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Showing film results: From 141 to 151


Passionate short Mad Clean screens on opening day of the New Jersey Film Festival

by Anran Li
published 2025-01-19

It is not every day that you get to watch a movie starting with only close-ups of everything. I suppose that is quite a clever gesture to introduce a manic character without saying the exact words – we get to see through her eyes, enter her mind; we feel her fear. The short film Mad Clean opens strong: a forcefully worded argument in which we only see the seemingly stubborn, and struggling sister unwilling to step out of her excluded apartment cell. We are immediately trapped in this claustrophobic space with the protagonist, Leanne, who so fiercely closed the door against the rest of the world as what seems to be a self-protecting attempt. The movie seems to be tinted with an unwavering gray hue until accompanying the upbeat music. Ebony, the cleaning lady, interrupts the melancholic scene wearing a bright cloud of baby-blue. 




 

New Jersey Film Festival Short Film Video Q+A #1

by Vic Fern
published 2025-01-18

Here is the New Jersey Film Festival Spring 2025 Short Film Video Q+A #1 with The Hollowing Director Steve Weinzierl, Phantom Limb Director Alice Jokela, and Festival Director Al Nigrin.



Dystopian Feature Dead Community Guild screens at the New Jersey Film Festival on Saturday, January 25!

by Anran Li
published 2025-01-16

Three minutes into this film, I paused and texted my boyfriend, a huge enthusiast of creative thrillers, stunts, and cool fight scenes: “I think this is totally your thing.” While Texas Chainsaw Massacre is almost THE horror film that would trigger the “You’ve NEVER seen this?” response, following its steps is hardly a child’s play. I will not say Dead Community Guild is a textbook demonstration, yet it is rather straightforward and concise in what it conveys: a dystopia premise with the end-day desperation on the scorching Texas road. The opening scene well establishes how the worldview is built with a crisp and somewhat comedic confrontation. Just as such, we are informed of how, in the film, the human conflict is extremely exacerbated by the scarcity of resources that laws, civilization, and the goodness of human nature all cave in to the minimal animal instinct and the drive to survive. The radio broadcasting of the “welcoming” messages for survivors to join the community, despite the endearing tone, recurs in the film so often that it becomes creepy as a threat that we cannot help but assume the so-called community might be the climate of a bloodbath, just like the dawn of the Hunger Games.



New Release Review - "Maria"

by Eric Hillis, TheMovieWaffler.com
published 2025-01-15

Artists rarely engage with their own art once the creative process has been completed (save for Quentin Tarantino, who seems all too happy to watch a triple bill of his own movies). A musician won't listen to their records; a filmmaker will refuse to watch their movies; a painter will sell a painting and never set eyes upon it again. The artist will tell you it's because they only see the mistakes in their work, and it's now too late to correct them (George Lucas aside).



It’s A to Z: The Art of Arleen Schloss gets its Statewide Premiere at the New Jersey Film Festival

by Morgan Kalmbach
published 2025-01-15

Documentary filmmaking is incredibly unique in that it immerses not only the audience in its subject matter but also its filmmaker in the process of creating the film. From spending countless hours researching, compiling, and shooting interviews and creating an overall storyline, every step of the way, the filmmaker is involved and learning as the progression ensues. The challenge then becomes how much this filmmaker can include of their newly learned knowledge about the subject and what the best way to shed light on this subject that they have studied is. Stuart Ginsberg’s It’s A to Z: The Art of Arleen Schloss exemplifies this challenge and is greatly successful in how it was overcome. Although the film only runs for an hour, it encompasses decades of information surrounding Arleen Schloss, a notable multimedia artist in the New York City underground art scene in the 70s through the 90s.