The Last Station – Love, Copyright and Anarcho-Christianity
Amy Meyerson01.14.10
It seems that L. Ron Hubbard wasn’t the only writer to create a bizarre and zealous spiritual organization. In the later part of his life, Leo Tolstoy began a radical ascetic pacifist Christian movement. He swapped letters with Gandhi, advocated for anarchist zoologist Peter Kropotkin and extolled the values of Esperanto. Director Michael Hoffman’s The Last Station offers a view on the last days of Tolstoy’s life and the dispute over the ownership of the literary estate between his wife and his followers. While the film maintains a tight focus on its pair of lovers, Amy Meyerson offers insight into the historical events that loom just outside the frame. Starring Christopher Plummer, Helen Mirren and Paul Giamatti, the film is based on a novel by literary critic Jay Parini, who having contemplated the influence of an author after their eventual departure in his writing, has perhaps appropriately been appointed literary executor to Gore Vidal.
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
Matty Byloos11.20.09
It seemed like the type of thing that could only happen in a cinematic equivalent of Fantasy Baseball, that Werner Herzog would direct Nicolas Cage in a sequel to Abel Ferrera’s sexually graphic 1992 cult film. It was enough to make you picture Cage shaking off the shackles of too many action movies, opening and closing his hands as if realizing his autonomy for the first time. And yet like so many fans and amateur sports statisticians, who thought they had the perfect starting lineup, Bad Lieutenant finds itself deservedly shut out of the playoffs.
Film: RiP: A Remix Manifesto
Ben Bush11.13.09
My own position on copyright gets muddier and muddier but this is a compelling and visually enticing copyleft documentary starring the usual suspects…
Three Documentaries by Werner Herzog
Tao Lin11.02.09
Writer Tao Lin and director Werner Herzog share a certain interest in stunts that, rather than a means to an end, begin to seem like an extension of the work itself. Herzog’s film Heart of Glass was performed almost entirely by a cast of hypnotized actors and, after daring Errol Morris to complete his first documentary, Herzog famously ate his own shoe. Tao Lin has funded his literary efforts in part by selling shares in his forthcoming novel Richard Yates ($2000 per) and using eBay to sell Gmail chats with him on various substances such as methadone, adderall, green juice and iced coffee. ($31-$61) Lin’s recent novella Shoplifting from American Apparel is an engaging and unusual read that packs a lot of twists into its seemingly straightforward sentences. More on Herzog from the Fanzine later this month when Matty Byloos reviews his upcoming Bad Lieutenant 2: Port of Call New Orleans.
The Zombie Monologues
Darius James10.30.09
Each year at this time the dead rise from their graves but way back in the summer of 1961 Nazis revivified deceased plantation slaves through the powers of voodoo during the midday movie on WNEW’s Jungle Jive at Five. A young tyke at the time, Darius James was thirsty for any televisual images of African-Americans even the eye-popping antics of Mantan Moreland and discovered more than he bargained for. James is the author of the novel Negrophobia and That’s Blaxploitation!, a book every bit as stylized and opinionated as the films it profiles.
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
Amy Meyerson10.21.09
The adverb ‘complexly’ crops up repeatedly in the work of David Foster Wallace to describe among other things: 1) the irreverence of a palely freckled marketing focus group facilitator, 2) the patterns of shadow on trees, grass and shrubbery on a still, green day at the height of spring and 3) the series of hook and eye knobs on a blouse which women can undo easily and men cannot. It’s a fitting word to recurr in his work, often indicating a point at which his impressive descriptive powers had reached their limit, and emblematic of an aesthetic not easily translated to the screen. Amy Meyerson looks at the difficulties of adaption through John Krasinski’s recent film of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.
The Informant! Denunciation vs. Deflation as Rhetorical Strategies
Daniel Hamilton10.12.09
Hollywood has responded to the economic crash with the lightning quick reflexes of a short-selling day trader: swapping glitz and glamour for a hint of class consciousness with recent films like Public Enemies, The International and Sam Raimi’s Drag me to Hell. Stephen Soderbergh, on the other hand, is at least four movies deep in his own immersive and idiosyncratic investigation of the ways economic systems damage both the winners and the losers. Soderbergh refuses to demonize his corporate lackeys and instead de-glamorizes the system in which they participate through his depiction of gold tinted frames, fluorescent lighting and Marvin Hamlisch’s brilliantly kitschy soundtrack.
Film: October Country at IFC
The Fanzine10.06.09
Donal Mosher’s autobiographical film October Country. From the press release: ‘Every family has its ghosts – some metaphorical, some literal. The…
The 2009 New York Film Festival
Benjamin Strong09.24.09
‘When the lineup was announced in August for the 47th New York Film Festival – which opens Friday September 25th at Lincoln Center – some cinephiles expressed concern that the choices were a little too safe, conservative, and predictable.’ Nevermind, there are formidable showings from oldies like Alain Resnais, youngins like Corneliu Porumboiu, and we look forward to the new oldies from Harmony Korine (can we put him there in the mid-oldies yet?) – review by clutch Fanzine fim contributor Benjamin Strong.
The Little Prince of Purple Rain
Rayvon Pettis08.15.09
It’s been a rough season for ’80s pop. The summer of 2009 has seen Michael Jackson go down somewhat ingloriously, only to rise again in death, forgiven for our incessant gawking at his late public misadventures and/or overexamined life. Then, close on heels, John Hughes, the period’s auteur of adolescence passed. Thank god we still have the indefatigably funky Prince going strong. 25 years after his sorta-biopic’s release, it’s time to reflect on a film that captured best perhaps the ’80’s raison d’être, Purple Rain, released during the apex of Prince’s reign (thank god we no longer have to call him “the artist formally known as” even though I just did). Review by Rayvon Pettis, who is, incidentally, just a tad younger than the film itself. Art by Danny Jock.
