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Today The Exiles.-
"The Exiles, a film about American Indians living on the edge of downtown Los Angeles in the 1950s, is both a chronicle and a casualty of neglect: a movie about a forsaken community that itself became a lost object," writes Dennis Lim in the New York Times. "Directed by Kent Mackenzie, a first-time filmmaker who had just graduated from the University of Southern California, it is a poetic and empathetic hybrid of fiction and documentary.... [Cinematographer John] Morrill said The Exile... (more)
- Today More on WALLâ¢E.
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"[John] McCain should be required to see WALLâ¢E to learn just how far adrift he is from an America whose economic fears cannot be remedied by his flip-flop embrace of the Bush tax cuts (for the wealthy) and his sham gas-tax holiday (for everyone else)," argues Frank Rich in the New York Times. "[Barack] Obama should see it to be reminded of just how bold his vision of change had been before he settled into a front-runner's complacency. Americans should see it to appr... (more)
- Today Shorts, 7/5.
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"The Obama press contingent was abuzz last night with the news that Davis Guggenheim, the Oscar-winning director of An Inconvenient Truth, has apparently been enlisted to direct Barack Obama's biographical convention film." Variety's Ted Johnson's got what's known so far, plus background ("Guggenheim's father, Charles, was a famous documentarian who won four Oscars, including Robert Kennedy Remembered, a tribute film that was shown at the 1968 Democratic convention and went on to win an Academ... (more)
- Today Books, 7/5.
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"Deeply researched, conscientiously written, careful to contextualize its subject both in his field and in the larger culture that shaped his work, [Everything Is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard] is in almost every respect an admirable biography, exactly the sort of scrupulous and passionate work significant movie figures deserve and almost never receive. I am in awe of Richard Brody's accomplishment. Yet I have rarely been so glad to come to the end of an admirable book." ... (more)
- Today Interviews, 7/5.
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"[W]ith Guido Santi and Tina Mascara's sparkling documentary Chris & Don: A Love Story arriving in theaters just as same-sex marriage arrives in California, it seems a most auspicious moment to speak to the surviving member of one of the best-known unofficial same-sex marriages of modern times," writes David Ehrenstein, introducing his interview with Don Bachardy.
Also in the LA Weekly, Steven Mikulan talks with John Waters: "Like many people with an eye to the near future, Waters q... (more)
- Yesterday Fests and events, 7/5.
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Film Threat's Jeremy Knox caught "two great films" the night Fantasia opened in Montreal. Through July 21.
"A film festival unlike any other, Bergmanveckan (or Bergman Week), now in its fifth year in operation and its first incarnation since the death of the man at its center last July, is a celebration of location as much as film." Michael Koresky reports for indieWIRE.
Continued reading Fests and events, 7/5....
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- Yesterday A "4th of July Weekend Read."
- That it is, in many, many ways. "Finding," by Guy Davenport, by way of Wyatt Mason. The most obviously film-related bits surface about a third of the way in - but read on, see what else you find.
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- Yesterday Film Comment. July/August 08.
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Why do cinephiles regard Manoel de Oliveira so highly, you may find yourself wondering as you begin reading Jonathan Rosenbaum major piece on the "Classical Modernist" in the new issue of Film Comment. The weaknesses, after all, are laid out with level-headed honesty - until, nearly halfway in: "If he deserves to be regarded as a master - and I believe he does - his mastery belongs partially in an eccentric category of his own invention, comparable to that of Thelonious Monk as an idiosyncrati... (more)
- Yesterday Kabluey.
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In Kabluey, Scott Prendergast "assembles an assortment of unappealing characters, an exhausted setup (spiritual emptiness in McMansion land, ho-hum) and every conceivable anxiety-inducer known to late-00s Americans - joblessness, war, credit-card debt, menial labor, economic turmoil, live offspring - to pull off what may be the best evocation of contemporary alienation in a movie so far this year," writes Mark Holcomb in Time Out New York.
"The film's distance from factual reality oddly enh... (more)
- 3 days Hancock, round 2.
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To pick up from round 1: Hancock has taken some punches - okay, a lot of punches - but it does have its champions.
"Some superhero movies, like Iron Man, amuse us by making their superheroes all-too-human," writes Godfrey Cheshire in the Independent Weekly. "Others - including a couple of my favorites in the genre, James Cameron's Terminator films and Bryan Singer's Superman Returns - emphasize the superhero's otherness, which makes him less similar to us than to the heroes and intercessors... (more)
- Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 16, Week 13
- There's a brief moment in Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind where you see a VHS rack full of the films that have been sweded, and one of them is Harmony Korine's Gummo, the source of last week's quiz. I'm disappointed Gondry didn't shoot scenes of their version of the film, for who wouldn't want to see Jack Black with electrical tape over his nipples?
