Fests and events, 3/25.

By David Hudson on 03/25/2009

"There are traces of Murnau, Dreyer and Herzog in [Ben] Rivers's work; the films are welcome demonstrations that Expressionism is nothing so much as a feeling for how the physical world relates to the spiritual one, though musical references are equally revealing." For the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Max Goldberg previews "The Poetic Horror of Ben Rivers" (Saturday) and "This Is My Land: Ben Rivers's Portraits and Landscapes" (Sunday).

"Long before his crippling stroke, Dick Clark was the dashing young host of the Philadelphia dance sensation 'American Bandstand,' filmed for years at 46th and Market," writes Jeffrey Barg in the Philadelphia Weekly. "As the show grew and Clark became a cult of personality, he positioned himself to profit--heavily--from the records he played. Was it payola? Was it unethical? Maybe, maybe not - the beat's murky on that one. But those are the questions explored by 'The Wages of Spin,' a local documentary receiving its Philadelphia premiere at the film festival next week." That would be the Philadelphia Film Festival/CineFest, opening tomorrow and running through April 6, and Matt Prigge's got ten recommendations.

On a related note, Peter Nellhaus: "My first introduction to anything resembling Japanese rock music was courtesy of Dick Clark, on a show he hosted on Saturdays.... 'GS Wonderland' is a very funny movie about a brief era in Japanese popular music. This interview with Ryuichi Honda is of help in explaining the context of his film. The songs are by Kyohei Tsutsumi and Jun Hashimoto, the equivalent to the Brill Building composers who churned out hits performed by various singers of the moment back in the early Sixties. The music is closer to Bubblegum than to actual rock music, but that's just part of the film's goofy charm."

The Beyond Borders Film Festival opens in Minneapolis today and runs through Sunday. Rob Nelson's got an overview for you.

"The most cerebral of those New York City-based avant-garde artists who came to (relative) prominence in the late 60s and were given the name 'structural' - as well one of the most erudite characters to ever pick up a camera - Hollis Frampton made movies that were ruled by ideas," writes J Hoberman. "It's not that Frampton didn't have an eye (in fact, he began his artistic career as a photographer), but it was his concept-made material that was the thing of beauty: 'I'm a spectator of mathematics like others are spectators of soccer or pornography,' he once told a film journalist.... The 25th anniversary of his passing is being marked by the publication of 'On the Camera Arts and Consecutive Matters: The Writings of Hollis Frampton' (MIT Press), a sumptuous 300-plus page anthology of essays, statements, and interviews on film, photography, and video, together with a week-long series at Anthology Film Archives (March 25 through 31)."

Also in the Voice: Nick Pinkerton's overview of Film Forum's Jules Dassin retrospective (through April 7) and Aaron Hillis's preview of the major highlights on the cinematic calendar for New Yorkers - it opens with a talk with Steven Soderbergh about "The Girlfriend Experience."

"Robert Koehler, longtime film critic and freelance writer for Variety and other publications, has been tapped director of programming for this year's edition of AFI Fest." Related: Robert Koehler on his second day in Guadalajara.

Mike Everleth lists the Boston Underground Film Festival award-winners.

[Photo: "This Is My Land," Ben Rivers, 2006]

Tags: Ben Rivers, Hollis Frampton, Philadelphia 2009