The Daily brings together all the film news you need to know, updated throughout the day.
David Hudson
The Daily is written by David Hudson -- contact him at thedaily (at) ifc dot com.
June 2009
Hello, I must be going.
By David Hudson on 06/30/2009
On the one hand, it feels like I just got here. On the other, we've been through another Sundance, another Cannes - and now, here comes another summer, and I'll be heading out soon on holiday. I won't be returning to this particular spot, though you may see my byline appearing now and then elsewhere at IFC.com; the Daily, at least as we've known it and watched it evolve over the past six years, won't be returning, either. But that doesn't mean I'll stop doing what I do; I've been dreaming up a new format and, if all goes according... MORE »
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Shorts, 6/30.
By David Hudson on 06/30/2009
A new issue of Cinema Scope has just gone up, featuring editor Mark Peranson's opener: "2009 was, far and away, the stupidest Cannes ever." He also interviews Corneliu Porumboiu ("Police, Adjective"), while Dennis Lim talks with João Pedro Rodrigues ("To Die Like a Man") and Scott Foundas with Marco Bellocchio ("Vincere"). Beyond Cannes, Michael Sicinski talks with Richard Dutcher about his "Post-Morman Cinema" and Max Goldberg with Lee Anne Schmitt about "California Company Town." Also: Shelly Kraicer on the Jeonju International Film Festival, Olaf Möller's books roundup, Jonathan Rosenbaum's DVDs roundup, Jay Kuehner on "Humpday," Andrew Tracy on "The Limits... MORE »
Fests and events, 6/30.
By David Hudson on 06/30/2009
At Twitch, Andrew Mack relishes the full lineup of the Fantasia International Film Festival, happening July 9 through 27 in Montreal. "Dialogues with Films: Four Decades of the Forum" is happening in Berlin from tomorrow through Sunday. Do click that title; as I explain at Artforum, for this 40th anniversary event, directors are being flown in from all over the globe to introduce films that've influenced them - and some of those intros are online. On a related note: "The Berlinale will celebrate its 60th anniversary in 2010 - and the public is invited to play a special role on... MORE »
DVDs, 6/30.
By David Hudson on 06/30/2009
"Seemingly nonchalant, impeccably crafted, borderline delirious, 'My Dinner with André' is the result of an inspired collaboration among its actor-writers, Wallace Shawn and André Gregory, and its director, Louis Malle," writes Amy Taubin in Criterion's Current. "In the nearly three decades since its 1981 debut, this tiny independent movie has inspired myriad prose pieces and a slew of witticisms that riff on its title. Nothing, however, captures its eccentricity and perhaps the reason for its effect on viewers as neatly as this line from Vincent Canby's New York Times review: 'At times,' Canby wrote, '"My Dinner with André" suggests a... MORE »
Shorts, 6/29.
By David Hudson on 06/29/2009
"Jerry Lewis is headed back to Broadway, this time in the director's chair," reports Dave Itzkoff for the New York Times. "The veteran comedian, last seen in 1995 on a Broadway stage as Applegate in the revival of 'Damn Yankees,' will direct a musical adaptation of his hit 1963 comedy 'The Nutty Professor' that is planned for the 2010-11 season." Also in the NYT: "Although ['Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of "Fitzcarraldo"' (excerpt)] provides a hypnotic chronicle of the film crew's daily progress, it inevitably heats up when [Klaus] Kinski arrives," writes Janet Maslin in the New... MORE »
Fests and events, 6/29.
By David Hudson on 06/29/2009
Anne Thompson wraps up the Los Angeles Film Festival, and of course, she's got the list of award-winners, too, topped by Sam Fleischner and Ben Chace's "Wah Do Dem" (Target Filmmaker Award) and Juan Carlos Rulfo and Carlos Hagerman's "Those Who Remain" (Target Documentary Award). The festival closed last night with Hayao Miyazaki's "Ponyo," a "singular experience," writes Drew McWeeney at Hitfix, "animation as pure emotion, a love story and an adventure and one of the real treats for 2009 so far." Meantime, Chris MaGee reports that a few dates and appearances have been added to Miyazaki's itinerary for his... MORE »
Wrapping Edinburgh 09.
By David Hudson on 06/28/2009
[Updated through 6/30] This year's edition of the Edinburgh International Film Festival wraps with an announcement of the award-winners. Looking back on his predictions, we can see that Neil Young hit one on the nose: "Easier With Practice" is named the Best New International Feature. In other categories, he came close. "Moon" did pull out in front of "Fish Tank" after all, taking the Michael Powell Award for Best New British Feature. Even so, Andrea Arnold's Cannes entry isn't coming away empty-handed: Katie Jarvis wins the PPG Award for Best Performance in a British Feature Film. Among the other awards:... MORE »
"Public Enemies"
By David Hudson on 06/27/2009
[Updated through 6/30] "Public Enemies" opens on Wednesday not only in the US but also in the UK. As mentioned earlier, the trades' reviews are in (Hollywood Reporter, Screen and Variety), and now, the Guardian's run a special issue of its "Film & Music" weekly: John Patterson profiles Michael Mann, while David Thomson looks back on the director's career - and lists his top 10 gangster movies. Jeff Guinn looks back to the 30s and notes that "the idea of swashbuckling crooks sticking it to the rich and powerful epitomised the daydreams of working-class America. It was what people wanted... MORE »
Shorts, 6/27.
By David Hudson on 06/27/2009
"Werner Herzog is famous for his cinematic depictions of obsessives and outsiders, from the El Dorado-seeking Spaniard played by Klaus Kinski in his 1972 international breakthrough, 'Aguirre: The Wrath of God,' to Timothy Treadwell, the doomed bear-worshiper of his 2005 documentary, 'Grizzly Man.'" Lawrence Levi in the Los Angeles Times: "Herzog's own reputation as an obsessive, not to mention daredevil and doomsayer, was solidified by 'Burden of Dreams,' a documentary chronicling Herzog's trials while filming 'Fitzcarraldo' in the Peruvian jungle in 1981. 'Conquest of the Useless: Reflections From the Making of "Fitzcarraldo"' comprises Herzog's diaries from the three arduous years... MORE »
Fests and events, 6/27.
By David Hudson on 06/27/2009
"[T]he question of what becomes an LGBT icon most was very much at the forefront of the [Frameline33's] first week," writes Matt Sussman at SF360. "Frameline's closing night happens to fall on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, and a special subset of programming highlights films related to the heady years of Gay Liberation and the early queer outbursts to emerge from underground cinema in the 60s and 70s. And while it was thrilling to get to rub shoulders with the likes of former Warhol and Paul Morrissey pin-up Joe Dallesandro (who quipped during the post 'Little Joe' Q&A... MORE »
Also in theaters, 6/26.
By David Hudson on 06/26/2009
Seems pretty safe to say that your best bet this week is "The Hurt Locker." If you have to see "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," let's hope you've gotten it out of way by now. Then, of course, there's "Chéri," "Quiet Chaos" and... "Afghan Star" "'Afghan Star' sets out with a delectably postmodern agenda," writes Joseph Jon Lanthier in Slant: "Closely following four contestants in the eponymous television program, Afghanistan's burqa-busting answer to 'American Idol,' the documentary compassionately argues that one region's pop detritus is another's ideological maturation." "[I]f nothing else, 'Afghan Star' offers a reminder of how much has... MORE »
"Quiet Chaos"
By David Hudson on 06/26/2009
"The wanton slaughter of mothers and the consequent struggles of grieving single dads has been an epidemic in Hollywood for a long time, and not only in movies starring John Cusack," writes AO Scott in the New York Times. "'Quiet Chaos,' a new film from the Italian director Antonello Grimaldi, demonstrates that the sad-dad melodrama is a global (or at least a midlevel European art film) phenomenon. If the film is less maudlin and more psychologically astringent than most American specimens, this is partly a matter of Mr Grimaldi's restraint and partly thanks to Nanni Moretti's sharp and unpredictable turn... MORE »
Michael Jackson, 1958 - 2009.
