An epochal rise-and-fall epic of the gangster cycle, Raoul Walsh’s skittering, impetuous The Roaring Twenties hits the ground running but a couple lengths further back on the track than one would expect. It bookends the glorious ascent of James Cagney’s bootlegger with a cold reception for soldiers returning from overseas following World War I on one side and the 1929 stock market crash on the other.
The plot, based on Mark Hellinger’s short story “The World Moves On,” defies genre conventions right out of the gate, beginning not with Cagney’s spry neophyte chump Eddie Bartlett traipsing his way into, say, the stage door of a hotbox revue but with him stumbling his way into a blown-out crater in Europe during the war. The role of Bartlett, a principled soldier who blossoms into a hoodlum with a conscience, found Cagney at a peculiar point in his career as a uniquely physical being,...
The plot, based on Mark Hellinger’s short story “The World Moves On,” defies genre conventions right out of the gate, beginning not with Cagney’s spry neophyte chump Eddie Bartlett traipsing his way into, say, the stage door of a hotbox revue but with him stumbling his way into a blown-out crater in Europe during the war. The role of Bartlett, a principled soldier who blossoms into a hoodlum with a conscience, found Cagney at a peculiar point in his career as a uniquely physical being,...
- 3/1/2024
- by Eric Henderson
- Slant Magazine
This weekend sees the release of Greta Gerwig’s wildly anticipated “Barbie,” the ambitious neon pink comedy from the Oscar-nominated filmmaker. That much is clear, but defining the core audience for “Barbie” isn’t so simple. The movie is somehow both a story of the beloved child’s toy and a satire of its cultural impact. It’s rated PG-13, but draws on a commercial product most closely associated with childhood. It stars decidedly grown-up performers Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, but it’s about a world in which Barbie and Ken dolls are real. It’s produced by Mattel, but it’s co-written by Noah Baumbach. So, who is this film for?
IndieWire’s Kate Erbland, Eric Kohn, and David Ehrlich all recently saw “Barbie,” and they’ve got some ideas as to how to answer all that, and more.
Kate Erbland: Let’s parse this: It’s a “Barbie” movie,...
IndieWire’s Kate Erbland, Eric Kohn, and David Ehrlich all recently saw “Barbie,” and they’ve got some ideas as to how to answer all that, and more.
Kate Erbland: Let’s parse this: It’s a “Barbie” movie,...
- 7/21/2023
- by Kate Erbland, Eric Kohn and David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
In his 1962 essay, "White Elephant Art vs. Termite Art," critic Manny Farber comes firmly down on the side of filmmakers and actors who are completely at odds with the zeitgeist or trends, and nibble away at the edges of genre and ever present B-Film tropes and ideas with skill and verve. He called this kind of filmmaking Termite Art. I am not sure what position Farber would take on Walter Hill's latest film, a simmering small budgeted Western shot in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with a talented and diverse set of character actors all spinning slowly, spokes on familiar axis of the classic American Western. Dead for A Dollar is dedicated to Budd Boetticher, perhaps the ultimate...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
- 9/28/2022
- Screen Anarchy
For the tenth time in 11 years, the Locarno Film Festival is hosting 10 international film critics from various stages of development during the 10 days of the A-list Swiss festival.
Coming from places as far from the Swiss resort town as Bangalore, Melbourne, Rio de Janeiro and Jakarta, and from an even more varied matrix of backgrounds, disciplines, writing styles, and interests, participants in the anniversary edition of the Critics Academy will have the chance to interact face-to-face with a wealth of major critics, programmers, and filmmakers in attendance at Locarno.
Returning after one aborted edition in the first year of the pandemic and another for which there was no public call for applications, Locarno’s incubator for aspiring professional critics takes place once again in the midst of an extraordinarily trying moment both for the art and commerce of cinema but also, perhaps even more acutely, for writing about it.
While...
Coming from places as far from the Swiss resort town as Bangalore, Melbourne, Rio de Janeiro and Jakarta, and from an even more varied matrix of backgrounds, disciplines, writing styles, and interests, participants in the anniversary edition of the Critics Academy will have the chance to interact face-to-face with a wealth of major critics, programmers, and filmmakers in attendance at Locarno.
