Winter-Spring 2016

Internal Life by Andrew Collins Room, the much-lauded film directed by Lenny Abrahamson, defies simple categorization. Technically we could call it a drama, but while it has the necessary plot points and relational tension, the sum of its parts melds into something more like a meditation. The effect is reminiscent of something by Terrence Malick, where the […]

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‘Would That It T’were So Simple’ by Jack Simons Hail Caesar! – A movie set in 1951 – describes 24 hours in the life of a major Hollywood studio. The film that came from the mysterious Coen brothers’ universe has returned to its source without drawing many viewers, and according to Rotten Tomatoes 55 percent […]

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Living on Contradictions An Interview by Andrew Collins Dillon Hodges was into bluegrass before bluegrass was cool. Hailing from a small town in northern Alabama, he had his musical coming age playing bluegrass with musicians four times his age and at the tender age of 17 accomplished his life goal of winning the 2007 National Flat […]

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Wit But No Wisdom by Andrew Collins At one level, Deadpool is wonderful mockery of all things good and right in the superhero genre. In a tidal wave of violence, obscenity, profanity, vulgarity and general raunchiness (not to mention more than a little sadism), it pushes the envelope of the genre about as far as it can […]

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Happiness-Based Ironic Title by Andrew Collins Joy, the latest Jennifer-Lawrence-and-Bradley-Cooper-powered effort by director David O. Russell, takes a long, hard look at the American dream through the experience of a woman named Joy (Lawrence) in the late 80s and early 90s. The daughter of a twice-divorced small-business owner (Robert De Niro) and inept, soap-opera obsessed mother (Virginia […]

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Man of Sequels by Andrew Collins Central to the role of film criticism, the critic Alyssa Wilkinson recently remarked, is to mourn “the missed opportunity of the badly made work.” Such a critique is in order for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The longer the film goes, the more it loses its way, but […]

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Quentin Rides Again by Andrew Collins With its hearkening to writer and director Quentin Tarantino’s legacy (the opening credits tell us this is his eighth film) The Hateful Eight may be the provocative auteur’s most contemplative film to date. Relative to its length (nearly three hours) the story is simple. Eight strangers take shelter from a blizzard […]

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Infernal Enquiries An Interview by Heather M. Surls Having reviewed Tevis’s first book, The Wet Collection, two years ago, RedFence writer Heather M. Surls sat down (via Skype) with the author to talk about the artistic process and, of course, her second book of lyric essays, The World Is on Fire (Milkweed Editions, 2015). RedFence: Something that struck me in The […]

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Best Tea for Leap Day by Abigail Beck I’ve never been one for celebrating Leap Day. I’m not a leapling, nor the daughter of one. But when my friend and I both had the afternoon off on the day the calendar happened to be catching up with the rotation of the earth, we decided to […]

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