Don't Miss "Invisible Life"

by Cláudio Alves

After a limited release in US theaters, Karim Aïnouz's Invisible Life is now available to stream on Amazon Prime. The film was Brazil's submission for last year's Best International Feature Oscar and, although the Academy chose to overlook its merits, that doesn't mean the picture is undeserving of our attention. This tropical melodrama is one of 2019's most ravishing cinematic experiences, a saturated explosion of deep feeling and chromatic excess, as beautiful as it is devastating. Harkening back to the glory days of Old Hollywood's women's pictures, Invisible Life is like a cocktail made of equal parts Douglas Sirk and Black Orpheus, a hint of Fassbinder adding an abrasive zing to the recipe…

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The Actresses of 2019

by Murtada Elfadl

This year’s nominees for best actress do not offer much variety. Not in scope and type of role, not in diversity, not in film genre, and certainly not in quality of film. Only two of the five nominated films - Little Women and Marriage Story - have been recognized by the Academy for best picture, and the same two were the only ones to receive a metacritic average above 70. So how did we end up here when there other options that would’ve made the category stronger? Let’s take a look at what the film year offered...

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