By David Hudson on 06/26/2009
[Updated through 6/30] "Michael Jackson was fascinated by celebrity tragedy," write Geoff Boucher and Elaine Woo in the Los Angeles Times. "He had a statue of Marilyn Monroe in his home and studied the sad Hollywood exile of Charlie Chaplin. He married the daughter of Elvis Presley. Jackson met his own untimely death Thursday at age 50, and more than any of those past icons, he left a complicated legacy. As a child star, he was so talented he seemed lit from within; as a middle-aged man, he was viewed as something akin to a visiting alien who, like Tinkerbell,... MORE »
"Chéri"
By David Hudson on 06/25/2009
[Updated through 6/27] "Putting aside her fragrant memoirs, 'Chéri' and 'The Last of Chéri' are probably Colette's finest achievement as a writer; they lucidly express her faith in materialism as well as her convincing belief that sensuality is the highest of all human pursuits." Dan Callahan in Slant: "These two novels about an aging courtesan and her devouring passion for a young pretty boy are many things, but most of all they are French to their core, and the rude English narration that begins Stephen Frears's adaptation of 'Chéri' strikes a jarring note right from the start." The film "is... MORE »
Farrah Fawcett, 1947 - 2009.
By David Hudson on 06/25/2009
"Farrah Fawcett, an actress and television star whose good looks and signature flowing hairstyle influenced a generation of women and, beginning with a celebrated pinup poster, bewitched a generation of men, died Thursday morning in Santa Monica, Calif," writes Susan Stewart in the New York Times. "She was 62.... Ms Fawcett won praise for her serious acting later in her career, typically as a victimized woman and notably in the television movie 'The Burning Bed.' But she remained best known for the hit 1970s television show 'Charlie's Angels,' in which she played Jill Munroe, one of three beautiful female private... MORE »
Shorts, 6/25.
By David Hudson on 06/25/2009
"Czech playwright and politician Václav Havel has announced plans to direct a film adaptation of his most recent play, 'Leaving,'" reports Theodore Schwinke for Cineuropa. "He is also understood to be collaborating with Czech-born director Milos Forman on 'The Ghost of Munich,' an adaptation of Georges-Marc Benamou's novel about the 1938 Munich Agreement." Stephen Fry's in Germany, making a doc on his "(ambiguous) obsession with Richard Wagner." Simon Rumley, whose "The Living and the Dead" has been a festival favorite for a few years now, is in Austin shooting his next feature. As Ashley Moreno reports in the Chronicle, it's... MORE »
Fests and events, 6/25.
By David Hudson on 06/25/2009
"Overall tamer than the New York Asian Film Festival's pop freakout (the two series co-present nine of their films, including must-sees like 'Love Exposure' and 'Fish Story'), the Japan Society's third annual showcase of contemporary J-cinema is just as eclectic in its array of seasonally appropriate blockbusters and micro-budget indies," writes Aaron Hillis in the Voice. Japan Cuts runs from Tuesday through July 12. "[L]et's jump into the way-back machine and return to the beginning of this decade, when Ang Lee's 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' grossed $128 million and won four Oscars, blowing the old paradigm of possibility for foreign-language... MORE »
"Transformers": The Binge is Appallin'
By David Hudson on 06/24/2009
[Updated through 6/27] "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" "might be compared to torture," suggests Nathan Lee at NPR, "not in the colloquial sense of being 'painful' to watch, but rather insofar as it reduces both subject and spectator to the status of objects. The film is profoundly inhuman -- mechanized not only in terms of the alien robots who rampage through its narrative but in regard to its ostensibly human characters." "And make no mistake: [Michael] Bay is an auteur," argues Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. "His signature adorns every image in his movies, as conspicuously as that... MORE »
DVDs, 6/23.
By David Hudson on 06/23/2009
"Based in San Francisco, [Jay] Rosenblatt first made his mark on the festival circuit in the 1990s with a series of short films that dealt explicitly with the raw materials of therapy - hidden fears, anxieties, and compulsions; childhood traumas; the tangled roots and twisted branches of our psychic makeup." Nelson Kim at Hammer to Nail: "Six of these early works are now available on a new DVD compilation, 'The Films of Jay Rosenblatt - Vol. 1.' They range in length from one minute to half an hour. All are constructed out of found footage from old newsreels and industrial... MORE »
Shorts, fests, etc, 6/23.
By David Hudson on 06/23/2009
"Iranian filmmakers - both in Iran and exiled - have taken an outspoken and central role in the protests against the reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Now they may be facing some pushback. After Marjane Satrapi and Mohsen Makhmalbaf presented a document that claimed Ahmadinejad received only 12% of the vote, not 65%, and today in Rome, Mohsen Makhmalbaf reiterated his accusations, calling the election a coup d'etat, news comes this afternoon that 17-year-old Amin Maher, an actor who appeared in Abbas Kiarostami's 'Ten' - and the son of painter and filmmaker Mania Akbari, who also appears in 'Ten' - has... MORE »
Sight & Sound. July 09.
By David Hudson on 06/23/2009
Tony Rayns has known Kenneth Anger for just over 40 years: "The first thing to note about Anger's films is that they are designed to be seen over and over again. Aside from the fragments 'Puce Moment' and 'Kustom Kar Kommandos' (1965), both intended as parts of longer films, they are typically cyclic in structure: their endings return to their beginnings, inviting replays. By accident or design, this trait echoes both the picture-palace tradition of continuous performances (in the good old days, kids, you could buy a ticket in the afternoon and sit through the programme as many times as... MORE »
Criterion's "Last Year at Marienbad"
By David Hudson on 06/23/2009
[Updated through 6/25] "Back in the day when cocktail-party chatter used to revolve around the possible meanings of perplexing art films, Alain Resnais's 1961 movie, 'Last Year at Marienbad,' was an unrivaled conversation starter," begins Dennis Lim in the Los Angeles Times. "Here was a film in which nothing is what it seems and everything seems to take place at once." "Resnais's graceful, haunting puzzle movie, with its screenplay by the avant-garde novelist Alain Robbe-Grillet and a cast of upper-class phantoms haunting a palatial hotel, sharply divided the public," concurs Dave Kehr in the New York Times. "Composed of lines... MORE »
"The Hurt Locker"
By David Hudson on 06/22/2009
[Updated through 6/29] "Kathryn Bigelow makes rock 'n roll action films - heart-racing, pulse-pounding genre flicks that, when necessary, employ outsized melodrama to enhance balls-to-the-wall mayhem. 'The Hurt Locker' is no different," writes Nick Schager, "save for the fact that it does so within the context of the Iraq War, a conflict that's largely been treated by Hollywood with ponderous moralizing. Bigelow situates her saga in Iraq but eschews cable-news pontificating, stripping her scenario - about a bomb squad's tour of duty - down to its nail-biting essence." "Given her predilection for portraits of men under pressure, it's surprising that... MORE »
Shorts, 6/22.
