Changeling (Clint Eastwood, USA): 67
As I've argued for over a decade now, Eastwood-as-director, with his so-called "classical" style that really amounts to a sort of measured impatience, is only as good as his material. Here, via former Babylon 5 geek J. Michael Straczynski, he's stumbled onto a true-life tale so ...
read more
Posted on 10/07/08 by: dangelo
Comments (0 ) The Northern Land (João Botelho, Portugal): 12
Make no mistake: This film is deadly -- a stilted, stultifying pomo costume drama that makes Oliveira look like Aronofsky. There is no conceivable projection scenario that would not make me wish myself elsewhere. But it's possible that I might have found it somewhat less odious ...
read more
Posted on 10/07/08 by: dangelo
Comments (0 ) Che (Steven Soderbergh, France/Spain): 48
As movies with no compelling reason to exist go, this one is really quite good. Soderbergh's shift from freewheeling, widescreen Cuban triumph to flat, plodding Bolivian nightmare packs the intended dialectical punch, and you couldn't ask for a less flashy, more committed portrait of Guevara -- ...
read more
Posted on 10/07/08 by: dangelo
Comments (0 ) Outside the FrameWeek in and week out, as part of our ongoing series of video interviews, I chat up film-world personalities for FilmCatcher, along with my colleague Cristina Garza. And sometimes, it’s the things people say before the cameras go live, or after they’ve been powered down, that remain with me weeks ... read more Posted on 10/07/08 by: DGSmith Comments (0 ) Kazakh Film: Chouga and TulpanEvery major film festival presents a gallery of cinema offerings and possible discoveries for those curious enough to seek out unfamiliar work by international narrative-film artists and imagemakers. The New York Film Festival may play it safe by screening films that already have theatrical distribution, like Steven Soderbergh’s twin-halved 262-minute ... read more Posted on 10/07/08 by: DGSmith Comments (0 ) BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOMEEach September, as the New York Film Festival rolls out two weeks of film for its illustrious guests and patrons, the event stirs up mixed feelings among this city’s hardcore cinephile community. Veteran malcontents like to grouse that there is too much middlebrow programming from the likes of Wes Anderson ... read more Posted on 10/07/08 by: DGSmith Comments (0 ) The Class (Laurent Cantet, France): 61
I guess there's just no pleasing me (cue vigorously nodding heads), because for the first hour, when the film seems wholly dedicated to observing the student-teacher dynamic in a multiculti Paris classroom, I found myself admiring its rigor and intelligence but also wishing that something a ...
read more
Posted on 10/03/08 by: dangelo
Comments (0 ) Tony Manero (Pablo Larraín, Chile/Brazil): 33
"Ah, one for the boys over at Slant," I thought, and sure enough. For those not temperamentally inclined to celebrate uncompromising cine-machismo for its own sake, however, this is pretty thin gruel, deeply unpleasant without ever coming within spitting distance of enlightening. Once you've been ...
read more
Posted on 10/03/08 by: dangelo
Comments (0 ) The Pleasure of Robbing CannesThe Closing Night film of the Directors' Fortnight at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED, opens today at the IFC Center in New York. While in Cannes, Director Josh Safdie and brother Benny took to the French Riviera streets with digital cameras in hand to search ... read more Posted on 10/03/08 by: FCFeatures Comments (0 ) I'm Gonna Explode (Gerardo Naranjo, Mexico): 62
Except they're not, is the thing. What they're actually gonna do is enact the most desultory, useless lovers-on-the-lam scenario ever, "fleeing" to a tent on the roof of Román's family's posh home and then sneaking downstairs to almost fuck after everyone leaves. Their whole adventure could ...
read more
Posted on 09/30/08 by: dangelo
Comments (0 ) |
Changeling (Clint Eastwood, USA): 67
As I've argued for over a decade now, Eastwood-as-director, with his so-called "classical" style that really amounts to a sort of measured impatience, is only as good as his material. Here, via former Babylon 5 geek J. Michael Straczynski, he's stumbled onto a true-life tale so ...
read more
Posted on 10/07/08 by: dangelo
Comments (0 ) The Northern Land (João Botelho, Portugal): 12
Make no mistake: This film is deadly -- a stilted, stultifying pomo costume drama that makes Oliveira look like Aronofsky. There is no conceivable projection scenario that would not make me wish myself elsewhere. But it's possible that I might have found it somewhat less odious ...
read more
Posted on 10/07/08 by: dangelo
Comments (0 ) Che (Steven Soderbergh, France/Spain): 48
As movies with no compelling reason to exist go, this one is really quite good. Soderbergh's shift from freewheeling, widescreen Cuban triumph to flat, plodding Bolivian nightmare packs the intended dialectical punch, and you couldn't ask for a less flashy, more committed portrait of Guevara -- ...
read more
Posted on 10/07/08 by: dangelo
Comments (0 ) Outside the FrameWeek in and week out, as part of our ongoing series of video interviews, I chat up film-world personalities for FilmCatcher, along with my colleague Cristina Garza. And sometimes, it’s the things people say before the cameras go live, or after they’ve been powered down, that remain with me weeks ... read more Posted on 10/07/08 by: DGSmith Comments (0 ) Kazakh Film: Chouga and TulpanEvery major film festival presents a gallery of cinema offerings and possible discoveries for those curious enough to seek out unfamiliar work by international narrative-film artists and imagemakers. The New York Film Festival may play it safe by screening films that already have theatrical distribution, like Steven Soderbergh’s twin-halved 262-minute ... read more Posted on 10/07/08 by: DGSmith Comments (0 ) BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOMEEach September, as the New York Film Festival rolls out two weeks of film for its illustrious guests and patrons, the event stirs up mixed feelings among this city’s hardcore cinephile community. Veteran malcontents like to grouse that there is too much middlebrow programming from the likes of Wes Anderson ... read more Posted on 10/07/08 by: DGSmith Comments (0 ) The Class (Laurent Cantet, France): 61
I guess there's just no pleasing me (cue vigorously nodding heads), because for the first hour, when the film seems wholly dedicated to observing the student-teacher dynamic in a multiculti Paris classroom, I found myself admiring its rigor and intelligence but also wishing that something a ...
