Director Steve McQueen’s 2008 film Hunger takes a powerful and occasionally grotesque look at The Troubles, which involved a five-year series of Maze Prison protests where human rights atrocities were…
‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’
Lynne Ramsay’s 2011 film We Need to Talk About Kevin is a difficult film to watch and to talk about because it asks viewers to address the presence of mass…
Jane Campion’s weekend double feature
Prolific director and screenwriter Jane Campion is getting the double feature treatment at the 5th Avenue Cinema this week. On the docket is her debut feature film Sweetie (1989) and…
‘Belladonna of Sadness’
Belladonna of Sadness, directed by Eiichi Yamamoto, is an erotic tale of violence and revenge set in medieval France and told through psychedelic animation. Based off the book Satanism and…
The timeless tastelessness of Female Trouble
“Who wants to die for art?” Dawn Davenport (Divine) screams before shooting a willful volunteer to death in a packed nightclub theater. She’s just strangled her own daughter to death,…
Nice girls don’t wear cha-cha heels
If you’re familiar with John Waters’ movies, you’re either a huge fan or are generally baffled by his continued popularity in the underground film circuit. I highly doubt that film…
Feminist cinema debuts at 5th Ave.
In celebration of International Women’s Day on Thursday, March 8, 5th Avenue Cinema is showing two shorter pieces: Left On Pearl and Genesis 3:16. Left On Pearl is a 2017…
Find it at 5th Ave.: ‘Precious’
Lee Daniels’ 2009 drama Precious remains a source of controversy in the film community. Positive and negative criticisms of the film tend to form a hyperbolic spectrum. While Precious is…
‘Boyz N The Hood,’ a classic in New Black Realism
Boyz N The Hood is a 1991 film infused within the American cinema lexicon and has become a film nearly everyone knows of, even if they’ve never watched it or…
‘Chameleon Street,’ Fascinating, forgotten and (mostly) factual
Chameleon Street, the only film by writer-director Wendell B. Harris Jr. is, in some ways, a classic American narrative. A young man (Harris) is unsatisfied with his life and decides…
‘La Noire de’ is a short and bitter upheaval of European cinema
Sometimes you don’t need your film to be two hours long to make an impact. La Noire de is a 50-minute condemnation of mid-century European attitudes toward Africans. The film…