Dive into the archives.
- I’m Psyched…
MEMORIES
Series: The 11th Annual Views from the Avant-Garde [45th NYFF Oct 6 & 7 2007]
Director: Various, Runtime: 102
Respite
Harun Farocki, 40m
The Rabbit Hunters
Pedro Costa, 23m
Correspondences
Eugène Green, 39m
from the Jeonju International Film Festival Digital Project, South Korea, 2007
- Theaters of War: Lust, Caution
“Performativity”
If I had a word for the films of Ang Lee, it wouldn’t be masterful, genius, poetic, or transcendent. It would be competent. That’s a compliment - most films and filmmakers fail at even that meager task. But with few exceptions (Brokeback Mountain comes to mind), Lee’s work is just competent, above average, solid.
Lust, Caution, [...]
- Louis Theroux
Thought I’d throw a light on one of my favorite documentarians of the now, Louis Theroux. He is the son of novelist and travel writer Paul Theroux and the cousin of actor/hack filmmaker Justin Theroux. A respected figure in his native England, Theroux is virtually unknown in America - his works are entirely limited to [...]
- 3:10 to Yuma
Because 3:10 to Yuma is such an amiably middlebrow venture, I’m going to give it a star rating. Because movies like 3:10 to Yuma deserve star ratings, the type that you can find in any local daily newspaper, possibly in their Weekender section, which effectively say nothing about the film as an aesthetic venture but [...]
- Shoot ‘Em Up
I’m a bit behind the clock on getting a review of this thing up - truth be told, I only saw it this weekend as part of a plexing session with 3:10 to Yuma.
Shoot ‘Em Up is a lot of things - an ultraviolent action film about gun violence, action movies, and America and a [...]
- Let’s try this again.
In case you’re wondering where I’ve been, I decided to take a bit of a break for a while in order to work a few things out and get my life on track. Now that it is on track again, expect much more regular content from me.
My Five Year Plan is back.
Sorry, haters.
- The Brave One
Random thoughts: Fun genre trash. Not nearly as visually interesting or narratively shocking as Ms. 45, or as intellectually compelling. (I wanted Jodie in a nun’s habit.) This is what passes for serious work in the year 2007? Exploitational to the hilt - every stereotype of black and Hispanic male aggression is paraded out in [...]
- Telluride Report, Part 5: Revival!
More than any other festival, Telluride is known for its revivals. After all, this is a film that built its international reputation on one of the greatest moments in film restoration and exhibition ever: an outdoor screening of Abel Gance’s Napoleon, featuring for the first time since its original release a perfectly synchronized three-screen exhibition [...]
- Telluride Report, Part 4: The I’s Have It
Much of the talk surrounding any given era of film history centers around the importance of emergent national cinemas - consider the Thai, South Korean, and Romanian cinemas of recent years. To this list of important emerging cinemas we add Israel. A country which for decades couldn’t even convince its own residents to see its [...]
- Telluride Report, Part 3: What It Feels Like For a Girl
More than anything else, the dominant theme of this year’s festival was womanhood and its attendant issues. The following are some of the programs that worked in this vein:
Persepolis (2007, Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud)
I’ve read Persepolis but not its sequel and my attention to the film was reflected in kind - while the Iranian [...]
