[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UIonNH-rz8] So this filmmaker, Johan Grimonprez, who teaches at the School of Visual Arts in New York, gets the idea of creating a fictional film about Alfred Hitchcock constructed largely[…]
There’s a strange defamiliarization going on in Catherine Breillat’s films. It could result from her frequent use of a stable camera, or what must be a controlled directing style. Through[…]
The pathos is never maudlin or icky, but rather soothing (thanks to Lorre’s velvety vocal delivery), creepy and a little post-modern – with Lorre’s own weird real life looks keeping him from ever ‘getting the girl’ no matter how many movies he’s in.
If any movement made cinema history into a reactionary narrative, it would be the French New Wave. A batch of cinephiles, most working as critics for Cahiers du Cinema (established[…]
Another masterpiece by the late Frank Frazetta (1928-2010), and a classic example of how Hollywood studio thinking — a misguided attempt to reach the widest demographic possible — destroyed the potential[…]
From the outset, it seems to be a bold-faced cash-in culled from little investment. In Babies, a French-produced doc which got a surprisingly wide release this past weekend, we have[…]
Directors · Reviews · SF & Fantasy
Can a film’s designer be its effective auteur? He can, if his name is William Cameron Menzies. Menzies is best known for directing and designing two classics of the science[…]
“Art, entertainment, and genuine fear and tragedy rarely all filter down into a deceptively ‘normal American family film’ with such quiet desperation.”
An ongoing column that looks at some of the most intriguing of recent, under-the-radar releases
Documentaries · Reviews · Writers & Critics
Talking heads, talking of talking heads
“The very idea of losing is hateful to Americans.”
“Vestiges of French customs and family life remain throughout these films, yet their concerns testify to a rapidly shifting society.”
“Traditional gender roles seem to be in no danger of evolving.”
“Like any old-style modernist, Haneke likes to make the audience work.”
In this nimble version of Anton Chekhov’s eponymous short story, aristocrat Ivan Laevsky (Andrew Scott), and his married mistress Nadya (Fiona Glascott) have decamped from Moscow to the Black Sea.[…]
“Functionless art is simply tolerated vandalism.” – Peter Steele (1962-2010) From here comes a rich smell drawn from a load of bullshit. And in no way am I demeaning the practice of street art by[…]
No one with eyes and a brain could seriously dispute Nicholas Ray’s role as the primary auteur of Bigger Than Life. All you need to do is watch Ray’s Rebel[…]
Recently retired law clerk Benjamin Esposito (Ricardo DarÃn) can’t shake the memory of the 1974 Morales rape and murder case. Never mind that 25 years have passed: for Benjamin, the[…]
When asked about the John Hughes films in a recent NY Times interview, John Cusack played the highbrow card. Besides Sixteen Candles, in which he had a minor role, Cusack[…]
