After Yang (Kogonada, 2021)
Quite often there is a significant disparity between how films are received at festivals versus their broader release. This is usually attributed to the ...
2022-03-14 17:35:32 +0000 UTC View Post
msicism posts
Everything Went Fine (François Ozon, 2021)
It's fairly obvious that Ozon's rebellious days are behind him. We won't be getting another Sitcom or Water Drops on Burning Rocks from...
2022-03-13 21:46:28 +0000 UTC View PostI Miss Sonia Henie (various directors, 1971)
A rare film I was able to see via the Media City Film Festival online, I Miss Sonia Henie is an absolute waste of time. But if you're an irredee...
2022-03-07 04:34:36 +0000 UTC View PostWhere've I Been?
Well, in addition to being pummeled by grading, the last two weeks have been fairly intense around here, with huge construction projects creating a major...
2022-03-05 06:34:30 +0000 UTC View PostCow (Andrea Arnold, 2021)
Following her well-regarded short film Wasp (2003), British filmmaker Andrea Arnold's debut feature Red Road (2006) bypassed the entire...
2022-02-24 05:46:32 +0000 UTC View PostEnough Praying (Aldo Francia, 1972)
It happens sometimes: the random luck of the draw directs you to a masterwork you'd never have discovered otherwise. This is the second of two feature fi...
2022-02-24 05:22:02 +0000 UTC View PostTokyo, Vienna, Paris, Houston...
(...everybody talk about Pop Musik!)
As I begin to tackle the backlog of writing, mostly focusing on Media City, I wanted to quickly alert...
2022-02-24 01:28:32 +0000 UTC View PostBy the way . . .
Hi all,
Just a note to say I've been a bit tied up with the day job, so I haven't posted as much as I'd like. But shortly I will have reviews up fo...
2022-02-18 21:56:08 +0000 UTC View PostRotterdam 2020: a sampling (pt. 3)
(Just in case this eons-in-the-making comedy callback was l...
2022-02-15 20:49:58 +0000 UTC View PostExpedition Content (Ernst Karel and Veronika Kusumaryati, 2020)
There is no obvious way to present an audio field recording. The audience for this type of documentation is mostly restricted to anthropology specialists...
2022-02-11 01:25:38 +0000 UTC View PostRotterdam 2022: a sampling (part two)
Burger King Alexandrium, waar je het kunt hebben zoals jij het wilt.
2022-02-08 20:30:33 +0000 UTC
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Rotterdam 2022: a sampling (part one)
(pictured above: Het Huis van de Whopper, Rotterdam, Netherlands)
2022-02-04 02:58:15 +0000 UTC
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Either or Neither (Dan Barnett, 2021)
This is the third and final film in Barnett's "Sweet Dreamers" trilogy, a suite of feature-length experimental films. While I have not seen the second fi...
2022-02-03 04:11:33 +0000 UTC View PostThe Tale of King Crab (Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis, 2021)
First it must be acknowledged that this is one of the best-looking films in quite awhile. While Simone D'Arcangelo's cinematography for King Crab 2022-02-02 05:39:34 +0000 UTC View Post
Pedestrian at Best Redux: 125 Favorite Songs
UPDATE: 120 struck me as a dumb number. So it will be 125.
It's been a few years, so I decided to revisit and revise the favorite song l...
2022-01-28 06:21:58 +0000 UTC View PostFat City (John Huston, 1972)
Given the high reputation of Fat City, I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that it's quite a lovely movie, and a deeply sympathetic portrait of l...
2022-01-28 03:20:18 +0000 UTC View Post1972: Games of Love and Chance
I just finished Fat City (comments forthcoming shortly), so I decided to use ye olde number randomizer to decide the next five 1972 films I will...
2022-01-25 21:19:35 +0000 UTC View PostBeg to Differ
Here are a couple of films I caught up with recently. I liked them well enough, but others seem more impressed.
A Hero (Asghar Farhad...
2022-01-23 23:21:57 +0000 UTC View PostYou Could Have Seen the Mona Lisa (Doug Dillaman, 2021)
I wanted to say a quick word about this film, which I recently caught up with. As was the case when writing about Frederic Da's Teenage Emotions...
2022-01-21 00:47:12 +0000 UTC View Post1972 Redux: Don't Torture a Reduckling!
I have been amassing a collection of prospective '72 views here:
Two Master Miniaturists
Last year saw the release of two new films, each by a prominent European formalist. These are makers I should know a bit better than I do.
...
2022-01-20 19:22:40 +0000 UTC View PostThe Heartbreak Kid (Elaine May, 1972)
Ironically, this was probably a great choice as my introduction to Elaine May. If the films she both wrote and directed exhibit more of this sensibility,...
2022-01-18 23:24:13 +0000 UTC View PostA Font of Wisdom
As Nicolas and I were discussing Kluge's use of bad fonts, my mind drifted back to Pusha T.
Willi Tobler and the Decline of the 6th Fleet (Alexander Kluge, 1972)
Having recently watched Orphea, the odd film-collage Kluge co-directed with Khvan, I wondered whether the decades-long stint in television had s...
2022-01-17 22:48:51 +0000 UTC View PostWhat's Up, Doc? (Peter Bogdanovich, 1972)
The tagline for What's Up, Dog? was "a screwball comedy... remember those?"This was certainly wise of Bogdanovich and Warners to clearly label t...
2022-01-17 22:24:46 +0000 UTC View PostUnclenching the Fists (Kira Kovalenko, 2021)
Although I have been somewhat mixed on the films emerging from Alexander Sokurov's production initiative, it's obvious that the old master has an eye for...
2022-01-15 02:12:47 +0000 UTC View PostSimone Barbès or Virtue (Marie-Claude Treilhou, 1980)
The wonderful thing about cinema, or any artform really, is its utter infinitude. For all the moaning about the death of cinema (and cinema, it seems, ha...
2022-01-14 05:55:03 +0000 UTC View PostSuzanna Andler (Benoit Jacquot, 2021)
There's a true-life legend among my cinephile crowd, involving a screening at the 2000 Toronto International Film Festival. A friend, who is not a profes...
2022-01-14 04:49:25 +0000 UTC View Post"Just Open With a Joke"
If you've ever taken a public speaking course, or read any Toastmasters material, or even gotten personal advice on giving a speech at some function, you...
2022-01-12 03:14:59 +0000 UTC View PostThe Lost Daughter (Maggie Gyllenhaal, 2021)
Maybe it's because I've been watching Yellowjackets recently, but I am getting tired of movies and shows whose structure is dominated by dual ti...
2022-01-11 18:21:42 +0000 UTC View Post