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DGSmith
Damon Smith is a New York-based film journalist. He has written features, profiles, and reviews for The Boston Globe, Time Out New York, Filmmaker magazine, Senses of Cinema ...
Spirit of ’68: Riots, Revolution, and Wilhelm Reich on FilmBy Damon Smith Forty years later, how far removed are we from the upheavals that occurred during the eventful, often tumultuous months of 1968? That was the question I kept asking myself Monday after a marathon session at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater, which wrapped up ... read more Posted on 05/15/2008 by DGSmith The Problem with Reality, Part One: Nick Broomfield and Battle for HadithaBy Damon Smith Smart people have long debated the relation between cinema and reality, but for documentary filmmakers, the question has always been a particularly vexing one. Posted on 04/30/2008 by DGSmith French Kisses: Christophe Honoré Updates the New Wave Musical with "Love Songs"by Damon Smith Critics who were irritated by the manic-depressive ethos of Christophe Honoré’s last film, Dans Paris, are not likely to be won over to his latest, a modern-day musical in the mold of Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Godard’s Une femme est une femme. For ... read more Posted on 04/04/2008 by DGSmith 
Review of City of Men
Favela RisingCapitalizing on the international popularity of his Brazilian TV series City of Men, which aired on BBC4 in Britain and on the Sundance Channel here in the States, Fernando Mereilles (The Constant Gardener) last year produced a feature-film version of the show, directed by Paulo Morelli and starring Darlan Cunha ... read more Posted on 03/24/2008 by DGSmith Wrapping Up, Part 2My last day in Park City was both fun and frustrating. I tried to get into a screening of James Marsh’s Man on Wire, a doc about rebel tightrope walker Philippe Petit, who danced on a wire between the Twin Towers in 1974, but apparently every last journalist, festivalgoer, and ... read morePosted on 01/27/2008 by DGSmith The WinnersJust caught the red eye back from Park City, and now I’m safely ensconced back in New York again, feeling a mix of relief and post-cinematic stress disorder. A few hours before I hopped the midnight plane, the Sundance press office released the names of the top prize winners at ... read morePosted on 01/27/2008 by DGSmith Wrapping Up, Part 1The press office this morning is as silent as a mortuary. Most professional festivalgoers have left already, or are on their way to the airport. If yesterday was any indication, then standing in the wait line for tickets today will be a cinch. My flight doesn’t depart until midnight, so ... read morePosted on 01/26/2008 by DGSmith Day 9: Ways of SeeingThe esteemed Village Voice critic Jim Hoberman first brought my attention to the work of avant-indie pioneer James Benning in his review of Ten Skies and Thirteen Lakes, so I’d been looking for an opportunity this past week to catch a screening of Benning’s new film, Casting a Glance, premiering ... read morePosted on 01/25/2008 by DGSmith Day 8: Pitt StopPoor Michael Pitt. The actor is in town to promote Michael Haneke’s shot-for-shot American remake of his own Funny Games, an intelligent but grotesquely disturbing film about two polite, well-dressed young men (Pitt and Brady Corbet) who invade the vacation home of an upper-middle-class couple (Naomi Watts and Tim Roth) ... read morePosted on 01/25/2008 by DGSmith Day 6 and 7Posting on a regular basis has been a bit tough—ok, impossible—the past few days, owing to our amped-up schedule. On Tuesday alone, we did 11 back-to-back interviews with a who’s who of both established and first-time filmmakers debuting new work at Sundance, as well as members of their respective casts. ... read morePosted on 01/25/2008 by DGSmith |
