Ben Umstead
East Coast Editor; Los Angeles, California

Born in New England, bred around the Capital Beltway, and schooled in the heart of Hollywood, Ben joined Team Twitch in the summer of 2009 when he moved to NYC. He can once again be found wandering the streets of Los Angeles.

LA Film Fest 2013 Review: ALL TOGETHER NOW, In The Woods, Rocking Out, And Philosophizing The Night Away
Multi-thread narratives or group narratives prove to be an interesting corner of cinema to explore. The best ones I find rarely rely on compelling plots, but are often loose and meandering affairs, with existential wit to spare and a cornucopia... More »
  

LA Film Fest 2013 Review: SHORT TERM 12 Is The Rare Film That Gets Child-Adult Relationships Right
As someone who has spent much of his adult life working extensively with children and teenagers (from being a kindergarten aide to high school substitute, to a 1:1 aide at home and in school) I am always very wary going... More »
  

Japan Cuts Unleashes Their 2013 Line Up!
While this summer's asian cinema diet for NYCers is ample enough with the New York Asian Film Festival, one cannot forget their partner-in-crime at Japan Society and the concurrent awesomeness that is Japan Cuts. Entering its seventh year, Japan Cuts... More »
  

Indie Beat: Much Ado About Summer Movies (But Not Those Kind!)
My summer movie season started two weekends ago when I saw Before Midnight twice in two days, and continued in earnest this past Sunday with Carlos Reygadas beguiling Post Tenebras Lux (which, if you live in LA, and want something... More »
  

LA Happenings: Greek Film Fest, Hitch B-Sides And Robert Mitchum Noirs
It's June in LA, which means it is sometimes confusingly still very warm at night, or else it gets chilly... ocean-breeze chilly. And that is no fun at all. But there is rarely anything confusing about the temperature of a... More »
  

Slamdance Comes Home: Fest Partners With Cinedigm To Bring Winners And Faves To VOD
If you regularly catch my reviews and articles here at Twitch than you know I totally dig the Slamdance Film Festival, that beautiful anarchic step child of Park City who shines a considerable spotlight on first-time filmmakers with flicks made... More »
  

Watch The First Trailer For SXSW Winner SHORT TERM 12
Destin Daniel Cretton's naturalistic drama Short Term 12 premiered at this year's SXSW to the buzziest of buzz and then went on to win both the Grand Jury and Audience prize there. The film continues on the festival circuit this... More »
  

NYAFF Announces Their Full 2013 Line Up!

There's no doubt about it, for those of us at Twitch who get to go -- and you lucky New York readers -- the New York Asian Film Festival is always a highlight of our film-going year. And this time... More »
  

Dan Harmon Returns To COMMUNITY

When news broke in mid-May that Community would be returning for a fifth season on NBC, the reaction from critics and fans was decidedly mixed, if not outright wary, with folks contemplating whether or not the show deserved or even... More »
  

Hey, NYC! Win Tix To The Aussie Thriller WISH YOU WERE HERE, Starring Joel Edgerton
Australia has been mighty kind over the last couple of years to audiences who enjoy a good character-based thriller. Films that Twitch has taken a liking to which fall under this category include The Square, Snowtown, and, of course, the... More »
  

Indie Beat: Richard Linklater - Idolizing A Slacker

A director like Richard Linklater and a film like Before Midnight will be about as high-profile as we're likely to get at Indie Beat. Over the twenty plus years of Linklater's career (another decade or so if you count his... More »
  

LA Happenings: VERTIGO And AGUIRRE At The Egyptian, LOVE EXPOSURE, ALTERED STATES & More At Cinefamily
The back half of May is looking to be a mighty fine time for film fans of all kinds who call the greater Los Angeles area their home. The following are a few choice cuts from the many special and... More »
  

Indie Beat: What We Talk About When We Talk About Independent Cinema
(Zoe Kazan recovers from a stressful moment in Bradley Rust Gray's 2009 film "The Exploding Girl")My mindset in talking and writing about film has always stemmed from an inner dialog which goes something like this: "Well if I were out... More »
  

This Is The Timeline Where COMMUNITY Is Renewed For A Fifth Season
Word came late on Friday that network NBC and studio Sony had arrived at a deal for a fifth season of the ratings challenged, but beloved cult show Community. The fifth season will consist of at least 13 episodes that... More »
  