By David Hudson on 06/22/2009
Meryl Streep turns 60 today and Nathaniel R's got "60 Appropriate Ways to Celebrate." Salutes from Germany: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Anke Westphal (Berliner Zeitung) and Die Zeit. And Nick Davis rounds up some fun online viewing. "A young filmmaker visits the desert home of a secret war advisor in the hopes of making a documentary. The situation is complicated by the arrival of the older man's daughter, and the narrative takes a dark turn." That's the short description of Don DeLillo's next novel, "Point Omega," coming out in February, according to Don DeLillo's America. "Here's your odd and unexpected news... MORE »
Fests and events, 6/22.
By David Hudson on 06/22/2009
"If you're in town for the Venice Biennale, don't miss the marriage of High Renaissance painting and advanced technology that is 'The Wedding at Cana,' by the British filmmaker Peter Greenaway," advises Roberta Smith in the New York Times. "If nothing else, it is possibly the best unmanned art history lecture you'll ever experience." "What is the Documentarian's Responsibility When the Story Changes?" asks AJ Schnack, who's been considering the case of Fredrik Gertten's "Bananas!*" [site] both before and after the Los Angeles Film Festival decided to screen the film even after a judge ruled that the version of the... MORE »
Shorts, 6/21.
By David Hudson on 06/21/2009
Flickhead's just opened up "Ten Days' Wonder: The Claude Chabrol Blog-a-Thon," running today through June 30; on a related note, then, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky in the Tisch Film Review: "The 'Beau Serge' I've seen and the one Barthes wrote about are different films because we're different people. Therein lies its greatness." Claude Chabrol's "Le Beau Serge" screens Wednesday at Doc Films in Chicago and on August 7 at the Cinematheque Ontario in Toronto. Andy Rector runs "Lumiere: A Conversation Between Jean Renoir and Henri Langois," translated in 2006 by Bill Krohn. Somewhat related: David Coursen in the Parallax View: "A film... MORE »
Fests and events, 6/21.
By David Hudson on 06/21/2009
"Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher's 'October Country' [site] led the winners at this year's SILVERDOCS Documentary Festival," reports Peter Knegt at indieWIRE. More from Pamela Cohn at Filmmaker. "The Rose Theatre in Port Townsend, Washington, is one of the pleasantest, coziest places to see a movie, period," writes Robert Horton. "On June 28 the Rose hosts the much-huzzahed Alloy Orchestra for two live performances of their original score for Josef von Sternberg's 1927 classic 'Underworld,' which despite being a classic is all too rarely screened." "In 'Vinyan,' written and directed by Fabrice Du Welz, Rufus Sewell and Emmanuelle Béart play... MORE »
Iran, 6/20.
By David Hudson on 06/20/2009
[Updated through 6/21] "The flowering of Iranian cinema in the 1990s was itself evidence of a cultural and political thaw, a tentative premonition of the current demand for change," argues AO Scott. "No national cinema is easily summarized, and movies are always an imperfect window on the world. But to watch, say, 'The Apple' (1998), [Samira] Makhmalbaf's first film; 'The Circle' (2000), 'Crimson Gold' (2003) and 'Offside' (2006) by [Jafar] Panahi; the more tenderly sentimental films of Majid Majidi (including 'The Color of Paradise' and 'Baran'); and Bahman Ghobadi's tough, poetic films about Kurdistan - and this is a very... MORE »
Shorts, 6/20.
By David Hudson on 06/20/2009
"Film Studies For Free brings you a little Friday round up of just-out-now scholarly links." Little? Catherine Grant's would be the understatement of the day yesterday, if not the month. Make that a month of Sundays; it just might take you that long to work through it all. She's already indexed it all so neatly, too, that all I need to tell you is that the collection encompasses new issues of Jump Cut ("Special sections: imagining and documenting torture; television; Hollywood; East Asian film; porn; art films and international cinema; horror. 40+ new essays"), Flow and Film Quarterly (featuring Laura... MORE »
Also in theaters, 6/19.
By David Hudson on 06/19/2009
Good thing there are several inviting festivals on throughout the country - BAMcinemaFEST and the New York Asian Film Festival and, on the other coast, the Los Angeles Film Festival and San Francisco's Frameline33 - because most (not all!) of this week's new theatrical releases will likely have you looking for other options. If not a festival, then your local repertory theater, if you've got one in town, or your DVD player if you don't. And by the way, if you've decided to stay in and you're not sure what to rent this weekend, Old Hollywood has a recommendation for... MORE »
"Dead Snow" (plus a few zombies who are not Nazis)
By David Hudson on 06/19/2009
[Updated through 6/20] "It may be 'Scandinavia's first Nazi-zombie-horror-slasher-feel-good film' - and sure, there's a certain novelty to the fact that everyone here is speaking Norwegian - but 'Dead Snow' speaks the lingua franca of its genre," writes Nathan Lee for NPR. "So, because backwoods America isn't the only place where some dimwit realizes that the house slut has gone missing and decides that the best course of action would be to 'split up and go look for her,' the nubile medical students in 'Dead Snow' meet a fate worthy of every snarky, overprivileged youngster who ever populated a shameless... MORE »
Fests and events, 6/19.
By David Hudson on 06/19/2009
"Cinematheque Ontario in Toronto has kicked off its summer season," notes Girish. "The highlights: French New Wave, Otto Preminger, Surrealism and the cinema, Jacques Tati, Jean-Pierre Melville, and leading ladies of Italian cinema. Playing in the New Wave series is Jacques Rozier's rare 'Adieu Philippine' (1962). What a smart, lyrical and witty film this is!" The Chicago Reader's JR Jones presents a big roundup of local goings on for this weekend and beyond. Cameron Crowe and Peter Bart will be hosting "An Academy Salute to Hal Ashby," featuring a "freewheeling discussion with Ashby's colleagues and admirers including Judd Apatow, Jeff... MORE »
NYAFF 09.
By David Hudson on 06/19/2009
[Updated through 6/22] "Blissfully free from the constraints of good taste, the New York Asian Film Festival returns on Friday for its seventh annual edition," writes Dave Kehr in the New York Times. "A true enthusiast's event, the festival is programmed by a collective of Asian film buffs whose eclectic tastes run from the wildest Korean shoot-'em-ups to the most restrained and contemplative Japanese dramas. With more than 50 features crammed into two weeks, it is one of the few festivals in the world that refuses to draw a line between lofty art-house fare and broad popular entertainment, a refreshingly... MORE »
"Year One"
By David Hudson on 06/18/2009
[Updated through 6/21] "'Comedy,' Jerry Lewis or some other professional wisenheimer once said, 'is a man in trouble.'" So begins Manohla Dargis in the New York Times: "In Harold Ramis's 'Year One,' a thoroughly, sometimes gaggingly broad and sly conceptual laugh-in laced-with-jokes - about God, poop, circumcision, female underarm hair and the state of Israel - comedy is two men dressed in animal skins and neck deep in shtick. Set in what looks like a succession of B-movie studio sets, the film brings to mind a Hope and Crosby road movie, though only if Bob and Bing, after studying the... MORE »
"$9.99"
By David Hudson on 06/18/2009
[Updated through 6/19] "Why can't animation be employed to stimulate the adult imagination and probe weightier matters than flatulence?" asks Jeff Reichert at indieWIRE. "Is the genre irrevocably linked at this point to juvenilia? There are obvious exceptions: the melancholia of Don Hertzfeld, the serious sociopolitical content of Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's 'Persepolis,' Linklater's 'Waking Life' and the recent animated doc 'Waltz with Bashir.' Add to these Tatia Rosenthal's stop-motion '$9.99' which takes a wan, whimsical look at the average lives of the denizens of an anonymous Australian apartment building." "A semiabsurdist dialogue between white-collar worker Jim Peck ([Anthony]... MORE »
"Whatever Works"
By David Hudson on 06/18/2009
[Updated through 6/20] "Woody Allen hasn't made any secret of the recycling job that is his new film 'Whatever Works,' first written three decades ago as a starring vehicle for Zero Mostel and exhumed from his desk in a pinch when a looming SAG strike threatened Allen's brisk film-per-year output." ST VanAirsdale in Movieline: "It's an interesting admission - perhaps the most interesting thing about the film, in fact, which Allen revived instead with Larry David as his brilliant, misanthropic surrogate and Evan Rachel Wood as his nubile Southern muse. We always knew he was kind of a dirty old... MORE »
Shorts, 6/18.