Returning after one aborted edition in the first year of the pandemic and another for which there was no public call for applications, Locarno’s incubator for aspiring professional critics takes place once again in the midst of an extraordinarily trying moment both for the art and commerce of cinema but also, perhaps even more acutely, for writing about it.
While...
- 8/5/2022
- by Christopher Small
- Variety Film + TV
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No cinephile’s bookshelf is complete without a well-curated selection of film criticism books to complement their robust movie library. After all, criticism exists to enhance our understanding of art, and really any creative endeavor. The art of film criticism is almost as old as film itself, and has evolved just as film has over the past century or so.
The below selection of film criticism classics includes a wide variety of literature that helps enhance the filmgoing experience, from in-depth histories of specific films to exhaustive analysis of filmmakers and actors; from essay collections of famed critics to histories of film movements and eras. They’re both historical and contemporary, with original...
No cinephile’s bookshelf is complete without a well-curated selection of film criticism books to complement their robust movie library. After all, criticism exists to enhance our understanding of art, and really any creative endeavor. The art of film criticism is almost as old as film itself, and has evolved just as film has over the past century or so.
The below selection of film criticism classics includes a wide variety of literature that helps enhance the filmgoing experience, from in-depth histories of specific films to exhaustive analysis of filmmakers and actors; from essay collections of famed critics to histories of film movements and eras. They’re both historical and contemporary, with original...
- 3/18/2021
- by Jean Bentley and Latifah Muhammad
- Indiewire
You’ve asked questions. Prepare for the answers.
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Sweet Smell Of Success (1957)
The Beguiled (1971)
Tenet (2021? Maybe?)
Smokey Is The Bandit (1983)
Robin Hood (2010)
Hollywood Boulevard (1976)
The Devils (1971)
Song of the South (1946)
Gremlins (1984)
Dillinger (1973)
Marcello I’m So Bored (1966)
Jeremiah Johnson (1972)
Big Wednesday (1978)
Swamp Thing (1982)
Forrest Gump (1994)
Payback (1999)
Bell, Book And Candle (1958)
Blowup (1966)
The Big Lebowski (1998)
Medium Cool (1969)
25th Hour (2002)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Palm Springs (2020)
Groundhog Day (1993)
Mandy (2018)
The Sadist (1963)
Spider Baby (1968)
Night Tide (1960)
Stark Fear
Carnival of Souls (1962)
The Devil’s Messenger (1961)
Ms. 45 (1981)
Léolo (1992)
The Howling (1981)
Showgirls (1995)
Green Book (2018)
The Last Hurrah (1958)
The Best Man (1964)
Advise and Consent (1962)
The Candidate (1972)
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Seven Days In May (1964)
The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979)
The Man (1972)
Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970)
Four Lions (2010)
Pump Up The Volume (1990)
Nightmare In The Sun (1965)
The Wild Angels (1966)
The Omega Man (1971)
The Nanny (1965)
Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)
Live Like A Cop, Die Like A Man...
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Sweet Smell Of Success (1957)
The Beguiled (1971)
Tenet (2021? Maybe?)
Smokey Is The Bandit (1983)
Robin Hood (2010)
Hollywood Boulevard (1976)
The Devils (1971)
Song of the South (1946)
Gremlins (1984)
Dillinger (1973)
Marcello I’m So Bored (1966)
Jeremiah Johnson (1972)
Big Wednesday (1978)
Swamp Thing (1982)
Forrest Gump (1994)
Payback (1999)
Bell, Book And Candle (1958)
Blowup (1966)
The Big Lebowski (1998)
Medium Cool (1969)
25th Hour (2002)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Palm Springs (2020)
Groundhog Day (1993)
Mandy (2018)
The Sadist (1963)
Spider Baby (1968)
Night Tide (1960)
Stark Fear
Carnival of Souls (1962)
The Devil’s Messenger (1961)
Ms. 45 (1981)
Léolo (1992)
The Howling (1981)
Showgirls (1995)
Green Book (2018)
The Last Hurrah (1958)
The Best Man (1964)
Advise and Consent (1962)
The Candidate (1972)
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Seven Days In May (1964)
The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979)
The Man (1972)
Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970)
Four Lions (2010)
Pump Up The Volume (1990)
Nightmare In The Sun (1965)
The Wild Angels (1966)
The Omega Man (1971)
The Nanny (1965)
Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)
Live Like A Cop, Die Like A Man...
