews gave an intimidating impression: it was sold as a challenging, masterful film by a challenging, masterful filmmaker. I’d argue…
Big Ears 2018 Review – Film Program Embraces Abstraction
Over the course of this year’s Big Ears Festival, I watched 11 feature films and 19 shorts. Only 5 of the films—all features—had what you might recognize as a narrative. As far as the others — “What was it about?”…
Big Ears 2018 – Regional Cinema, Regional Fear
You won’t find any mention of this on the official Big Ears website, but this year’s film lineup is built around two themes: 3D Cinema and Regional Cinema. The latter, curated primarily by Public Cinema co-founder Paul Harrill, highlights films…
Preview: Roger Beebe’s Films for 1-8 Projectors, a Performance in Celluloid
Roger Beebe doesn’t just make short films–he performs them. Projectors are his instruments, and he lines up eight of them in the back of a theater in order to cast multiple distinct images on screen at once, stacking snippets of sampled celluloid to create a dizzying collage of movement and color.
Preview: Public Cinema Screens Korean Drama ‘On the Beach at Night Alone’
You need to know a little tabloid gossip before watching ‘On the Beach at Night Alone’: South Korean director Hong Sang-soo and star Kim Min-hee are apparently in love. Standing between them is a 21-year age difference, Hong’s wife of 30 years, and a scornful Korean press.
Preview: Public Cinema Screens Indie Comedy ‘Person to Person’ with Producer Q&A
‘Person to Person’, which plays in Knoxville this Wednesday thanks to The Public Cinema, is a New York character piece about crime and passion—but not in the way you might think.
Review: Knox Horror Film Fest Celebrates Genre Variety
Over the past nine years, the Knoxville Horror Film Fest has remained unapologetically committed to its core vision of keeping Knoxville cinema scruffy. In its early days, the fest consisted of a marathon screening of obscure splatter shorts, but recent…
Horror Fest Brings International Classics to Knoxville
[Editor’s Note: Please welcome film critic Andrew Swafford as a contributor to the pages of Arts Knoxville.] I n 1977, on nearly opposite poles of the globe, Japan and Italy produced two delightfully surreal films called Hausu and Suspiria — which…