By David Hudson on 06/18/2009
"By placing Denver's administrative process of organizing and running the 2008 Democratic confab ahead of the event's political content, AJ Schnack's 'Convention' becomes a bipartisan, upbeat celebration of democracy's delicate membrane and can-do spirit," writes Eddie Cockrell in Variety. "Following preems June 17 as SilverDocs' centerpiece presentation and June 22 at the Los Angeles fest, pic will be in great demand on the circuit and could do decent niche theatrical prior to healthy ancillary." More on the premiere from Brian Brooks at indieWIRE. The New York Post's Lou Lumenick has seen Michael Mann's "Public Enemies": "For all its considerable visual... MORE »
Debating (and actually seeing) "Brüno"
By David Hudson on 06/18/2009
[Updated through 6/20] "Is anyone really upset by 'Brüno'?" asks Drew McWeeny at Hitfix, taking the Wrap to task for its "sensational coverage." The gist of Dominic Patten's piece is that "reactions in Hollywood go far beyond the apprehensions reported in a recent New York Times article on feedback in the broader gay and lesbian community." Patten's rhetoric may be juiced up here and there, and he seems to buy into the story from an anonymous insider "involved in the 'Brüno' production" that "significant reshoots" were made to address concerns in the LGBT community. But there's also some honest and... MORE »
Fests and events, 6/18.
By David Hudson on 06/18/2009
Rebecca Yeldham became the director of the Los Angeles Film Festival "this past March during a tense moment for LAFF and its parent organization, Film Independent," notes Scott Foundas. "Four months earlier, Yeldham's predecessor, Rich Raddon, had resigned his position following the widely publicized revelation that he had made a personal contribution to the pro-Proposition 8 political campaign. So Yeldham had to hit the ground running, with barely three months left to plan for the festival's 2009 edition (June 18 - 28). Fortunately, she found a healthy support network waiting for her in the form of Film Independent Executive Director... MORE »
Shorts, 6/17.
By David Hudson on 06/17/2009
The "Iran" entry has fallen off the front page, so I'll be adding relevant items as they appear in "Shorts" roundups like this one. For now, the Boston Phoenix's Peter Keough has a good overview of that not-so-narrow space where concerns about the current crisis and those of many film bloggers overlap. The most prominent story most are pointing to at the moment is ADN Kronos International's report on Marjane Satrapi ("Persepolis") and Mohsen Makhmalbaf's ("Salaam Cinema") presentation of a document to Green Party MPs in the European Parliament they claim proves that, in Makhmalbaf's words, "What happened is not... MORE »
Fests and events, 6/17.
By David Hudson on 06/17/2009
"A fantasia on Brazilian themes and myths, based on a Modernist novel written in 1928 by Mário de Andrade (no relation to the movie's director [Joaquim Pedro de Andrade]), the floridly metaphorical, savagely satirical film has drawn comparisons to the work of Fellini, John Waters and Lina Wertmüller. Yet in its faux-folkloric outlook and subtle as well as not-so-veiled references to the country's repressive era of military rule (1964 - 85), 'Macunaíma' declares its unmistakably Brazilian identity." And to mark its 40th anniversary, Last Remaining Seats will be screening 'Macunaíma' tonight in the Million Dollar Theater. More from Reed Johnson... MORE »
BAMcinemaFEST 09.
By David Hudson on 06/17/2009
[Updated through 6/18] "Today, the inaugural BAMcinemaFEST opens, marking 10 years of the BAMcinematek and the diversity of repertory programming that, day to day, makes it hard for law-abiding New Yorkers to get work done," writes Nicolas Rapold in the L Magazine. "The theater's gel-light-color foldout calendars may not smell quite so inkily intoxicating as they once did, but their contents reflect a continuing dedication to a layered variety of series big and small, foreign and domestic, thematic and auteurist. The FEST's mix, partly absorbing the old Sundance at BAM series, pays tribute with premieres (like the new film by... MORE »
"The Windmill Movie"
By David Hudson on 06/17/2009
[Updated through 6/19] "The documentary and experimental filmmaker Richard Pendleton Rogers was born with a jagged silver spoon in his mouth," writes David Ansen. "He spent a good deal of his colorful, contradictory life alternately eating from and gagging on that spoon.... In his most personal films, like 'Elephants: Fragments of an Argument' (1973), he wrestled with the guilt and ambivalence that was the price he made himself pay for his privileged background. I got to witness that ambivalence firsthand. Rogers was one of my roommates at Harvard in the 1960s. As a Jewish kid who grew up in Los... MORE »
Shorts, 6/16.
By David Hudson on 06/16/2009
"Portuguese director Pedro Costa's star has been on the ascent for some time now, generally kept as a secret until 2006's 'Colossal Youth's screening at Cannes aggravated a certain kind of audience enough for us to know a new master had suddenly jumped into the limelight," writes Daniel Kasman, introducing his interview. "That impression, at least in the US, was confirmed in 2007 when Costa took six of his feature films - including the 'Vanda' trilogy of 'Ossos' (1997), 'In Vanda's Room' (2000), and 'Colossal Youth' (2001) - and several shorts on a tour around the country. It was an... MORE »
DVDs, 6/16.
By David Hudson on 06/16/2009
"Less than a year old, newcomers to the DVD field Mondo Vision have been championing the overlooked ouerve of Andrzej Zulawski, a Polish filmmaker (and one-time assistant to Andrzej Wajda) who has spent much of his career working in France," writes Cullen Gallagher for the L Magazine. "The company made their debut with his movie 'The Public Woman' (1984); today marks Mondo Vision's second release, Zulawski's 'L'important c'est d'aimer' ('The Important Thing Is To Love') (1975), appearing for the first time on home video here in North America in both a single disc and two-disc Limited Edition." Update, 6/17: At... MORE »
Criterion's Second "Seventh Seal"
By David Hudson on 06/16/2009
[Updated through 6/19] "Swedish cinema titan Ingmar Bergman's mopey/earthy 1957 breakthrough 'The Seventh Seal' may have done more than any other film to popularize and demonize the notion of world cinema as the boutique of the cultural intelligentsia," writes Eric Henderson in Slant. "Neither Bergman nor the Grim Reaper's fault, per se, especially when their collective Black Plague-set tumble into postmodern nausea is actually a great deal more laughable (in both senses) than Bergman's most popular previous film, the morose and largely mirthless sex comedy 'Smiles of a Summer Night' (to say nothing of the myriad Woody Allen bummers inspired... MORE »
Fests and events, 6/16.
