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.

The Stanford Prison Experiment

Directed by Kyle Patrick Alvarez
Produced by Brent Emery and Lizzie Friedman
Written by Tim Talbott, based on the book The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo
Released by IFC Films
USA. 122 min. Rated R
With Billy Crudup, Ezra Miller, Michael Angarano, Olivia Thirlby, Thomas Mann, James Wolk, and Tye Sheridan

It’s no small feat to take a 45- year-old social […]

By |July 26th, 2015|Book adaptation, Indie, Top Picks|0 Comments

Boulevard

Directed by Dito Montiel
Produced by Monica Aguirre Diez Barroso, and Mia Chang
Written by Douglas Soesbe
Released by Starz Digital
USA. 88 min. Rated R
With Robin Williams, Kathy Baker, Roberto Aguire, Giles Matthey, Eléonore Hendricks and Bob Odenkirk
Robin Williams’s last role, in the bleak yet engrossing Boulevard, is unlike any other dramatic turn in his vast filmography. It […]

By |July 9th, 2015|GLBT, Indie, Top Picks|0 Comments

Dope

Written and Directed by Rick Famuyiwa
Produced by Forest Whitaker and Nina Yang Bongiovi
Released by Open Road Films
USA. 105 min. Rated R
With Shameik Moore, Kimberly Elise, Chanel Iman, Diggy, Jib, Roger Guenveur Smith, Forest Whitaker, Blake Anderson, Quincy Brown, Zoë Kravitz, and ASAP Rocky
This Sundance darling is being praised as fresh and revolutionary, but it’s anything […]

By |June 28th, 2015|Comedy, Teen|0 Comments

Escobar: Paradise Lost

Written and Directed by Andrea di Stefano,
Produced by Dimitri Rassam
Released by Radius-TWC
English and Spanish with English subtitles
France/Spain/Belgium. 119 min. Rated R
With Benicio Del Toro, Josh Hutcherson, Claudia Traisac, Brady Corbet, Carlos Bardem, Ana Girardot, and Micke Moreno
Pablo Escobar is probably history’s most successful, and notorious, drug dealer/narcoterrorist. At its height, his Colombian cocaine empire made […]

By |June 25th, 2015|Biopic, Crime|0 Comments

Heaven Knows What

Directed by Josh and Benny Safdie
Produced by Oscar Boyson, Sebastian Bear McClard, Josh Safdie and Benny Safdie
Written by Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie, based on the novel Mad Love in New York City by Arielle Holmes
Released by Radius-TWC
USA. 93 min. Rated R
With Arielle Holmes, Caleb Landry Jones, Buddy Duress, Necro, and Eléonore Hendricks
One of the […]

By |June 13th, 2015|Book adaptation, Top Picks|0 Comments

Our Man in Tehran

Directed by Drew Taylor and Larry Weinstein
Canada. 85 min. Not rated

This 2013 documentary retells the real-life story of the six U.S. Embassy workers who sought refuge from the Canadian ambassador while their co-workers were taken hostage in Iran in 1979. This saga was depicted in Oscar-winning fashion by director/star Ben Affleck in his 2012 political […]

By |June 7th, 2015|Documentary, Middle East|0 Comments

Adult Beginners

Directed by Ross Katz
Produced by Sam Slater, Paul M. Bernon, Jared Ian Goldman, Karrie Cox, and Marcus Cox Written by Jeff Cox and Liz Flahive
Released by Radius-TWC
USA. 90 min. Rated R
With Rose Byrne, Nick Kroll, Bobby Cannavale, Paula Garces, Jane Krakowski, Joel McHale, Bobby Moynihan, Mike Birbiglia and Josh Charles

A selfish late twenties/early thirties Manhattan […]

By |April 24th, 2015|Comedy, Family drama|0 Comments

Emptying the Skies

Directed by Douglas Kass and Roger Kass
Produced by Roger Kass
Released by Music Box Films
English, Italian, French & German with English subtitles
USA/Italy/Germany/France/Cyprus. 77 min. Not rated
In 2010, famed novelist and occasional essayist Jonathan Franzen published a long piece in The New Yorker titled “Emptying the Skies,” about the illegal trapping of migratory songbirds, like warblers, wrens, […]

By |April 23rd, 2015|Environmental|0 Comments

True Story

Directed by Rupert Goold
Produced by Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner and Anthony Katagas
Written by Goold and David Kajganich, based on the book by Michael Finkel
Released by Fox Searchlight Pictures
USA. 99 min. Rated R
With Jonah Hill, James Franco, Felicity Jones, Robert John Burke, Gretchen Mol and Ethan Suplee
On the heels of HBO’s fantastic The Jinx, the true […]

By |April 16th, 2015|Book adaptation, Crime|0 Comments