Christopher Bourne
New York City, New York

Chris is a film critic, editor, blogger, incurable cinephile, and all-around culture maven. He blogs on film at The Bourne Cinema Conspiracy.

Jackie Chan Takes Manhattan, Discusses His Life, Movie Career, and "I Am Jackie Chan: The Musical"
The fine folks at Subway Cinema and the New York Asian Film Festival scored a major coup last week when they brought action film maestro Jackie Chan to NYC for a two-day visit on June 10 and 11 in advance... More »
  

Human Rights Watch Film Festival 2013 Returns to NYC With An Impressive Slate of Provocative Films From Around the Globe
The Human Rights Watch Film Festival, now in its 24th edition, returns to New York from June 13 through 23 with 20 films, 18 documentaries and 2 fiction films, with screenings at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the... More »
  

"Chinese Realities/Documentary Visions" at MoMA, An Essential Film Series Tracing 25 Years Of Chinese Documentary Practice
Currently on view at the Museum of Modern Art, the valuable and eye-opening film series "Chinese Realities/Documentary Visions" traces the progression of Chinese documentary practice from 1988 to the present, and how filmmakers have recorded the rapid changes China has... More »
  

Tribeca 2013 Review: RAZE, A Bloody and Brutal Female-Centered Action Spectacle Headlined by Stuntwoman Turned Thespian Zoe Bell
If you're the type of person who ever thought, "Man, I wish there was a movie filled with attractive women beating the shit out of each other," well, Raze has come along to answer your prayers. A brutal, relentless machine... More »
  

Tribeca 2013 Review: THE PRETTY ONE, With a Great Performance by Zoe Kazan In an Uneven Film
Actress Zoe Kazan (The Exploding Girl, Ruby Sparks) shines in a dual role as twin sisters in Jenée LaMarque's debut feature The Pretty One, receiving its world premiere at this year's Tribeca Film Festival. Unfortunately, the film Kazan is in... More »
  

Tribeca 2013 Review: ADULT WORLD, An Obnoxious, Self-Consciously Quirky Would-Be Comedy
Like most other festivals, the Tribeca Film Festival is filled with films good, bad, and mediocre, but the nadir of my cinematic experiences here so far is certainly Scott Coffey's Adult World, a would-be comedy and self-described "satire" that is... More »
  

Tribeca 2013 Review: FLOATING SKYSCRAPERS, The First Polish LGBT Film, A Boldly Intimate Story of Forbidden Desire
Floating Skyscrapers is described by its director Tomasz Wasilewski as the first LGBT Polish film, which makes the film itself as taboo-breaking as its main characters themselves, who struggle to assert their desires, and their right to express them, in... More »
  

Tribeca 2013 Review: HARMONY LESSONS, A Brilliantly Directed Tale of School and State Cruelty Straight Outta Kazakhstan
A village school and the surrounding area in rural Kazakhstan is the backdrop for the brutal Darwinism, of both the social variety and that found in nature, depicted in Emir Baigazin's astonishing debut feature Harmony Lessons, whose extraordinary accomplishments in... More »
  

Tribeca 2013: Twitch Picks 17 Can't Miss Titles
Time to raise that curtain up! The Tribeca Film Fest starts tonight! We've already brought you plenty of previews with our looks at the Galas and Midnighters, the Documentary and Narrative Competitions, the Special Screenings and Shorts, and the... More »
  

ND/NF 2013 Review: JISEUL, A Mournful, Beautifully Photographed Depiction of a Historical Tragedy
This year's edition of New Directors/New Films is typically eclectic, with as many stylistic approaches as filmmakers employing them. But there are probably no films this year as visually stunning as Jiseul, O Muel's artful and truly original dramatization of... More »
  

ND/NF 2013 Review: BLUE CAPRICE, A Coldly Detached Observation of Two Mass Murderers
Given the devastating recent history of mass shootings in the U.S., Alexandre Moors' debut feature Blue Caprice, the opening night film of New Directors/New Films 2013, is nothing if not timely. Blue Caprice is a speculative imagining of the events... More »
  

Review: ARCADIA Brings Freshness To The Coming-Of-Age Tale And The Road Movie
The coming-of-age story is a well-worn, indeed over-familiar mode of narrative, especially in films, but director Olivia Silver's feature debut Arcadia overcomes this pitfall by bringing great sensitivity and a nicely-honed sense of poignancy, as well as some fine performances... More »
  

Review: LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE Casts A Mysterious, Unsettling Spell In Tokyo
Like Someone in Love, the gorgeous, deeply mysterious and unsettling new film by Abbas Kiarostami, continues his return to narrative filmmaking, which began with Certified Copy, the Italy-set feature that marked his first outside his native Iran. Kiarostami's latest, which... More »
  

"A Pryor Engagement" at BAM Is a Welcome Reminder of the Film Work of an Influential Comic Genius
"A Pryor Engagement," an 18-title survey of films featuring Richard Pryor, a comedian whose influence continues to loom over many others who followed in his wake (Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, and Louis C.K. being only a few examples), screens at... More »
  

Review: THE PIROGUE, A Tragically Familiar Yet Well-Told Tale of a Perilous Sea Voyage
A recurring visual motif in Moussa Touré's affecting and often harrowing sea drama The Pirogue consists of a simple yet quietly commanding camera move: the scanning of faces. These are the faces of 30 men, and one woman stowaway, who... More »
  

Christopher Bourne's Top Films of 2012 - Breaking News: Cinema Is Not Dead
Every so often, when writers and editors apparently have no better ideas at that moment, they will write alarmist think pieces bemoaning the "death of cinema." Most of the arguments usually boil down to three factors: big-budget blockbusters sucking up... More »
  

Review: MAMA, A Stylishly Directed But Disappointingly Predictable Horror Film
"Once upon a time," reads the title card that kicks off Mama, a supernatural horror film by first time feature director Andy Muschietti, which is being sold under the imprimatur of a much more famous name, Guillermo del Toro, who... More »
  

Guillermo del Toro and Jessica Chastain on the Making of MAMA
Mama, opening in the U.S. on January 18, is a supernatural horror film that deals with two little girls rescued from the woods following their parents' death. The sisters are placed in the care of their uncle Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau)... More »
  

Global Lens 2013 Review: BEIJING FLICKERS, A Subtly Observed, Incisive Portrait of China's Struggling Youth
San Bao (Duan Bowen), the disaffected, down-and-out protagonist of Zhang Yuan's latest and beautifully observed film Beijing Flickers, in an early scene, is desperately chasing after his dog Lucky, "meaning Happiness," who has suddenly run away. It soon becomes clear... More »
  

Review: QUARTET, Dustin Hoffman's Affectionate Tribute To Great Artists Of The Stage, Screen, And Concert Hall
Dustin Hoffman, as an actor, has essayed some of the most iconic and edgy roles to hit the big screen: counterculture hero Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate, Ratso Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy, the nebbish turned avenger in Straw Dogs, Lenny... More »
  
 
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Destroy All Monsters: Retire Superman

While the internet is tearing itself apart in its efforts to empirically determine whether Man of Steel "sucks" or "is awesome" - because such things are now apparently possible, given Superman Returns' near-unilateral, and intellectually disturbing, dismissal - I'd like to pause to make a gentler request: may we please... More »

Fifteen Unfilmable Novels And The Directors Who Should Try Anyway

Ah, the 'unfilmable' novel. Go back ten or fifteen years and it seems everyone had some sort of list of great novels that could never be brought to the screen. The limitations at the time were largely technical and in recent years those lists have dwindled with titles such as... More »

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 »
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