By David Hudson on 06/16/2009
"In her expressive and rhythmic films and videos, Aïda Ruilova deftly manipulates sound and expression and her fascination with horror movies always hovers near the surface. Her more recent, longer works take her gothic, B-movie style further with short narratives that are never fully resolved and always leave us wanting more. For her Hammer Projects exhibition in the Video Gallery, Ruilova will produce a new film or video in Los Angeles as part of her Hammer residency." Today through September 27. "Dick Smith brought the devil out of Linda Blair, transformed Marlon Brando into a jowly Mafia don and punked... MORE »
Michael Bay. One sequel, two dead remakes and lots and lots of money.
By David Hudson on 06/16/2009
[Updated through 6/18] "With machines that are impressively more lifelike, and characters that are more and more like machines, 'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen' takes the franchise to a vastly superior level of artificial intelligence," writes Jordan Mintzer for Variety. "As for human intelligence, it's primarily at the service of an enhanced arsenal of special effects, which helmer Michael Bay deploys like a general launching his very own shock-and-awe campaign on the senses. Otherwise, little seems new compared to the first installment, except that this version is longer, louder, and perhaps 'more than your eye can meet' in one sitting."... MORE »
Allan King, 1930 - 2009.
By David Hudson on 06/16/2009
[Updated] "Canadian filmmaker Allan King, director of the documentaries 'Warrendale' and 'Dying at Grace,' has died," reports CBC News. "He was 79.... King, an independent filmmaker for most of his life, had a reputation as one of Canada's most innovative filmmakers.... 'There are few filmmakers whose impact has been central to the medium but Allan King is unquestionably one of them,' Piers Handling, director of the Toronto International Film Festival, said of King's work." "A man whose own early life was emotionally and economically destitute, Allan King embraced film as an entry point to other people's traumas - not to... MORE »
Shorts, fests, etc, 6/15.
By David Hudson on 06/15/2009
"They were hailed as the greatest minds of their generation," writes Andrew Johnson in the Independent. "[B]ut despite their drug-induced, jazz-fuelled exploits, which helped to introduce the notion of youth culture to Cold-War America, the adventures of Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg have for some reason evaded proper treatment on the big screen. Now three films are in production, aiming finally to capture the true characters of the three writers whose messages of personal freedom and non-conformity changed US society." "Rare films featuring early performances from comedians like Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan are being restored by the... MORE »
Shorts, 6/14.
By David Hudson on 06/14/2009
"The Indian historical film 'Jodhaa Akbar,' about a Muslim-Hindu relationship, has dominated an Indian film awards ceremony, with six prizes," reports the BBC. Ekkehard Knörer's got a clip at Cargo. As he notes, this is not a song and dance number - but these seven and a half minutes could hardly be more sumptuously Bollywood. "While the MPAA sees BitTorrent as enemy number one, many filmmakers dream of getting their work into the top 100 download list on The Pirate Bay," writes Ernesto at Torrent Freak. "Filmmaker Tommy Pallotta is one of them." "A Scanner Darkly" was "already immensely popular... MORE »
Fests and events, 6/14.
By David Hudson on 06/14/2009
"'Dark Night of the Soul' - the first collaboration and installation between Danger Mouse, Sparklehorse and David Lynch - explores the idea of collective introspection," writes Jenna Martin in Planet. "Now showing at the Michael Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles, the exhibit consists of a two-room installation streaming the album written by Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse, accompanied by photos taken by Lynch. Inspired by the album, Lynch's photo sets read like mini-storyboards, and resemble a series of film stills. The album features guest vocalists The Flaming Lips, Gruff Rhys of The Super Furry Animals, Grandaddy's Jason Lytle, Julian Casablancas of... MORE »
Iran, 6/14.
By David Hudson on 06/14/2009
[Updated through 6/16] With the eyes and tweets of the world focused on Iran this weekend, I find myself, perhaps absurdly, wondering if there's anything a film blogger might do, in his own tiny way, to draw attention to a blatant fraud (and probably purposely blatant, too) and the attendant dictatorial crackdown. Is there a cinema-related hook here? Turns out, there is. Blogging for the New York Times in The Lede, Robert Mackey points to a report from the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran noting that director Mohsen Makhmalbaf has been appointed the official spokesperson for opposition candidate... MORE »
Also in theaters, 6/12.
By David Hudson on 06/12/2009
So far, we've been following "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3," "Tetro," "Food, Inc.," "Moon" and "Sex Positive." Also opening this weekend... "Betty Blue: The Director's Cut" "Two decades later," begins Joseph Jon Lanthier in Slant, "the aesthetic divide between Jean-Jacques Beineix's extroverted-noir debut 'Diva' and his bloated, lusty third film 'Betty Blue' seems much less gaping, particularly for viewers intrepid enough to regard his sophomore effort, the faux-pulp kaleidoscope 'Moon in the Gutter,' as a homely missing link. 'Diva' is genre-obsessed, an unwieldy meditation on dystopian thriller tropes and clichés that distracts us from its overwritten plot with... MORE »
"Sex Positive"
By David Hudson on 06/12/2009
[Updated through 6/14] "At age 51, flat broke and getting by on disability and handouts from former clients, Richard Berkowitz is the pioneering AIDS activist most people have never heard of. That includes most other advocates now working in the field." Ella Taylor for NPR: "One virtue of Daryl Wein's sympathetic but searching documentary about this unsung hero of the 80s safe-sex movement is that it seeks to uncover all the reasons for Berkowitz's plight, including those that don't shine a favorable light on a man the director clearly admires. "[W]ith his combination of self-effacement and daunting confidence, Berkowitz easily... MORE »
Shorts, 6/12.
By David Hudson on 06/12/2009
"Science-fiction cinema has never come this close to the actual condition of work in our era of neoliberal capitalism." Charles Mudede in the Stranger on Alex Riviera's "Sleep Dealer": "Cyber labor is not that different from the living labor of illegal immigrants in America. Undocumented, uninsured, un-unionized, these human beings are treated no better than robots. And so the future in the film reveals the present as it is. This indeed is science fiction at its best." "On the evening of Hazel Blears's resignation from the government, I went to see Jude Law in the Michael Grandage-directed 'Hamlet,' the conclusion... MORE »
Fests and events, 6/12.
By David Hudson on 06/12/2009
"Though there's never even been a good name for it, American 'experimental' or 'avant-garde' filmmaking has been one of the most vital and transformative movements in the history of the medium," argues Fred Camper in the Chicago Reader. "Since the mid-1980s the Onion City Experimental Film and Video Festival has brought some of the best new American work in this realm to Chicago. Ably curated for most of the last decade by Patrick Friel, it also includes some films from abroad, showing different traditions and styles from other nations. This year's selection is especially rich, ranging from work by early... MORE »
"Moon"
By David Hudson on 06/11/2009
[Updated through 6/12] "'Moon' emerged in January as one of Sundance's more provocative curios," begins ST VanAirsdale at Movieline: a one-man show tens of thousands of miles from Earth, an existential thriller about a single astronaut both for and against himself. Critics fussed over its influences, then complained about the impossibility of writing about a film whose Big Twist arrives in its first 25 minutes. Sony Classics nabbed it for distribution despite no real track record with sci-fi, but with designs on selling the feature directorial debut of David Bowie's son Duncan Jones. All of which are fine, but overlook... MORE »
"Food, Inc."
