Film-Forward

About Ted Metrakas

Ted Metrakas is a Brooklyn-based writer and philosopher and longtime contributor to Film-Forward. You can find his other keen observations and sharp cultural critiques on his website, tedmetrakas.substack.com, or find and read his philosophy books Another New Word and Underground Horizon at these links.

Deepsea Challenge 3D

Directed by John Bruno, Andrew Wight, and Ray Quint
Produced by Wight and Brett Popplewell
Released by National Geographic Entertainment
USA. 90 min. Rated PG
People often grow up fantasizing about  outer space and/or the Earth’s oceans, the two great canvasses available for boundless possibility and discovery. James Cameron is at the far end of the spectrum in both of […]

By |August 7th, 2014|American, Environmental|0 Comments

Life Itself

Directed by Steve James
Produced by Zak Piper, James and Garrett Basch
Released by Magnolia Pictures
USA. 118 min. Rated R
Perhaps the most shocking thing about the Roger Ebert documentary Life Itself is the revelation that Ebert became a full-time paid film critic at a major newspaper in the third largest city in the United States as a […]

By |July 26th, 2014|Film History, Pop Culture|0 Comments

Evergreen

Produced & Directed by Riley Morton
Released by First Run Features
USA. 86 min. Not rated
Evergreen: The Road to Legalization is an in-depth film documenting all of the difficulties and nuances activists faced on the road to passing I-502, a piece of legislation in Washington State legalizing small amounts of marijuana. It is a no frills, serious […]

By |June 13th, 2014|Documentary, Political|0 Comments

Ivory Tower

Written & Directed by Andrew Rossi
Produced by Josh Braun & Rossi
Released by Samuel Goldwyn Films/Participant Media
USA. 90 min. Rated PG-13
There are few things more enjoyable than to critique the American higher education system, and Ivory Tower is one of the most slickly produced and entertaining cracks at it yet. Here, colleges are widely described as […]

By |June 12th, 2014|Documentary, Education, Top Picks|0 Comments

God’s Pocket

Written by Slattery and Alex Metcalf, based on the novel by Pete Dexter
Produced by Sam Bisbee, Jackie Kelman Bisbee, Lance Acord, Slattery, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Emily Ziff
Released by IFC Films
USA. 88 min. Rated R
With Philip Seymour Hoffman, Richard Jenkins, Christina Hendricks, John Turturro, Caleb Landry Jones, Domenick Lombardozzi, Joyce Van Patten, and Glenn Fleshler

If […]

By |May 8th, 2014|Book adaptation, Crime|0 Comments

Dom Hemingway

Written and Directed by Richard Shepard
Produced by Jeremy Thomas
Released by Fox Searchlight Pictures.
UK. 93 min. Rated R
With Jude Law, Richard E. Grant, Demian Bichir, Emilia Clarke and Kerry Condon
Not quite as smart as it needs to be, yet smarter than it may seem, Dom Hemingway is a timely film, and an unmistakable sign that Jude […]

By |April 2nd, 2014|Comedy, Crime, U. K.|0 Comments

Finding Vivian Maier

Written, Produced and Directed by John Maloof and Charlie Siskel
Released by Sundance Selects
USA. 83 min. Not rated
If you put aside the deep knowledge Finding Vivian Maier imparts about an undeniably powerful contributor to photography, and the stark sense of the wildly eccentric character behind the images, you are left with one of the funniest, […]

By |March 27th, 2014|Arts, Top Picks|0 Comments

Jimmy P.

Directed by Arnaud Desplechin
Written by Mr. Desplechin, with Kent Jones & Julie Peyr, based on Reality and Dream by Georges Devereux
Produced by Jennifer Roth, Pascal Caucheteux & Grégoire Sorlat
Released by IFC Films
France/USA. 114 min. Not rated
With Benicio Del Toro, Mathieu Amalric, Gina McKee, Larry Pine, Joseph Cross, Michelle Thrush and Misty Upham

Psychoanalysis, for its hundred […]

By |March 9th, 2014|Book adaptation, Drama, French, War|0 Comments

Stalingrad

Directed by Fedor Bondarchuk
Written by Ilya Tilkin & Sergey Snezhkin, based on the novel by Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman
Produced by Alexander Rodnyansky, Anton Zlatopolskiy, Dmitry Rudovskiy & Sergey Melkumov
Released by Columbia Pictures/Imax 3D
Russian & German with English subtitles
Russia. 135 min. Rated R
With Mariya Smolnikova, Yanina Studilina, Petr Fedorov, Thomas Kretschmann, Sergey Bondarchuk, Dmitry […]

By |February 28th, 2014|Epic, Foreign, War|0 Comments