Two Films by Manuela de Laborde
In 2016, Mexican filmmaker Manuela de Laborde released what was probably that year's most acclaimed experimental film. As Without So Within is a...
2021-07-14 21:25:00 +0000 UTC View Post
msicism posts
In Front of Your Face (Hong Sangsoo, 2021)
Lots of filmmakers were forced to change up their methods in order to keep working during the Covid-19 lockdown. But Hong Sangsoo is one from whom you mi...
2021-07-14 00:42:52 +0000 UTC View PostEXTRA: Top Ten As-Yet-Unwritten Sparks Songs
Ball's in your court, Ron.
10. Do You Know Why I Pulled You Over?
9. Rain Delay (Ron Delay)
8...
2021-07-13 03:47:18 +0000 UTC View PostSoftie (Samuel Theis, 2021)
English titles of foreign films can often be clumsy and misleading, and Softie is not a particularly apt rendition of Petite nature. Th...
2021-07-13 02:38:01 +0000 UTC View PostThe Sparks Brothers (Edgar Wright, 2021)
Occasionally I enjoy a film so much that I am a bit suspicious of the experience. Why does this particular movie seem to be pushing all my ple...
2021-07-12 18:13:53 +0000 UTC View PostBergman Island (Mia Hansen-Løve, 2021)
"Why didn't Bergman make films about happiness?" wonders Chris (Vicky Krieps) to her husband Anthony (Tim Roth). Although Hansen-Løve takes her time cla...
2021-07-09 20:43:12 +0000 UTC View PostAn American in Paris (Vincente Minnelli, 1951)
It's going to be an interesting month! To be honest, I don't have a lot of experience with the classic Hollywood musicals. And the ones I've always known...
2021-07-07 20:00:50 +0000 UTC View PostA Matter of Life and Death (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1946)
It has to be said: the British are simply made of sterner stuff. From 1939 to 1945, Powell and Pressburger essentially made World War II the primary subj...
2021-07-05 04:01:15 +0000 UTC View PostJuly Goes Forth -- director poll
LET'S DO THIS. (At least one more Archers film to come, though.)
2021-07-03 04:47:49 +0000 UTC View PostThe Tales of Hoffmann (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1951)
When watching The Red Shoes, I was quite taken with the Archers' bizarre, experimental approach to combining ballet and cinema, so much so that ...
2021-07-02 03:24:22 +0000 UTC View PostThe Canyon (Zachary Epcar, 2021)
Another of the leading lights of experimental cinema at the moment, Zachary Epcar has very quickly defined a highly individual style. In such recent film...
2021-06-30 21:21:21 +0000 UTC View Post"This is what they want!"
Just an update: I have not forgotten about the July director-of-the-month poll, but have decided to delay it by a few days. I want to get a couple more A...
2021-06-30 04:33:08 +0000 UTC View PostThe Capacity for Adequate Anger (Vika Kirchenbauer, 2021)
German film artist Vika Kirchenbauer has been making work for awhile now, but it was her previous film, Untitled Sequence of Gaps (featured at O...
2021-06-29 17:45:25 +0000 UTC View PostA Canterbury Tale (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1944)
A "minor film" in all senses of the word, A Canterbury Tale is also a stark distillation of the humanist wisdom that exemplified the Archers' ap...
2021-06-28 22:26:15 +0000 UTC View PostTrampa de Luz (Pablo Marín, 2021)
Ironically, one of the unexpected benefits of the wholesale switch to digital projection has been a resurgence of Super-8 filmmaking. Not so long ago, ev...
2021-06-26 21:22:16 +0000 UTC View PostOh Yeah, Fuck You
It's been so long since I've gone to a movie theater that I forgot how shitty they are.
I just got back from a failed attempt to see The Sparks...
2021-06-26 03:15:10 +0000 UTC View PostBelladonna of Sadness (Eiichi Yamamoto, 1973)
For those who are still struggling with the question of whether the pornographic gaze can ever really be turned to feminist purposes, Belladonna of S...
2021-06-23 05:17:12 +0000 UTC View PostThe Red Shoes (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1948)
Among this film's many virtues is it strange, remarkable opening scene. The Red Shoes begins with a large group of college-aged men and women cl...
2021-06-19 03:04:33 +0000 UTC View PostJury Duty Again
I am a few posts behind at this point, mostly owing to domestic endeavors. Our AC has given up the ghost, which is pretty serious in Houston in June. So ...
2021-06-17 05:36:46 +0000 UTC View PostMr. Bachmann and His Class (Maria Speth, 2021)
At least as far back as Frederick Wiseman's High School (1968), documentary filmmakers have consistently been compelled by the inner workings an...
2021-06-16 00:56:42 +0000 UTC View PostThe Amusement Park (George A. Romero, 1973/2019)
To state the obvious, we would not be paying any attention to this medium-length public service announcement if it weren't a work-for-hire by ...
2021-06-11 02:02:54 +0000 UTC View PostConfessions of an Omnishambles
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I'd been having some issues with illness. I'm pleased to report I have gotten a clean bill of health.
To sum up: ...
2021-06-08 22:27:52 +0000 UTC View PostBlack Narcissus (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1947)
The jury is not exactly out on Black Narcissus. It is considered one of the very best artifacts from the Powell / Pressburger partner...
2021-06-07 01:14:05 +0000 UTC View PostA Man and a Camera (Guido Hendrikx, 2021)
As stunts go, A Man and a Camera is fairly clever, and certainly provides the viewer with...
2021-06-06 01:20:00 +0000 UTC View PostGlossary of Nonhuman Love (Ashish Avikunthak, 2021)
The Ann Arbor Film Festival used to (and maybe still does, I don't pay attention anymore) have a panel discussion on the last day of screenings. It was c...
2021-06-04 22:36:47 +0000 UTC View PostCapitu and the Chapter (Julio Bressane, 2021)
Alas, this is my first exposure to Bressane, possibly the key Brazilian director of his particular era. That era, incidentally, is the post-Cinema Novo m...
2021-06-04 03:53:19 +0000 UTC View PostThe Coward (Satyajit Ray, 1965)
I wanted to complete my Ray run with an unusual selection, a film that doesn't seem to hold an especially high place in the director's canon. So I want t...
2021-06-03 03:13:07 +0000 UTC View PostThe Home and the World (Satyajit Ray, 1984)
The more Rays I've seen, the stranger it seems to me that the Apu trilogy continues to be regarded as his crowning achievement. This may say less about R...
2021-06-02 02:39:39 +0000 UTC View PostThe Target Shoots First
The Archers are off to a commanding lead, so if you haven't voted yet, you could still sway the results. Of course, any minute the trucks filled with mai...
2021-05-30 01:06:16 +0000 UTC View PostThe Big City (Satyajit Ray, 1963)
Although they are very different directors, something about Ray has been reminding me of Ozu. Of course part of it pertains to the overarching themes of ...
2021-05-30 01:03:09 +0000 UTC View Post