Ian Buckwalter

Photo of seats at the AFI by Kevin H. Back in the summer of 2007, I sat down for a very important, high-powered editorial meeting with then Editor-in-Chief Sommer Mathis (OK, so maybe it was just beers on a bar patio) and floated the idea of starting a weekly... continue reading on DCist

You might think, before watching Bullhead, the Oscar-nominated debut from Belgian writer/director Michaël R. Roskam, that a film about black market trade in illegal bovine growth hormones in the rural cattle-raising borderlands between the French and Dutch sections of Belgium might not present the most interesting prospect. You'll probably... continue reading on DCist

There's an textual epilogue at the end of Agnieszka Holland's new Oscar-nominated World War II drama that confirms something that I suspected throughout the film: the director was angry. Like most movies that involve the Holocaust, this is a story of struggle against adversity and the triumph of the... continue reading on DCist

"The people are the city!" That line appears just once in Shakespeare's play detailing the rise and fall of fifth-century B.C. Roman war hero and politician Caius Martius Coriolanus (Ralph Fiennes), just as public opinion is turning ugly towards him and his anti-populist attitudes. Ralph Fiennes makes his debut... continue reading on DCist

Iranian writer/director Asghar Farhadi's latest starts with a long, unmoving shot of a couple sitting before a judge. On one side is Simin (Leila Hatami), a wife who is asking for a divorce from her husband. He's not a bad man, she insists, he just refuses to leave Iran,... continue reading on DCist