- 7/24/2020
- by Kris Millsap
- Trailers from Hell
The director of Over The Edge and The Accused takes us on a journey through some of his favorite movies.
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
The Student Teachers (1973)
Night Call Nurses (1972)
White Line Fever (1975)
Truck Turner (1974)
Heart Like A Wheel (1983)
The Accused (1988)
Over The Edge (1979)
Modern Times (1936)
City Lights (1931)
Manhattan (1979)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
The Apartment (1960)
North By Northwest (1959)
Moon Pilot (1962)
Mr. Billion (1977)
White Heat (1949)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
The Three Musketeers (1973)
The Four Musketeers (1974)
Superman (1978)
Superman II (1980)
The Three Musketeers (1948)
Shane (1953)
The 400 Blows (1959)
8 ½ (1963)
Fellini Satyricon (1969)
Richard (1972)
Millhouse (1971)
The Projectionist (1970)
El Dorado (1966)
The Shootist (1976)
Woodstock (1970)
Payback (1999)
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)
Billy Liar (1963)
Ford Vs Ferrari (2019)
The Wild Bunch (1969)
The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970)
Bad Girls (1994)
Masters of the Universe (1987)
Giant (1956)
The More The Merrier (1943)
The Graduate (1967)
The Victors (1963)
…And Justice For All (1979)
Citizen Kane (1941)
An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn...
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
The Student Teachers (1973)
Night Call Nurses (1972)
White Line Fever (1975)
Truck Turner (1974)
Heart Like A Wheel (1983)
The Accused (1988)
Over The Edge (1979)
Modern Times (1936)
City Lights (1931)
Manhattan (1979)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
The Apartment (1960)
North By Northwest (1959)
Moon Pilot (1962)
Mr. Billion (1977)
White Heat (1949)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
The Three Musketeers (1973)
The Four Musketeers (1974)
Superman (1978)
Superman II (1980)
The Three Musketeers (1948)
Shane (1953)
The 400 Blows (1959)
8 ½ (1963)
Fellini Satyricon (1969)
Richard (1972)
Millhouse (1971)
The Projectionist (1970)
El Dorado (1966)
The Shootist (1976)
Woodstock (1970)
Payback (1999)
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)
Billy Liar (1963)
Ford Vs Ferrari (2019)
The Wild Bunch (1969)
The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970)
Bad Girls (1994)
Masters of the Universe (1987)
Giant (1956)
The More The Merrier (1943)
The Graduate (1967)
The Victors (1963)
…And Justice For All (1979)
Citizen Kane (1941)
An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn...
- 7/7/2020
- by Kris Millsap
- Trailers from Hell
Though his actual first name was Howard, and he signed his books “James Harvey,” in the 20-plus years of our friendship I always knew him as Jim. In our household, my wife, daughter and I also had a nickname for him, “The Owl,” because of the night hours he kept. I am a morning person, and sometimes the difference created tension between us, if, say, we were having dinner after a film and it was going on 10:30 and I could barely keep my eyes open. I would stand up to signal I was done and ready to leave while he was still nursing his espresso, just getting started, and he would get a wounded look in his eyes and let me know he thought I was being rude. It’s true, I can be abrupt, and he was the opposite, apt to make a more gradual, mannerly leave-taking. We were both great walkers,...