By David Hudson on 06/11/2009
[Updated through 6/15] "If we are what we eat, we're in big trouble according to Robert Kenner's enlightening if not groundbreaking documentary 'Food, Inc.,'" writes Michael Joshua Rowin at indieWIRE. "Following contemporary mainstream documentary filmmaking's popular recipe of equal parts talking head interviews and field reporting, 'Food, Inc.' engages in investigations and studies that have been around for a while now about the steroidal industrialization of American food production: it's no surprise that authors Eric Schlosser ('Fast Food Nation') and Michael Pollan ('The Omnivore's Dilemma') are the film's two major presences. But 'Food Inc.' is important in scope if not... MORE »
Shorts, 6/11.
By David Hudson on 06/11/2009
"Laying aside Charles Barr's excellent 'English Hitchcock,' I pick up Bill Krohn's 'Hitchcock At Work' and Leonard Leff's 'Hitchcock and Selznick,' as we enter the second half of Hitchcock Year." And now, David Cairns turns to "Rebecca." "Jim Naremore has been a good friend for over two decades," writes Jonathan Rosenbaum, "and I suspect that one thing that has made our tastes and interests so compatible is a tendency to view film at least partially as a branch of literature - a reflection of our academic backgrounds and our reading habits. I consider this background relevant to what makes ['More... MORE »
Fests and events, 6/11.
By David Hudson on 06/11/2009
"NewFest is presenting the US premiere of 'Raging Sun, Raging Sky,' the latest film by Julián Hernández" today, notes Armond White in the New York Press. "It should be the summer's major film culture event." Meanwhile, Michael Tully at Hammer to Nail: "The closing night film of this year's edition of NewFest, David Barba and James Pellerito's 'Pop Star On Ice' is an absolute winner." Also tonight. "For its 20th edition, the 2009 Human Rights Watch International Film Festival delivers not only a strong message about the abuses to human decency endemic around the globe - from anti-Semitism to cluster... MORE »
"Tetro"
By David Hudson on 06/10/2009
[Updated through 6/15] "Is this the one--a long-awaited new classic from the master?" asks Keith Uhlich in Time Out New York. "Close enough. 'Tetro' expands on the buoyant sensations of writer-director Francis Ford Coppola's previous film - the origins-of-language love story 'Youth Without Youth' (2007) - even as its twists and turns feel less spontaneous, more pro forma. This is a straight-hewn sins-of-the-father tale (a Coppola old reliable) that is at times dulled by its narrative inevitabilities. But though there's less improvisatory wonder, it's a small price to pay for the sight of a revivified artist expressing his lifelong obsessions... MORE »
"The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3"
By David Hudson on 06/10/2009
[Updated through 6/12] "At first glance, Joseph Sargent's 1974 'The Taking of Pelham One Two Three' may look like a slightly pokey old thriller about a subway hijacking," writes Sean Burns in the Philadelphia Weekly. "But the delightfully curmudgeonly chestnut has attained a rabid cult following over the years, not for any great shakes in the suspense department, but because the movie so effortlessly embodies the vibe of a particular time and place. It's a loving portrait of that bankrupt, shithole New York City of the 70s and its indomitable, world-weary inhabitants. The joy of the film is watching the... MORE »
Shorts, 6/10.
By David Hudson on 06/10/2009
Updated through 6/11: According to WWD (thanks, Ed!), the New York Observer has slashed its editorial team by a third, and among the laid-off writers is film critic Andrew Sarris. I imagine that this news will strike anyone who loves reading about movies as it's struck me - a little confused about how to feel, much less react. On the one hand, Andrew Sarris helped reclaim American movies for Americans by importing and reinterpreting an appreciation of American directors. On the other hand, he's been quoting from the press kits just a whole lot lately. When it comes to Sarris,... MORE »
Fests and events, 6/10.
By David Hudson on 06/10/2009
"In conjunction with the Harry Ransom Center's ongoing exhibit 'The Persian Sensation: The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám in the West' (on display through Aug 2), the HRC kicks off the Orientalist Silents film series Thursday night," notes the Austin Chronicle's Kimberley Jones. "[T]his year's Human Rights Watch International Film Festival is as fervent as ever, trying to awaken us to seldom seen or heard atrocities and illuminate the efforts of those looking for a better way." An overview from Ed Gonzalez in the Voice. Tomorrow through June 25. Mike Everleth has the lineup for the Portland Underground Film Festival, running... MORE »
Shorts, 6/9.
By David Hudson on 06/09/2009
"'After Last Season' is as bad as it looks, but its badness is of such a quizzical sort that it transcends mere incompetence," writes David Lowery at Hammer to Nail. "It is formally engaging, because it is so formally incorrect.... There is purity of intent, and then there's naivete, and for this film to exist on the level on which it's being presented to us, one must believe that they can work in perfect conjunction. I'm not certain that I can. I don't necessarily believe that it's a marketing ruse; I don't necessarily believe that it's a practical joke. I... MORE »
DVDs, 6/9.
By David Hudson on 06/09/2009
"Both products of Hollywood's youth boom of the late 60s, 'Woodstock' and 'Zabriskie Point' begin in the same cultural moment and head off in completely different directions," writes Dave Kehr in the New York Times: "'Woodstock' toward a mythification of the recent past, 'Zabriskie' toward a nameless dread of the near future. Nearly 40 years later they make a resonant pair: movies that seem to be addressing each other." Related online viewing and reading: Glenn Kenny comments on "Zabriskie" stars Mark Frechette and Daria Halprin's early 70s appearance on "The Dick Cavett Show": "To pluck two inexperienced people literally off... MORE »
Fests and events, 6/9.
By David Hudson on 06/09/2009
For the Lumière Reader, Brannavan Gnanalingam talks with Joel Stern, co-founder of Brisbane-based arts collective OtherFilm, "about bringing the avant-garde collection 'Isolationist Eye Openers: Historic Australian Film Art 1962 - 1998' to the Film Archive in Wellington." "Open Roads: New Italian Cinema" runs through Thursday. In "Marco Amenta's potent, yet understated, tightly crafted first feature film 'The Sicilian Girl,'" writes Acquarello, "the convergence of fiction and reality becomes a metaphor for the heroine's... metamorphosis from self-involved girl to social activist." Also: Dino and Filippo Gentili's "I Am Alive." "I would never have imagined that my favorite films from this year's... MORE »
Shorts, 6/8.
By David Hudson on 06/08/2009
Today's the day Abbas Kiarostami begins shooting "Certified Copy" in Italy. Nancy Tartaglione for Screen: "It is the veteran director's first feature to be shot outside of his native Iran. The film stars Juliette Binoche, who previously worked with Kiarostami on 2008's 'Shirin.' UK actor William Shimell, who is best known for his work as an opera singer, will make his feature debut." In The Auteurs' Notebook, Glenn Kenny looks back on the week that was. "At the beginning of 2009 I decided to begin watching all of the movies in the Criterion Collection in the chronological order of their... MORE »
Fests and events, 6/8.
By David Hudson on 06/08/2009
Michael Guillén talks with programmer James Quandt about "In the Realm of Oshima," currently at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley through July 18. And here's the second part of the interview. The New York Asian Film Festival (June 19 through July 5) rolls out its guest list and schedule. Update: The festival announces that it'll be screening Feng Xiaogang's "If You Are the One," a romantic comedy starring Shu Qi - and the highest grossing film in China. Ever. James van Maanen carries on covering "Open Roads," the series of new Italian films running in New York through Thursday,... MORE »
Midnight Eye. WWII, aftermath - and a new festival.