Review: COMMUNITY S4E13, ADVANCED INTRODUCTION TO FINALITY (Or, Is It?)
It was in the season 3 episode Documentary Filmmaking: Redux that we saw a hilariously outdated video promoting Greendale Community College. In this video we saw a hopelessly hokey basketball player say "Why Go Greendale? Just because!" That episode, written... More »
  

LA Happenings: Czech Films, Experimental Shorts From Slamdance And... GALAXY QUEST!
I am probably flattering myself a little too much in thinking that there is an eagle-eyed reader or two who noticed that this East Coast Editor no longer resides on the east coast. Yes, as you can see from the... More »
  

Review: HE'S WAY MORE FAMOUS THAN YOU Is Excessive, Obnoxious And Hilarious
He's Way More Famous Than You is a zany bit of fame-whore lambasting, with co-writer and star Halley Feiffer fearlessly taking aim at just about everything under the Hollywood/celebrity sun, most notably herself, and more importantly her appearance in "Noah... More »
  

Brooklyn Film Festival Reveals Their 2013 Line Up
It was just yesterday that I was extolling the pluses of watching movies in a place like Brooklyn, what with the fifth Annual BAMcinemaFest happening there in June. Well Today, and not to be out done (because no one is... More »
  

Here's An Indie, There's An Indie! BAMcinemaFest Announces 2013 Line Up

Oh, New York, New York, you're one hell of a town. And Brooklyn in the summertime is a place to be. Come this June BAMcinématek is most certainly a place to be, when their fifth annual BAMcinemaFest kicks off with... More »
  

Kevin Smith And Phase 4 Films Embrace Slamdance Favorite THE DIRTIES
I ain't gonna lie, it's always fun to get in on the ground floor of a movie you just know is gonna be a buzz film all year long and beyond because not only is said film really, really, funny,... More »
  
 
  Next »
Page 1 of 24
Leading Voices in Global Cinema
More »
Featured Videos
1.
Interview: V/H/S/2 Cinematographer Abdul Dermawan Habir Talks SAFE HAVEN
2.
Twitchvision: Talking MAN OF STEEL and THIS IS THE END
3.
The Kids Talk Film: Jackie Chan's POLICE STORY
Featured Articles

Jason Gorber's Cineruminations: On MAN OF STEEL, SuperJesus, and THIS IS THE END's Jewpocalypse

Back in 1933, while Hitler was ascending into power in Germany and diasporic Jews throughout the world looked on with concern, two high school students created one of the most indelible mythical heroes of the last century. Borrowing from the Nietzschean concept of the Übermensch, Joe Shuster and Jerry... More »

Twitchvision: Talking MAN OF STEEL and THIS IS THE END

This is the big week of Superman's return, with Zack Snyder's take on the caped saviour hitting our screens. While my opinion's kind of mixed on the film, there's still plenty to admire about it. I also discuss the overt Jesus imagery throughout, as expanded in a full cineruminations column... More »

70s Rewind: Bridges, Barbra, Bogdanovich, Brynner

Amazon's Prime Instant streaming service is not as well-established as Netflix and has far more modest offerings in off-beat and strange cinema. Still, since I temporarily dropped Netflix, I've been diving deeper into Amazon's catalog, and discovered a good number of films from my favorite movie decade. Here's a selection... More »

LA Film Fest 2013: Twitch Picks 12 Must-See Films

It's LA Film Fest time with LA's downtown fest kicking off tonight with Pedro Almodovar's I'm So Excited. Twitch will be on hand with a small crew to bring you news and reviews from around the fest. You can follow us on twitter at @TwitchFilm | @BenUmstead | @AlexKoehne... More »

Jason Gorber's Cineruminations: On Shyamalan, SHE'S ALL THAT and a Preponderance for Pigeonholing

Part of the (heated) discussion about my take on After Earth surrounded the dicey proposition, popularized by the "Cahiers du Cinema" crowd in the 50s, that a director's work is to be considered part of a continuous process of development, an oeuvre with authorial consistency.Frank Zappa called it "conceptual continuity",... More »
Most Popular
Follow Twitch

Never miss a thing! Headlines delivered daily.
E-mail address:

Recent Comments
More »
​​