Gummo has always been a polarizing film, and the responses to last week's quiz more often than not contained some so... (more)
- Tartan Films, RIP
- It was at this year's European Film Market in Berlin (a wonderful source for industry gossip) that I first learned of the troubles brewing over at Tartan Films. Jane Giles, head of acquisitions, and Sam Dunn, of the home entertainment division had both recently left Tartan for senior positions at the British Film Institute (BFI), whose DVD division had grown somewhat stagnant of late. On top of that, I heard that the home office in the UK was siphoning off most of the Tartan USA's revenu... (more)
- Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 16, Week 12
- It appears that Donald Sutherland's hinder is a once-seen-never-forgotten object, for there were an overwhelming number of correct submissions to last week's quiz. That's a pre-Indiana Jones Karen Allen (in her screen debut) sizing up her literature professor in John Landis' 1978 classic, Animal House.
It's been a positively awful past few days, what with the great hard drive meltdown of 2008 and all. I've been working my way through the Kubler-Ross stages, and I&... (more)
- Technology 1, Filmbrain 0
- Without even the slightest hint that it was ill, or even depressed, the hard drive on the most important computer in my world has gone and shuffled off this mortal coil. The nearly two-month old backup I have (somewhere) will be helpful, somewhat, but everything since then has gone to the great gigs in the sky. Sigh. Recovery efforts have proven futile thus far, though I'm considering shamanic intervention.
Unfinished posts, screen capture quiz entries, unanswered emails...it's too dep... (more)
- Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 16, Week 11
- That's Lord of the Ring Ringo Starr's gardener trimming the grass carpet with a pair of chattering teeth in last week quiz, which of course comes from Richard Lester's overly silly but wonderful Help. While perhaps not as anarchic or groundbreaking as A Hard Day's Night, it is a bit funnier, with at least a half-hearted attempt at a storyline, thin as it is. This was one of those movies that was a staple on Channel 9 (WWOR) back in the 70s, and though I'd seen it about 20 tim... (more)
- Mamoulian and Montage: City Streets
- As a fan of Rouben Mamoulian's films (someone once referred to me as an apologist), I was obviously thrilled to finally get my hands on a DVD of his second film, City Streets. Released in 1931, this pre-code gangster/romance flick was penned by Dashiell Hammett (his debut as a screenwriter), and shot by cinematographer Lee Garmes, best known at for his work with von Sternberg. Fairly gritty for its time (there are nearly a dozen murders in the film), and apparently a favorite of Al Cap... (more)
- Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 16, Week 10
- As Hotspur noted in a comment, last week's screen capture, from Kevin Smith's Clerks, is truly a wonderful snapshot of the era -- the final throes of VHS, when we still went to video stores to rent bad movies (Class Act, Deep Cover, for example) in sub-picture-quality pan-and-scan. Those were the days. . .Many of you asked about the alt-text clue. "Come on Eileen" or rather "Cum on Eileen" is one of the titles that Randal requests when placing an order from his distri... (more)
- Filmbrain's Screen Capture Quiz: Round 16, Week 9
- Judging by the submissions, it appears that many of you made tremendous, time consuming efforts to figure out the source of last week's quiz. The "box office poison" line led many to assume it was either Ms. Hepburn or Ms. Crawford, but in fact it's none other than Kay Francis (or, if you prefer, Kay Fwances) in Lubitsch's better-than-brilliant Trouble In Paradise, one of the best romantic-comedies of the pre-code era.As for the Bert & Ernie in Paris hint, that would be... (more)
- Today Hancock
- Recommended if you like: (a) Will Smith’s God complex or (b) extreme close-ups of Charlize Theron’s pores. If only more homeless alcoholics would use their powers for good…... (more)
- Today Pirates of The Caribbean: At World’s End
- The third Pirates of the Caribbean is basically a series of truly marvelous set pieces, stellar makeup jobs, and gorgeous CGI strung together in a mosaic with no discernible narrative. Even Johnny Depp’s performance as has lost much of its freshness, especially since Jack Sparrow is given nothing comprehensible to do. Then Keith Richards shows up. Why? Because. Boo, suspension of disbelief; hooray, because! The art and design of the movie are so beautifully done that the nonexistence of th... (more)
- Today The Happening
- A few days ago, Pitchfork ran a review of mash-up artist Girl Talk’s new album. It began:
As I was finishing an interview with Gregg Gillis in July 2006, he casually mentioned his desire to see M. Night Shyamalan’s just-released fantasy movie Lady in the Water. Given the film’s wretched reviews – a pitiful 24% on Rotten Tomatoes – and the train-wreck hype surrounding it, I thought he was kidding. He wasn’t; Gillis liked some of Shyamalan... (more)
- Yesterday Air Force One
- Before heading to the cookouts, my girlfriend and I laid in bed this morning and watched Air Force One on a laptop. The acting and dialogue are terrible, for the most part. (Watch Gary Oldman, as the head hijacker, try to keep a straight face while mourning “Mother Russia.”) But the scenario itself is irresistible: Harrison Ford as the President, belonging to no specific political party, but still single-handedly saving a plane full of hostages, and the free world? Say what you will ... (more)
- 3 days Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
- It’s Thompson’s political contributions/repercussions that fuel the new documentary Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson more than a thrust for a personal biography (for that see 2003’s Breakfast with Hunter, extracts from which are included). Despite tracing events from Thompson’s early 20s up to his suicide in 2005 it’s evident that his brushes with the US government are what interest director Alex Gibney the most.... (more)
- WALL-E
- I used to assume Pixar films would always centre their narratives around some sort of basic childhood fear or parental paranoia (usually involving abandonment issues), but in recent years Pixar has attempted to distance themselves from these mildly manipulative scenarios and instead concentrated their considerable talents upon envisioning various distressing and disheartening dystopias. By doing so the company has achieved some extraordinary results that simultaneously fuse together charming ent... (more)
- Stranger on the Third Floor
- Nearly a decade after his haunting turn as a deranged murderer in Fritz Lang’s M, Peter Lorre lent his incomparable aura of insanity to another tense thriller, once again playing a mentally disturbed man who is convinced that the world has it in for him, and is irresistibly compelled to carry out heinous and violent acts.