By David Hudson on 06/07/2009
Befitting a web publication, Midnight Eye is not released in issues, but rather, in waves, and few have been as thematically uniform as this month's. For starters, Jasper Sharp talks with Ian Buruma, whose "recent novel 'The China Lover' sees him turning his attention back to Japan, focusing on the intriguing figure of the actress Yoshiko Yamaguchi, whose career spans some of the most turbulent decades in Asian history. Not long after the Japanese established the puppet state of Manchuria in mainland China in 1932, it set up the Manchuria Film Association studios, or Man'ei, to win over the hearts... MORE »
Brooklyn Rail. June 09.
By David Hudson on 06/07/2009
"Nobuhiko Obayashi's 'Hausu' (1977) is one of the most coveted cult films to emerge from the fantastic realm of Asian cinema," writes David Wilentz. "Those who've seen their fair share of flying guillotines, lysergic Thai spaghetti westerns, and schoolgirl-with-machine-gun movies understand this is no easy feat. 'Hausu' (phonetization of the word 'house') is a haunted house movie (surprise!). It's also a comic teen romp about seven preternaturally happy and charming high school girls on summer vacation." And: "Now there's a chance to see it on the big screen: Subway Cinema will feature a special screening of Hausu in this year's... MORE »
Shorts, 6/6.
By David Hudson on 06/06/2009
For the Financial Times, and via Movie City News, Peter Aspden meets Abbas Kiarostami to talk about his run-in with the British embassy, Mozart, opera and censorship in Iran: "'We have ended up accepting it,' he says resignedly. 'I only feel grateful that [the authorities'] power is limited to not releasing the films. The good thing is that their power doesn't go any further than that. The people who really want to see them can do it illegally. The fruit is blown away. But others can catch it, and eat it.' A slight pause. 'The wind knows where to take... MORE »
Fests and events, 6/6.
By David Hudson on 06/06/2009
JR Jones in the Chicago Reader on a month-long retrospective at the Gene Siskel Film Center: "'Late Ophuls' focuses on the last two phases of the director's career, presenting the four films he made in Hollywood in the late 40s ('The Exile,' 'Letter From an Unknown Woman,' 'Caught' and 'The Reckless Moment') and the four films he completed in France before his untimely death from rheumatic heart disease in 1957 ('La Ronde,' 'Le Plaisir,' 'The Earrings of Madame de...' and 'Lola Montes'). 'La Ronde' (1950), which opens the series, is probably his best-known film, while 'Le Plaisir' (1952), which followed... MORE »
Also in theaters, 6/5.
By David Hudson on 06/05/2009
Another weekend, another mixed bag. Besides "Unmistaken Child," "Sügisball," "The Hangover," "Land of the Lost," "24 City," "Herb & Dorothy," "Downloading Nancy," "Séraphine" and "Away We Go," you've got... "The Art of Being Straight" "Despite its promising title, Jesse Rosen's tiny LA-set 'The Art of Being Straight' isn't really about contemporary codes of masculinity or the rattling task of 'passing' as heterosexual," writes Michael Koresky for indieWIRE. "Rather it's a flimsy pseudo-autobiographical character piece from a first-time filmmaker playing an approximation of himself so dewy-eyed cute and effortlessly naive that many audiences will be hard-pressed to find enormous fault. After... MORE »
"Away We Go"
By David Hudson on 06/05/2009
[Updated through 6/6] I should note at the outset of this roundup that AO Scott's review of "Away We Go," written by Dave Eggers and his wife Vendela Vida and directed by Sam Mendes, already has its fans (among them, the cinetrix, Joanna Calo and Matt Zoller Seitz). Before the snippet, though, and without having seen the film myself, I want to take a moment to click "Like" on Scott Foundas's review for the Voice, for one thing because, probably like most readers of the Daily, I have read "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" - to which Scott devotes... MORE »
"Séraphine"
By David Hudson on 06/05/2009
[Updated through 6/6] "Making a film about the life of an artist is a risky proposition," begins AO Scott in the New York Times. "You are likely to end up with a lot of huffing and puffing and mystification, rather than any real insight into the mysteries of the work. There are exceptions. Maurice Pialat's 'Van Gogh' (1991), one of a slew of movies about that unhappy genius, is one, and 'Séraphine,' Martin Provost's new film, winner of seven Césars, including best film, is another. Maybe French movies about painters with a special gift for rendering flowers are exempt from... MORE »
"Downloading Nancy"
By David Hudson on 06/05/2009
"'Downloading Nancy' comes stacked with pedigree talent - Maria Bello and Rufus Sewell in front of the camera, legendary cinematographer Christopher Doyle behind it," notes Ella Taylor at NPR. "None of it, though, can rescue this repellent piece of work from its preening self-regard." This is a "nasty exploitation flick tarted up with art-house actors and psychobabble," writes Mahohla Dargis in the New York Times. "Ms Bello weeps beautifully, but what a waste." The "premise," explains Ryan Stewart in Slant, "in which a depressed housewife attempts to solicit murderers in online chat rooms to help her pull off a psycho-assisted... MORE »
"Herb & Dorothy"
By David Hudson on 06/05/2009
"There's an obvious human-interest angle on Dorothy and Herbert Vogel, the NYC couple who spent 30 years amassing a world-class collection of contemporary American art on the salaries of a librarian and a postal worker," writes Maitland McDonagh in Time Out New York. "But Japanese-raised local documentarian Megumi Sasaki steps back and lets them tell their own tale, supplemented by testimony from the artists they befriended when they were all young, broke and driven--such as Chuck Close and Christo." "[A]sk any well-heeled woman in black, she'll tell you that they possess one of the most respected and vast contemporary art... MORE »
"24 City"
By David Hudson on 06/04/2009
[Updated through 6/6] "Babies dead from melamine in their milk, Rem Koolhaas's Beijing hotel up in flames, earthquake victims protesting lax construction standards, workers rioting as the tiger economy tanks," begins James Quandt in a piece for Artforum that almost seems as if it were written specifically for this day: "Chinese officials may have pulled off the vast, falsifying spectacle of last year's Olympics, but the corruption and sheer haplessness of their regime now leaves the country uneasy and teetering. Jia Zhangke, chronicler and bard of the new China with his densely poetic films about the dislocation and anxiety caused... MORE »
Shorts, 6/4.
By David Hudson on 06/04/2009
Jean-Luc Godard is considering a project based on Daniel Mendelsohn's "The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million," according to the Hollywood Reporter's Steven Zeitchik and Rebecca Leffler. Related: Aaron Hillis at GreenCine Daily on "Une femme mariée": "Shot in the year after his bitter Technicolor epic 'Contempt,' 'A Married Woman' feels not just modestly scaled but downright dwarfed in comparison, which is not to disparage any film that formally succeeds on lesser ambitions." "Can Films Be Fascist?" asks Jonathan Rosenbaum. Mike Everleth "crashes" the film books meme that originated at the Dancing Image. So does Richard Brody: "What's... MORE »
Fests and events, 6/4.