- 5/29/2020
- by Phillip Lopate
- Indiewire
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSLolita (1962)This year's Golden Globes winners have been announced and can be found here.Looking ahead, take note of Criterion's roster of upcoming films to look forward to in 2020, from Steven Spielberg's West Side Story to Joanna Hogg's The Souvenir Part II. Sue Lyon, who starred in films like Stanley Kubrick's Lolita and The Night of the Iguana by John Huston, has died. The Studio Ghibli official New Year's message includes the announcement that Hayao Miyazaki's How Do You Live? is about 15% complete, as Miyazaki is completing about one minute of animation per month. Nevertheless, we look forward to the auteur's latest opus. Recommended VIEWINGThe first trailer for Downhill, an adaptation of Ruben Östlund's Force Majeure starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell as a couple whose relationship is threatened by a fateful avalanche.
- 1/9/2020
- MUBI
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSHong Sang-soo directing on the set of a new production.Above: We don't know the backstory behind this, but we're nonetheless glad to see Hong Sang-soo back in the director's chair after a year with no new Hong Sang-soo movie. (via @lil_coincoin)Yorgos Lanthimos is set to direct and produce a limited series adapted from Mark Seal's The Man in the Rockefeller Suit. The non-fiction book traces the various lies and grifts of Clark Rockefeller, who claims to be a member of the Rockefeller clan. Recommended VIEWINGAbel Ferrara's Tommaso now has an international trailer, which offers a deeper glimpse into the life of an ex-pat filmmaker (Willem Dafoe) in Rome, who struggles to balance his artistic passion and familial commitments. Read our Cannes interview with Ferrara here.An official trailer for Jennifer Reeder...
- 11/27/2019
- MUBI
Above: Manny Farber and Patricia Patterson in their Hudson Street apartment, New York City, 1967.“Manny Farber writes a visual, sensory account of his thoughts, not necessarily the polished and fully articulated ones, but those which cumulatively add up to the rich life of the mind.”—Josephine Halvorson“The inner machinations of my mind are an enigma.”—Patrick Star“You start anywhere and end up anywhere.”—Luc Sante2019 has turned out to be quite the year for film’s conquering hero, the writer and painter Manny Farber (1917–2008). The January-February 2019 issue of Film Comment featured a transcription of a never-published lecture delivered by Farber at the Museum of Modern Art in 1979. Helen Molesworth put on an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles called “One Day at a Time: Manny Farber and Termite Art,” in which his celebrated love of go-for-broke termiting-tapeworming-fungusing served as a “starting point for assembling...
- 11/23/2019
- MUBI
Robert Siodmak's Phantom Lady (1944) and The Killers (1946) are showing in March and April, 2019 on Mubi in many countries around the world.The KillersThere’s a long-told apocryphal story about German-born silent film star Emil Jannings. He was the first-ever winner of the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1929. After his career had waned, he would return to his homeland and form close ties with Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda. His stardom was renewed within the Third Reich’s film industry. When Berlin was reduced to rubble and Allied troops advanced on Jannings’ home, the story goes that he held his golden statuette aloft and shouted some placating words to the soldiers: “Don’t shoot, I won an Oscar!” True or not, Jannings’ tale is a cruel sort of reversal of the reality faced by artists who were forced to escape Europe during the Nazis’ reign. Throughout the thirties,...
- 4/2/2019
- MUBI
Vladimir Lenin at Smolny (1930) by Isaak BrodskyIf there exists a history of popular themes, then, there too must exist a history of unpopular ones. For every grand theme—good versus evil, man versus nature—there exists myriad small and minor ones. These sorts of thematic marginalia haunt the peripheries, sifting through the substratum, making far-off ideas warm to the touch.It is of no coincidence that some of the best film writers have written in defense of this sensation: Manny Farber’s “White Elephant Art vs. Termite Art,” Claude Chabrol’s “Little Themes,” and Tom Gunning’s “Toward a Minor Cinema.” In his essay, Farber inveighs art aimed at Grand Themes that obsequiously fall in line with traditional notions of “densely wrought, European” masterpieces. In his rock-true manner, Farber writes how graceless, capital “A” art becomes antiseptic and stiff, citing Antonioni and Truffaut as promulgators. Chabrol’s essay makes the...
