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Issue 85: The Great Unknown

July 2020

Four young men sit on a bleacher drinking cans of beer and laughing at something offscreen

Matt & Me

Zach D'Amico·
Issue 85: The Great Unknown
I don’t know if, as a young actor from Boston, Matt Damon struggled with his identity. But I know the roles he took helped me find mine. Read More
The Saragossa Manuscript | Mr Bongo Films

The Saragossa Manuscript: An Ode to the Journey of Digression

Jenna Ipcar·
Issue 85: The Great Unknown
Championed by the likes of contemporaries Luis Buñuel and Jerry Garcia, and later fully restored with the help of Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese, The Saragossa Manuscript has a hallowed space in Polish film history. Read More
Four adolescent girls ride bicycles on a dirt road in a nostalgic 1950s setting

Now and Then and Death

Jessica MacLeish·
Issue 85: The Great Unknown
It’s only through confronting the reality of death that the four girls at the heart of this story are able to move forward from childhood to adulthood. Read More
Brad Pitt as Roy McBride gazes down towards something below the frame. His expression is concerned, though his face is obscured by reflections.

We Have A Problem

Zosha Millman·
Issue 85: The Great Unknown
Ad Astra is a film deeply attuned to a heritage among the stars. Read More
Repo Man | art by Tony Stella

Finally The Punk Rockers Are Taking Acid

Kevin Curtis·
Issue 85: The Great Unknown
Repo Man is like a piece of bubblegum with a shard of glass in it, the sort of deranged prank that draws blood. Read More
Leave No Trace (2018) | Bleecker Street

Want or Need? Home and Help in Leave No Trace

Carolyn Ten Eyck·
Issue 85: The Great Unknown
Leave No Trace never lets us forget that we all depend on something outside of ourselves. Read More
Slow West (2015) | A24

In A Short Time This Will Be A Long Time Ago

Fran Hoepfner·
Issue 85: The Great Unknown
On stars, myths, violence, selective nostalgia, and Slow West. Read More
Touchy Feely (2013) | Magnolia Pictures

Hands Off: On Lynn Shelton’s Touchy Feely

Spencer Williams·
Issue 85: The Great Unknown
While Lynn Shelton’s Touchy Feely is interested in its characters quirky dynamics and arrested developments, the film is moreso about the destabilizing force of contact. Read More
The Searchers | art by Tony Stella

Ride Away, And Go Rewatch The Searchers

Sarah Shachat·
Issue 85: The Great Unknown
John Ford's The Searchers wants to do more than construct the American community. It wants to show what it costs to be left outside of that community, and what it costs to be a part of it, too.  Read More
The Pillow Book | Lions Gate Films

Parfait Melange: Process in The Pillow Book

Merritt Mecham·
Issue 85: The Great Unknown
If Peter Greenaway's The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover is Brechtian, then The Pillow Book is a painting by Rothko, dependent on its many layers to communicate the meaning of its abstract imagery. Read More

A Ghibli Gateway

Jonathan Kiefer·
Issue 85: The Great Unknown
Offering respite from an adult perspective without denying it, Studio Ghibli films often invite viewers into exalted states of innocence. Read More
Almost Famous (2000) | Dreamworks

Where Does This Real World Begin?

Rosie Long Decter·
Issue 85: The Great Unknown
Almost Famous is both a criticism of and a love letter to an industry where people are pretending to be something they’re not, trying to escape reality and searching for something real, running away from some small version of themselves. Read More
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Twitter

  • If you've enjoyed any of Sarah's BW/DR essays on the Alien series (not to mention so many other corners of cinema,… twitter.com/i/web/status/13526…

    6 minutes ago

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