By David Hudson on 06/04/2009
The Cinematheque Ontario will be screening a series of shorts by Man Ray tomorrow night and Chris Edwards will be there. "Every Saturday (and one Sunday) this month, Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theatre is offering a [Jerry] Lewis double feature that demonstrates why audiences have adored him, why comics like Robin Williams, Adam Sandler and Eddie Murphy worship him, why directors as varied as Jean-Luc Godard ('Keep Your Right Up'), Bernardo Bertolucci ('Partner') and Mel Brooks ('Blazing Saddles') are so indebted to him, and why the Los Angeles Film Critics Association honored him with its 2004 Lifetime Achievement Award.... MORE »
Steve McQueen's "Giardini" at the Venice Biennale.
By David Hudson on 06/04/2009
"'Turner,' said Steve McQueen at yesterday's opening of the Venice Biennale, 'does not own sunsets, and he doesn't own Venetian sunsets,'" reports Charlotte Higgins in the Guardian. "And so it is that the London-born artist, who this year represents the UK at the world's most important and unashamedly flamboyant art event, has dared to make a romantic, lyrical, melancholic film that shows Venice hazed through mists and sunsets, dripped in wintry rain." The title is "Giardini," and as Mark Sinclair notes at Creative Review, "You can see a few excerpts from the work here, in an interview on the British... MORE »
"The Hangover" vs "Land of the Lost"
By David Hudson on 06/04/2009
[Updated through 6/5] "Universal's 'Land of the Lost' and Warners' 'The Hangover' go head-to-head starting Friday," notes Steven Zeitchik and, even for those who don't follow the Hollywood Reporter, or for that matter, the other trades all that closely, this match-up may make for an amusing weekend diversion, in a Susan Boyle vs Diversity or Carla Bruni vs Michelle Obama sort of way. "Lost," of course, is another CGI showcase with a budget of over $100 million, facing down a "scrappy ($30 - $40m), raunchy upstart in Todd Phillips's 'Hangover.'" For those who plan to stay indoors this summery Saturday... MORE »
David Carradine, 1936 - 2009.
By David Hudson on 06/04/2009
[Updated through 6/6] "Oscar [Golden Globe]-nominated actor David Carradine, best known for his leading role of Kwai Chang Caine on TV's 'Kung Fu' in the 1970s, died Wednesday in Bangkok, where he was shooting a film, his manager confirmed Thursday. The star was 72." Stephen M Silverman reports for People: "According to manager Chuck Binder, the movie's producer went to Carradine's hotel room and found that he had passed away. Binder told Fox News the death is 'shocking and sad. He was full of life, always wanting to work... a great person.'" Silverman notes that the nomination was "for his... MORE »
Shorts, 6/3.
By David Hudson on 06/03/2009
"The request is to name the ten movie books that had the biggest impact on me." And Glenn Kenny is more than happy to oblige. "So last week the Siren finally caught up with 'The Verdict.'... No, not the Paul Newman film, although that one is great, but rather Don Siegel's debut movie, the last costarring outing of Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet." And it's got her thinking about, comparing and contrasting these two actors. "Recently released by Kino International, Seijun Suzuki's 'Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards!' (1963) and Motomu Ida's '3 Seconds Before Explosion' (1967) share locales... MORE »
Fests and events, 6/3.
By David Hudson on 06/03/2009
"Arguably the definitive portrait of the postwar America of secretly toxic dreams and treacherous surfaces, Lewis Klahr's 'Tales of the Forgotten Future' taps into the frustration, strangeness, delirium and dreary vertigo that lurks in the drywall of Middle America's mid-century psychosexual tract house." Michael Atkinson for the L Magazine. Tonight at Light Industry in Brooklyn. "Jump-starting Gay Pride Month, Anthology's 12-film tribute to Rosa von Praunheim, Germany's chief lavender menace, will render the pseudo-provocations of next month's 'Brüno' moot," writes Melissa Anderson. "Born in 1942 as Holger Mischwitzky, the director adopted 'Rosa' for both gender ambiguity and as a reminder... MORE »
"Unmistaken Child"
By David Hudson on 06/03/2009
[Updated through 6/6] "'Unmistaken Child' documents the four-year search of Tenzin Zopa, a gentle, baby-faced 28-year-old Nepalese monk, for the reincarnation of his Tibetan master, Geshe Lama Konchog, who died in 2001," begins Stephen Holden in the New York Times. "The young monk's journey, on foot, by mule and by helicopter, begun at the request of the Dalai Lama, takes him through some of the world's most spectacular high country, as he travels from village to village, seeking a very young child, 1 to 1½, who shows signs of being his reincarnated teacher. J Hoberman in the Voice: "In the... MORE »
Shorts, fests, etc, 6/2.
By David Hudson on 06/02/2009
"Are we to believe that Dorothy has learned no more on her journey than that she didn't need to make such a journey in the first place?" asks Salman Rushdie in his 1992 book-length essay on "The Wizard of Oz" for the BFI Film Classics series. At Filmwell, Mike Hertenstein argues that Mircea Eliade's "notions of 'resurrection' and 'regeneration,' as applied to Dorothy's awakening in Kansas after her experience in Oz, are less a repudiation of Oz than an affirmation of the solemn and life-changing character of her experience. It is not a question, as Rushdie says, of whether or... MORE »
DVDs, 6/2.
By David Hudson on 06/02/2009
"After decades of neglect in the English-speaking world the French filmmaker Philippe Garrel, 61, has recently been enjoying a revival, the most concrete manifestation of which is 'Philippe Garrel x 2,' a double DVD set from Zeitgeist Films that contains two of his moody, discursive, semi-autobiographical features," begins Dave Kehr in the New York Times. "At a time when commercial filmmaking is dominated by impersonal, computer-generated entertainments, Mr Garrel's work - just a step or two away from home movies, as he himself has often observed - holds an obvious appeal. The images seem caught on the fly, and display... MORE »
Cineaste. Summer 09.
By David Hudson on 06/01/2009
"Criterion's release of Juan Antonio Bardem's 'Death of a Cyclist' continues the label's ongoing, somewhat furtive project of reviving filmmakers as much as films." Robert Koehler takes a "Second Look": "A beginning that points to a future cinema just out of Bardem's reach, an ending that serves as an anatomy of all that plagued Bardem as a cultural prisoner in Spain circa 1955 and as an eager lieutenant in a Marxist battle against fascism. Taken together, the poles that describe a film that nearly achieved all that it wanted, and a filmmaker, like his characters, torn by conflicting impulses and... MORE »
Shorts, 6/1.
By David Hudson on 06/01/2009
Word is beginning to get around that João Bénard da Costa, Director of the Cinemateca Portuguesa, passed away on May 21. I guess that many, like me, were too caught up in the Cannes whirlwind to have noticed at the time. Not Andy Rector, though, who posts a fine tribute that has attracted a handful of comments. There seems to be some sort of machine-translated news report here; I've also found an appreciation from Miguel at Black and White: Cinema and Chocolate: "[I]t's hard to find out any person, with perhaps one exception, who has had a more important role... MORE »
Fests and events, 6/1.
By David Hudson on 06/01/2009
"A generally humorous change of pace from the lovingly detailed grotesqueries on display throughout Film Forum's Tod Browning festival, the 'Dracula' auteur's 1935 entry 'Mark of the Vampire,' which plays tonight, offers up a welcome comic flipside to the director's 1931 bloodsucker classic," writes Andrew Schenker for the L Magazine. Jennifer Phang's "Half-Life" screens tonight at The Kitchen for free as part of the Whitney's "Time Out of Joint: Recall and Evocation in Recent Art" program. At Hammer to Nail, Michael Ryan recommends catching it: "This is ambitious indie filmmaking at its best!" "For more than 50 years, Lawrence Jordan... MORE »
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