Brad Hanford

3 weeks ago | metacritic.com | Alexander Horwath |Brad Hanford

If Fonda was an avatar of American liberalism’s tolerance and self-scrutiny, the film suggests, so, too, does he represent its complicity in the nation’s sins and its failure to change its course in the direction of justice. Read More

3 weeks ago | slantmagazine.com | Brad Hanford

“I know people speak of me as the typical American: trustworthy, loyal, full of integrity,” says the screen icon at the center of Henry Fonda for President in the film’s opening moments.

Oct 11, 2024 | slantmagazine.com | Brad Hanford

Among the individuals who’ve attempted to assassinate an American president, perhaps none is as unexpected as Sara Jane Moore. Moore’s unsuccessful attempt on the life of Gerald Ford in San Francisco in 1975 peeled back the then-45-year-old suburbanite mother’s veneer of normalcy to reveal a complex web of conflicting personal and political associations, one that Robinson Devor’s documentary Suburban Fury does its best to untangle.

Oct 2, 2024 | slantmagazine.com | Brad Hanford

Alex Ross Perry’s 2019 backstage rock drama Her Smell is bookmarked by cutaways to faux-documentary video footage, capturing its fictional 1990s alternative group in moments of camera-friendly bliss. Placed next to the emotional apocalypse that comprises most of the rest of the film’s runtime, the supposedly “real” Behind the Music-style footage can’t help but feel like an obfuscation of the band’s true story.

Oct 1, 2024 | slantmagazine.com | Brad Hanford

Miguel Gomes’s Grand Tour takes its title from an established travel itinerary known as the Asian Grand Tour, a popular option with Westerners seeking a broad but surface-level introduction to the continent in the early 20th century.