Film-Forward

About Kent Turner

Kent Turner, the editor of Film-Forward, learned the ropes of the festival circuit at the San Francisco International Film Festival and has worked in film production and acquisition in Los Angeles. He is currently the director of programming at the Monmouth Film Festival.

Trishna

Written & Directed by Michael Winterbottom, based on Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
Produced by Winterbottom & Melissa Parmenter
Released by Sundance Selects
English & Hindi with English subtitles
UK. 118 min. Rated R
With Freida Pinto, Riz Ahmed & Roshan Seth
Not wasting any time, Michael Winterbottom hurls Thomas Hardy’s 1891 novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles into […]

By |July 13th, 2012|Top Picks|0 Comments

To Rome With Love

Written & Directed by Woody Allen
Produced by Letty Aronson, Stephen Tenenbaum, Giampaolo Letta & Faruk Alatan
Released by Sony Pictures Classics
English & Italian with English subtitles
USA/Italy/Spain. 112 min. Rated R
With Woody Allen, Alec Baldwin, Roberto Benigni, Penélope Cruz, Judy Davis, Jesse Eisenberg, Greta Gerwig, Ellen Page, Alison Pill, Flavio Parenti, Alessandro Tiberi, Alessandra Mastronardi, Fabio Armiliato […]

By |June 23rd, 2012|Comedy, DVD/Streaming/On Demand|0 Comments

Americano

Written & Directed by Mathieu Demy
Produced by Demy & Angeline Massoni
Released by MPI Pictures
English, French & Spanish with English subtitles
France. 105 min. Not rated
With Mathieu Demy, Salma Hayek, Geraldine Chaplin, Chiara Mastroianni, Carlos Bardem, Jean-Pierre Mocky & Sabine Mamou
Two reasons make Americano noteworthy. One, it offers the meaty role of a low-rent Tijuana prostitute for […]

By |June 16th, 2012|DVD/Streaming/On Demand, French|0 Comments

Marina Abramovic the Artist Is Present

Directed by Matthew Akers
Produced by Jeff Dupre & Maro Chermayeff
Released by HBO Documentary Films/Music Box Films.
USA. 105 min. Not rated

This celebratory and fascinating documentary tops off what have been two very good years for the Yugoslavian-born artist Martina Abramovic. Her 2010 blockbuster retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, “The Artist Is Present,” drew […]

By |June 13th, 2012|Arts, DVD/Streaming/On Demand, Top Picks|1 Comment

Open Roads: New Italian Cinema

This year’s Open Roads: New Italian Cinema opens on the same weekend in New York as Alice Rohrwacher’s audacious debut, Corpo Celeste. Through the perplexed eyes of a 12-year-old girl on the verge of her confirmation, the director questions what it means to be a Christian and the values of contemporary Italians, who are out […]

By |June 9th, 2012|Festivals|0 Comments

The Intouchables

Written & Directed by Eric Toledano & Olivier Nakache
Produced by Nicolas Duval Adassovsky, Yann Zenou & Laurent Zeitoun
Released by the Weinstein Company
French with English subtitles
France. 112 min. Rated R
With François Cluzet, Omar Sy, Anne Le Ny, Audrey Fleurot, Clothilde Mollet & Alba Gaïa Bellugi
By the midway point of the French buddy comedy The Intouchables, you’ll […]

By |May 25th, 2012|Comedy|0 Comments

Moonrise Kingdom

Directed by Wes Anderson
Produced by Anderson, Scott Rudin, Steven Rales & Jeremy Dawson
Written by Anderson  & Roman Coppola
Released by Focus Features
USA. 100 min. Rated PG-13
With Bruce Willis , Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward, Jason Schwartzman & Bob Balaban
Next year marks the centennial of Benjamin Britten’s birth, and though […]

By |May 25th, 2012|Comedy, DVD/Streaming/On Demand|1 Comment

Quill: The Life of a Guide Dog

Director by Yoichi Sai
Producer by Nozomu Enoki, Ichiro Yamamoto
Written by: Shoichi Maruyama & Yoshihiro Nakamura, based on the novel Modoken Quill No Issho by Ryohei Akimoto
Released by Music Box Films
Japanese with English subtitles
Japan. 100 min. Not Rated (it should be rated G)
With Kaoru Kobayashi, Kippei Shiina, Teruyuki Kagawa, Keiko Toda & Shinobu Terajima
Director Yoichi Sai […]

By |May 18th, 2012|DVD/Streaming/On Demand, Japanese, Top Picks|0 Comments

Elena

Directed by Andrei Zvyagintsev
Produced by Alexander Rodnyansky & Sergey Melkumov
Written by Oleg Negin & Zvyagintsev
Released by Zeitgeist Films
Russian with English subtitles.
Russia. 109 min. Not rated
With Nadezhda Markina, Andrei Smirnov, Yelena Lyadova, Alexey Rozin, Evgenia Konushkina & Igor Ogurtsov
Sometimes a festival jury gets it right, recognizing an unknown filmmaker who more than lives up to […]

By |May 17th, 2012|DVD/Streaming/On Demand, Foreign, Top Picks|0 Comments