By Elias Savada. Werner Herzog’s documentaries tend to explore interesting lands or unusual people: the Chauvet caves in France (2010’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams), the frozen beauty of Antarctica (2007’s Encounters at the End of the World), or bear lover Timothy Treadwell (2005’s Grizzly Man) Now he catches up to something we find around […]
Time in “the Shack”: A Fuller Life
By Tony Williams. “The hatemongers and reactionaries are the most loathsome thorns in the eye of a great Democracy. Every generation has its own and they must be fought and defeated” (William Friedkin reading from A Third Face [2002] by Samuel Fuller). A Fuller Life is a daughter’s cinematic tribute to […]
La Chienne: Renoir Begins
By Christopher Sharrett. While the film is credited with bringing German Expressionism to French cinema and thus another step toward film noir, the film is notable for its sense of stillness….” My title is a bit misleading, since Jean Renoir made a number of films in the silent era (none […]
Under the Sun: Unmasking North Korean Propaganda
By Johannes Schönherr. Under the Sun, a documentary by Soviet-born and -raised director Vitaly Mansky, starts off like an slice of life type of cinéma vérité, filmed in the winter dawn hours in downtown Pyongyang. The city looks grey and run-down, and the streets between the aging apartment blocks are […]
Inspiring and Unsettling: Miss Sharon Jones!
August 12, 2016
By Jude Warne. Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings are a seasoned, air-tight, top-notch funk-soul band. Via Jones’ musical talents and Bosco Man/Gabriel Roth’s analog recording and band leading genius, the group has managed to bring back the 60s funk and soul sound to our modern era, infusing it with a vibrant […]
From Bankruptcy to 9/11: Downtown Film & TV Culture 1975-2001 by Joan Hawkins
August 8, 2016
A Book Review by John Duncan Talbird. Joan Hawkins’ recent multi-authored book, Downtown Film & TV Culture 1975-2001 (Intellect), is a heteroglossic text bringing together multiple genres – historical documents, interviews, conversations, focused analysis, and even traditional academic articles – to paint a chaotically vivid picture of the New York “downtown” […]
Mirroring a Genius – Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You
By Elias Savada. OK, kids, who among you doesn’t know who Norman Lear is? The few of you who raised your hands, shame on you. (I tested this question on a friend half my age, and he thought I was talking about the guy who dropped a lot of LSD. […]
Unearthing That Cold Day in the Park
August 3, 2016
By Chris Neilan. Here’s something to brighten the day of any self-respecting cinephile: the unearthing of a forgotten film by a bona fide American master. And not just any master, but Robert Altman. Few American directors are better loved than Altman, the own-tune-following iconoclast who defied structuring paradigms, paid attention to his […]
Beyond the Dream Life: Fantastic Planet on Criterion
By Jessica Baxter. I can’t remember exactly how old I was when I first stumbled upon René Laloux’s surreal animated French language sci-fi film, Fantastic Planet (1973). I assume I was old enough to read subtitles, but I’m not 100% sure because the visuals are engaging and unusual enough to […]
A Woody Allen Fluff: Café Society
By Elias Savada. Problems are afoot in Woodyland. The jokes are there, albeit fleetingly and the best ones deal with gallows humor. The romantic comedy-drama script seems regurgitated from some of director-writer Woody Allen’s earlier works, and his alter-ego, Jesse Eisenberg, is back (after 2012’s To Rome With Love) for […]