The Hurt Locker
Scott Bradley08.03.09
Due to some technical difficulties, I’m a little late getting up Scott Bradley’s review of The Hurt Locker, the latest film from director Kathryn Bigelow. It’s another war movie, but unlike other war movies, The Hurt Locker is, as Bradley says, the first great Iraq war movie, putting it on par with such classics as Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket and Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. It’s high praise for Bigelow, whose work showed early promise with Near Dark before later finding an unevenness which apexed with Point Break. The Hurt Locker, which was written by war journalist Mark Boal, appears to have shone a light back on her talents.
Book: LIFE AS WE SHOW IT: edited by Brian Pera and Masha Tupitsyn
Michael Louie07.09.09
Lots of people write about film. In fact, one of the easiest things to do might be to write about some movie you just watched, your critique, your…
The Beaches of Agnes (2008): a documentary by/of Agnes Varda
Nancy Keefe Rhodes07.08.09
Agnes Varda has been making films since the inception of the French New Wave, a movement that ushered in the varied likes of Jean Luc Godard, François Truffaut, and the hard boiled cinema of Jean-Pierre Melville. In Les Plages d’Agnès (or The Beaches of Agnès) (2008), Varda makes protean shifts with ease, from philosophical reverie to revealing insights into her relationships both to film and her main squeeze, Jacques Demy, a longtime lover and muse. Nancy Keefe Rhodes reviews.
R.I.P. David Carradine—Goodnight Sweet Autoerotic Prince
Michael Louie06.04.09
If you caught the early AP reports of David Carradine’s death, you may have gotten a different mental image of the nemesis of Kill…
Happy Easter
Casey McKinney04.12.09
And no white shoes after labor day! Here’s a bit from John Waters from an old New York Post article on Easter: "John Waters considers…
Dereck McCormack/ Guy Maddin Pt. 1 (& bunch ‘o new stuff coming soon)
Casey McKinney04.03.09
For the second week in a row, am planning to attend another presentation and documentary about the leading figures in underground cinema at…
Here Is Tokyo!
Jason Jude Chan03.06.09
Jason Jude Chan brings us his latest review in record time—it’s the editors who got it up slightly late. Chan has a penchant for showing us the better film on a big movie weekend (see his review of Gomorrah which opened the same weekend as the new Friday the 13th). Here he reviews Tokyo!—a triptych by three directors (Michel Gondry, Leos Carax, and Bong Joon-Ho) of the fantastic city. Tokyo! opens this weekend in New York City.
Oscar Lessons
Benjamin Strong02.24.09
As the recession deepens ever more quickly, Hollywood in 2009 is already prepped for old school depression era glamor (as The New York Times has already pointed out), is claiming the musical is back, and spent a good bit of this past Sunday evening edifying all of us couch cretins about the ins and outs of its business. Ladies and Gents, the 2009 Academy Awards as seen through the lens of Benjamin Strong.
Oscar Party 2009: The Third Way
Kevin Killian02.23.09
It’s another year and another Oscar party with Kevin Killian and friends. Well in posts past there have been a few grumblings about changes in the handling of the In Memorian section (this year you just might have needed some heavy glasses to actually see who had died, but Queen Latifah was great); the issue starting to shine through in 2009 – like the high beams radiating from some Oscar night bling of yore – is that the biopic needs its own category, just too darn unfair to pit an actor playing a real person versus a made up one!
Lights, Camorra, Action
Jason Jude Chan02.13.09
In case you’ve decided to make like Grandaddy and take leave of Crystal Lake (ok, they weren’t talking about the same Crystal Lake) this Friday the 13th, there are other film options for those seeking a more sophisticated night out on the town. Besides teenage sex and homicidal psychos, the most indelible archetype of film is the gangster (who also usually fit in the "homicidal" category—just not the maniacal, unkillable type)—their roles cross-culturally romanticized and cast as creatures cursed by habit, vengeance, misery, and the insatiable taste for power. We obsess over shadowy hands, and mythologize the organizations behind velvet curtains and behind MAC-10s. Here, Jason Jude Chan reviews Matteo Garrone’s Gomorrah, opening today (February 13) in limited theaters.
