Shooting in Riyadh when Arabia Was Poor: American film crew accepts Arabian hospitality and lunch with Saudi King I’d flown into Riyadh from Bahrain as one of a film crew; about twenty of us travelling the world in a Pan American Airways DC-4 airliner shooting scenes for the huge screen […]
Safar’s Friday Forum
September 24, 2012
Malu Halasa reports from “Safar: A Journey Through Popular Arab Cinema,” the most ambitious programme of popular Arab film ever seen in the UK, organized by The Arab British Centre, in partnership with The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) and Dubai International Film Festival, 21-27 September 2012. “We are not […]
Maya Deren’s Ritual in Transfigured Time
By Francis DiClemente. Last summer, in the midst of the blockbuster movie season dominated by sequels, 3-D animation and superhero offerings, I stumbled upon a cinematic treat from a forgotten era. While eating my lunch at my desk one afternoon, I went to YouTube to look up some alternative music […]
Dead End Detroit: An American Story
By Daniel Lindvall. The music documentary Searching for Sugar Man had its world premiere earlier this year at Sundance. A fitting place since this is, according to its Swedish director Malik Bendjelloul, “an American story.” It is also a Detroit story, a story about the music industry, but most of […]
The End of the 80s? Brief notes on Cosmopolis and the film history of the yuppie
By Daniel Lindvall. Could it be that the yuppie is finally dying? And does that mean that the eighties are over? Is it a burial ode that David Cronenberg has given us with his latest film, Cosmopolis? Bred by the neoliberal stage of finance capitalism, the yuppie personality was made […]
“Lost in a Roman Wilderness of Pain”: Film and Television After 9/11
By Wheeler Winston Dixon. “This is the end My only friend, the end Of our elaborate plans, the end Of everything that stands, the end No safety or surprise, the end I’ll never look into your eyes again Can you picture what will be So limitless and free Desperately in […]
Dark Humor in Films of the 1960s – Part 4
By Wheeler Winston Dixon. This is the fourth and final part of “Dark Humor in Films of the 1960s.” Follow these links for previous installments: Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. As the 1960s drew to a close, so did the string of dark comedies; the real world was bleak […]
Barbara Beyond East vs. West
By Daniel Lindvall. Barbara (2012), written and directed by Christian Petzold, is a remarkable film. It may well be the best so far of all the German films made in recent years on the still very much contentious subject of the defunct German Democratic Republic (GDR). Generally speaking, such films, […]
Planetary Projection: Call for Participation
September 5, 2012
caboose, an independent publisher of books about film located in Montreal, Canada, is starting a new project on film projection called Planetary Projection, coordinated by Marina Uzunova. They are seeking contributions for an online album and eventual book from projectionists willing to share their experiences. For more information about this project, […]
Capitalism Eats Itself: Gluttony and Coprophagia from Hoarders to La Grande Bouffe
By Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. “Recently my dull life seems to have no meaning I am stuck with someone We’re not communicating I want to buy Have you been affected I need consoling You could be addicted” (“Spend, Spend, Spend,” The Slits [1979]) Consumption. Excess. Gluttony. Hoarding. Waste. Massive debt. The […]