read more
Posted on 10/03/08 by: dangelo
Comments (0 ) Tony Manero (Pablo Larraín, Chile/Brazil): 33
"Ah, one for the boys over at Slant," I thought, and sure enough. For those not temperamentally inclined to celebrate uncompromising cine-machismo for its own sake, however, this is pretty thin gruel, deeply unpleasant without ever coming within spitting distance of enlightening. Once you've been ...
read more
Posted on 10/03/08 by: dangelo
Comments (0 ) 
The Pleasure of Robbing CannesThe Closing Night film of the Directors' Fortnight at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED, opens today at the IFC Center in New York. While in Cannes, Director Josh Safdie and brother Benny took to the French Riviera streets with digital cameras in hand to search ... read more Posted on 10/03/08 by: FCFeatures Comments (0 ) 
I'm Gonna Explode (Gerardo Naranjo, Mexico): 62
Except they're not, is the thing. What they're actually gonna do is enact the most desultory, useless lovers-on-the-lam scenario ever, "fleeing" to a tent on the roof of Román's family's posh home and then sneaking downstairs to almost fuck after everyone leaves. Their whole adventure could ...
read more
Posted on 09/30/08 by: dangelo
Comments (0 ) |
All in a day's work
Review of Meeting the Enemy (2007)
Meeting the Enemy is based on a novel by Leopold Lahola, which is basically a long long long long essay on the search for the principle of humanism. It's about a day in the life of a German soldier who is tasked to shoot his prisoner, only to get into ... read more Posted on 09/22/08 by: dansiella Comments (1 ) I wanna be James Spader's Secretary
Review of Secretary (2002)
Having recently just seen this film I can now say that 'Secretary' has made its way to being one of my favorite romantic comedies - even if I don't like romantic comedies. Secretary stars Maggie Gyllenhaal as former mental patient turned secretary Lee Holloway and James Spader as her demanding ... read more Posted on 09/22/08 by: dansiella Comments (1 ) I dream of the Dreamers
Review of The Dreamers (2003)
Bertolucci's The Dreamers comes off as the ultimate artsy/love/sex/revolution type of movie but truth be told it's so much more than that. Bursting with symbolism and draped with layers and layers of meaning, The Dreamers is about a young American student studying in Paris in the 60's as he strikes ... read more Posted on 09/22/08 by: dansiella Comments (1 ) Cheers to the head!
Review of Brothers of the Head (2006)
Brothers of the Head is the story of conjoined twins Tom and Barry Howe - a freak show turned proto-punk sensation in the 1970's. Brothers of the Head is directed by Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe. "It's extremely Gothic," goes one of the first lines of this mockumentary. Plucked from ... read more Posted on 09/22/08 by: dansiella Comments (1 ) The Brothers Bloom at TIFF
Review of The Brothers Bloom
This is my biggest disappointment of the film festival thus far. Not the worst I've seen, though not far off. Dammit, The Brothers Bloom should have been great. I am a big fan of all the leads (Adrian Brody, Rachel Weisz, and the underused Mark Ruffalo) and this was Rian ... read more Posted on 09/19/08 by: Aaron Comments (0 ) Wendy and Lucy at TIFF 2008
Review of Wendy and Lucy
This is a contemporary American take on the British Kitchen Sink movies of the late fifties and early sixties. And it is terrific. Michelle Williams is Wendy, a young woman traveling to Alaska for work with her dog, Lucy. Wendy and Lucy catches up with the pair during a stop-over ... read more Posted on 09/19/08 by: Aaron Comments (0 ) The Paper Chase on Reel 13Review of The Paper Chase
The programmers at Channel 13 made an interesting choice to kick off their new (and kind of exciting) Reel 13 project in selecting James Bridges’ 1973 paean to law school THE PAPER CHASE. I realize that 2008 marks the 35th anniversary of the film, but if it’s anniversaries they’re interested ... read more Posted on 09/17/08 by: eplromeo8 Comments (0 ) Towelhead (F.K.A. Nothing Is Private)
Review of Towelhead (F.K.A. Nothing Is Private)
It's amazing how hilarious this movie is without stealing from the drama of a young girl who gets molested. The comedic elements are what set this film apart from others stories about a teen coping with identity and abuse. I didn't realize when I saw it that this is from ... read more Posted on 09/12/08 by: Momoji Comments (0 ) A Simple Curve on Reel 13Review of A Simple Curve
As much as I complain about the vast majority of Reel 13 Indies, what I love about it is that once and a while, a film comes along that takes me by surprise and captures my heart and mind, like CRY FUNNY HAPPY or THE RAGE IN PLACID LAKE. A ... read more Posted on 09/11/08 by: eplromeo8 Comments (0 ) ElegyReview of Elegy
A dark drama based on Philip Roth's novel 'The Dying Animal', Elegy follows the life of David Kepesh, an ageing literary professor played by Ben Kingsley. Having abandoned his wife and son twenty years ago, Kepesh lives alone, in a no-strings-attached, sexual relationship with a middle-aged businesswoman, played by Patricia ... read more Posted on 09/10/08 by: Carolann Comments (0 ) |
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