Dispatch from Cannes 2012 #3: David Cronenberg’s COSMOPOLIS
Here we go again. Only a few days ago we had Walter Salles’ lumbering, rigidly faithful film adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. Now we have David Cronenberg’s equally[…]
Category: Festivals & Awards
Dispatch from Cannes 2012 #2: Walter Salles’s ON THE ROAD
Among the great might-have-beens of cinema are Greta Garbo as Dorian Gray, Ingmar Bergman directing Barbra Streisand in The Merry Widow, Orson Welles’s The Heart of Darkness, Sergei Eisenstein’s An[…]
Burning Down the House: The 52nd Thessaloniki International Film Festival (2011)
“It is within this vortex of social and political upheaval that Greek filmmakers have found some traction, creating sharp, insightful works that raise awareness while revealing unflattering truths about Greek society and the current ‘crisis.'”
It’s a bourgeois town: the feel-good Oscar Nominees for 2011
There’s nothing wrong with these films per se, they stir deep emotions; they move us, en masse; they spark enraptured conversation on the drive home from the mall-tiplex, are superb examples of craftsmanship, and most importantly, they make bourgeois Oscar voters feel good about themselves, and their profession; these films rub the voters’ shoulders and whisper in their wrinkly ears – “you, my darling Academy member, are the makers of our dreams.”
Who Blinks First? Isabelle Huppert and the Pope at Busan International Film Festival 2011
“Moretti’s aim in We Have a Pope is to unleash as many dissenting voices on the airwaves as possible — to create space within the tightness and enclosure of historical memories.”
Dispatch from the Desert: The Fifth Abu Dhabi Film Festival (2011)
“The cinema exists to record the moment when souls become visible.” –Jean-Michel Frodon
The Biggest and Smallest: Melbourne International Film Festival 2011
“Eve is like a cat, attracted by textures — stroking a violinist’s hands with chiffon and becoming entranced by a piece of fruit. She spends most of her time in ecstatic graceless dancing; even though anger and jealousy are present, they are rendered painless.”
New York Film Festival 2011: First Highlights
Surely it’s a good sign that the Lincoln Center Film Society seems to be shaking things up a bit with this year’s festival. In part because of the new venues[…]
Festivals & Awards · LGBT & Queer
Crafting Community: The 2011 QDoc International Film Festival
“It’s encouraging to see how articulate and unafraid many of the kids in Put This on the Map are in deciding who they want to be, how they want to live, and even what they want to be called: ‘Very gay,’ ‘an ally,’ ‘dating an FTM,’ ‘not straight, gay, bi, anything.'”
Dispatches from Cannes 2011 #3: Le Gamin au Velo (The Kid with a Bike)
DATELINE CANNES, May 18, 2011. The films of Belgian brothers Jean Pierre and Luc Dardenne give new meaning to the term motion picture. Their protagonists are continually on the move,[…]
Dispatches from Cannes 2011 #2: Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life
DATELINE CANNES, May 13, 2011. On approaching a Terrence Malick film, it has seemed impossible to avoid mentioning the long gaps between the films (20 years between Days of Heaven[…]
Dispatches from Cannes 2011: #1: Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris
DATELINE CANNES, May 13, 2011: When watching Woody Allen movies in the past, I was always reminded of a remark John Updike makes of one of his characters: “He thought[…]
Asian · Comedy · Festivals & Awards
The New-Style Comedy: Wai Ka-Fai and the Hong Kong International Film Festival (2011)
“This wonderfully flexible approach to movie-making explains why Wai and To’s films seem so alive to every implication — unlike most current U.S. comedies, where directors carefully steer around obstacles and pretend not to notice flaws in the set-up.”
Cinemas of Poetry and Violence: The 40th International Film Festival Rotterdam (2010)
Rotterdam’s edge is intact despite increasing hints of commercialism
Directors · Festivals & Awards
A Handful of Keepers: The 40th New Directors/New Films Festival
“Kudos to the Vegas for showing not only the grimness of hustling, but also the ordinariness. As Clemente dresses, his middle-aged, matronly partner puts on her reading glasses to count the cash.”
Ac-Ac-Academy Notes
It’s an award show full of lost speech, from the literal stroke of Kirk Douglas to the stutters and confusion of presenters and recipients, to the SPEECH itself. reminding us[…]
Festivals & Awards · Lists · Reviews
Ten from 2010: Jacob Mikanowski: Selections from the Chicago and Warsaw International Film Festivals
#7: “A family drama about the dangers of beekeeping.”
Documentaries · Festivals & Awards
Werner Herzog & Errol Morris Headline DOC NYC Fest at IFC Center
DOC NYC, a new documentary festival that runs from November 3-9, features more than 40 films, U.S. premieres, tributes, and appearances, among them both Errol Morris and Werner Herzog. Films[…]
I’m Not There: The 2010 Melbourne International Film Festival
“The Killer Inside Me recalls the novel and film of American Psycho, in which a handsome killer unleashes three-dimensional violence on an otherwise banal society.” Puzzling, singular, and downright whacked, Francis Ford[…]
Activist & Political · Festivals & Awards
Cinema, Virginity, and Swans: The Abu Dhabi International Film Festival 2010
“For a brief week or two, adventurous filmgoers can capture elusive truths found in works of complexity, moral ambiguity, and seriousness of purpose, all uncensored.”