Unlike his starring role in M, however, Lorre’s work here is limited to a few short scenes, the bulk of the tale dominated by the tribulations of a report... (more)
- Berlin Alexanderplatz
- “Whose business is it what I do?”
One begins to get the distinct impression that the decadent, melancholy, hedonistic Franz is a portrait of the artist as undesirable in this fourth section. Like his director, at least in his own eyes, Franz is a barely tolerated outsider, lashing out against German society while making occasional clumsy attempts to appeal to its prejudices (viz. the scene where he drunkenly insists on his patriotism to a shirtless worker). As in his later ... (more)
- An Interview with Frederick Wiseman
- “Within the framework of doing an institutional series – and there have only been a couple of exceptions to that – it’s really any subject that interests me that I think is worth spending a year on, because by the time it’s shot and edited, a year goes by. It’s basically a course in adult education, where I’m the alleged adult and I get to study a new subject every year.” To conclude our month of Frederick Wiseman, we spoke to the directo... (more)
- The African Queen
- I’m sure this admission will be viewed as total blasphemy, but I must confess that I actually prefer Cate Blanchett’s impersonation of Katharine Hepburn (“… I’m so vulgarly referred to as “outdoorsy.” Well, I’m not “outdoorsy,” I’m athletic.”) to any performance by Katharine Hepburn. Truthfully I generally find Hepburn’s pompous personality to be unbearably irksome (dare I say, both “snooty” and “sno... (more)
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- Yesterday The gentler side of anger
- Neil Young films his reunion with his folk-rock super-group compatriots to make a plaintive, urgency-filled protest against the war in Iraq, writes Richard Waters... (more)
- Yesterday Leaders in the field
- The popular stars of 'The Mighty Boosh'suggest that comedy is the new rock 'n' roll -- or is at least becoming indistinguishable from it, writes Marcus O'Dair... (more)
- Yesterday When criminal justice meets artistic licence
- Two new TV crime dramas depict a cynical and indifferent justice system, stoking anger from members of the London legal world, writes John Lloyd... (more)
- The new tsars of Russian TV
- In spite of slick presentation and talented teams of journalists, the country's news media still follow the Kremlin line, writes Neil Buckley in our look at television around the world... (more)
- Catalogue of American irony
- Beautifully paced, understated, telling details expressed with the slightest of brush strokes, writer-director Thomas McCarthy's small movie 'The Visitor' has enjoyed huge success on the festival circuit, writes Martin Hoyle... (more)
- Parallel worlds in space and Stamford Hill
- A three-part series on Anglo Jews demonstrates to John Lloyd that television can be a medium for aiding reflection... (more)
- Game, set and sacked
- Journalist Patrick Poivre d'Arvor has been a legendary fixture of French television news for decades, but his career came to an abrupt end with a very public firing that became the topic of café conversations, writes John Thornhill... (more)
- A double dose of midsummer madness
- What could be madder than a film week that twins the gloppy glitz of the newest Narnia epic with an independent film as funny, brave, cheap and pessimistic as 'A Complete History of My Sexual Failures', asks Nigel Andrews... (more)
- 'Why do I have to go through this?'
- Lou Reed's 'lost' masterpiece is still a touchy subject for the notoriously irascible singer... (more)
- Window on different worlds
- Whether documentary or fiction, each television show tells us something about its creators and how they think about their subjects, says John Lloyd... (more)
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