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Best of The Seventh Row

Disorder, Alice Winocour, Maryland

Alex Heeney / August 10, 2016

Disorder is a smart, heartpounding thriller

Although Alice Winocour’s “Maryland” works as a heartpounding home invasion thriller, it’s also a meditation on trauma, paranoia, class, and unfulfilled desire.

Joshua Oppenheimer

Alex Heeney / February 25, 2016

Joshua Oppenheimer discusses his haunted, ‘magical realist’ doc The Look of Silence

Joshua Oppenheimer discusses his collaboration with Adi Rukun, the importance of empathy, and the magical realist landscape and soundscape of his Oscar-nominated documentary The Look of Silence.

Wiseman Jackson Heights

Alex Heeney / November 20, 2015

Wiseman talks making In Jackson Heights

Master documentarian Frederick Wiseman discusses his editing process and how this informs how he shot In Jackson Heights.

Photograph 51

Mary Angela Rowe / October 26, 2015

Photograph 51: In praise of difficult women

“Photograph 51” suggests that sexism kept Franklin conservative, reluctant to be right because as a woman, she could never, ever be wrong. Ziegler’s text depicts a woman who had all the evidence but didn’t put the pieces together because she was afraid to prematurely commit herself.

Please Like Me

Alex Heeney / October 14, 2015

Please Like Me gets even better in season 3

Here in the third season, we get the sense that everything’s going to be OK — Josh, Tom, and Alan even repeat this mantra in unison — even if there are more storms to weather. Josh is finally in a loving, stable relationship in which he’s the rock. Tom is slowly figuring out how to grow up, as he plays third wheel to Josh and Arnold. Rose is living independently with her twenty-something friend Hannah, whom she met at the psychiatric facility last season, and their storylines are often independent of Josh. Josh still spends time with both of his parents, but he actually gets support from them rather than merely putting out their fires.

Jafar Panahi's Taxi

Alex Heeney / October 14, 2015

Jafar Panahi’s Taxi is an absorbing day out in Tehran

As Jafar picks up passengers, meets friends, and runs into others, key political and economic issues get discussed. The film feels realistic, much like the conversations and performances in “Before Sunset” and “Conversations with Other Women” have the ring of real interactions. But even as the film touches on imprisonment from unsubstantiated charges, interrogation and torture, rampant crime, and government censorship of films, it does so with a light touch. Because the characters treat these things as commonplace, as casual conversation topics, we understand just how deep the problems run. And Jafar remains an affable presence even as some of his passengers’ actions would try anyone’s patience.

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