- 2/4/2019
- MUBI
Jean-Luc Godard quipped that his criticism represented a kind of cinematic terrorism. Serge Daney said his writing taught him not to be afraid to see. The Parisian publishing house Post-Éditions has made available a long overdue collection of his articles in French to decide for ourselves. Jacques Rivette became a filmmaker even before he became a critic. When he came to Paris from Rouen in 1950, he had already completed a short film, unlike Truffaut, Godard, Rohmer or Chabrol, his colleagues-to-be at Cahiers du cinéma and later fellow New Wave directors. By his own admission, he never wanted to be a film critic, not in the traditional sense of the term. But, considering his own dictum that “a true critique of a film can only be another film,” he never ceased to be one. Textes Critiques as an object has the appearance of a cinephilic totem: half-a foot in size, portable,...
- 1/7/2019
- MUBI
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSNicolas Winding Refn, the provocateur known for sleekly mixing art-house and genre cinema in such films as Drive and The Neon Demon, has announced a new initiative: A new online cinema showcasing "restored films and other content with the aim of inspiring a new generation of cinephiles." Mubi is partnering with the Danish director to premiere these newly restored movies on our platform before they are available on byNWR.com, which officially launches in February, 2018.Recommended VIEWINGThe first trailer for a project we're very excited for, Spike Lee's expansive remake of his sophomore feature She's Gotta Have It (1986).Critics Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin also have a new video essay on the nuances in gesture and expression in the cinema of Rainer Werner Fassbinder for Queensland Gallery of Modern Art. For Filmkrant,...
- 10/18/2017
- MUBI
Mubi's series Jacques Becker's Companies is showing June 16 - July 18, 2017 in the United States.Le trouA striking thing about Jacques Becker, one of the last great classicists in French cinema, is the range of genres with which he was apparently at total ease. Astonishingly, the great critic and filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier recently said that Becker was maybe greater than Howard Hawks in this respect—a startling admission given that Hawks is an even more sacrosanct name for cinephiles of Tavernier’s age and predilection than his more obscure French contemporary. Becker, Tavernier said, had “an enormous range, and always [made films] with the same deeply organic quality.” Both Hawks and Becker are fascinated by genre, by the way that they can seemingly countermand inbuilt expectations by cultivating an atmosphere of life-like behavior that at least appears to undercut the revolving gears of plot. Both directors have come to be known as the makers of plotless movies,...
- 6/19/2017
- MUBI
Every week, IndieWire asks a select handful of film and TV critics two questions and publishes the results on Monday. (The answer to the second, “What is the best film in theaters right now?”, can be found at the end of this post.)
This week’s question: In honor of the Cannes Film Festival, the 70th edition of which starts this week, what is the best film to ever win the coveted Palme d’Or?
For a complete list of Palme d’Or winners, click here.
Erin Whitney (@Cinemabite), ScreenCrush
This question is impossible because I clearly haven’t seen all 40 Palme d’Or winners (it’s on my to do list, I swear). But I could easily say “Apocalypse Now,” “Paris, Texas,” “Taxi Driver,” “Amour,” or even “Pulp Fiction.” But since this is a personal question, I have to say “The Tree of Life.” No film has moved me...
This week’s question: In honor of the Cannes Film Festival, the 70th edition of which starts this week, what is the best film to ever win the coveted Palme d’Or?
For a complete list of Palme d’Or winners, click here.
Erin Whitney (@Cinemabite), ScreenCrush
This question is impossible because I clearly haven’t seen all 40 Palme d’Or winners (it’s on my to do list, I swear). But I could easily say “Apocalypse Now,” “Paris, Texas,” “Taxi Driver,” “Amour,” or even “Pulp Fiction.” But since this is a personal question, I have to say “The Tree of Life.” No film has moved me...
- 5/15/2017
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
How can we not talk about family When family's all that we got?—Wiz Khalifa (feat. Charlie Puth), See You AgainWhat a long, strange ride it's been… and still some way to go. As I write, the eighth film in the Fast/Furious series (Ff) is still playing in thousands of cinemas worldwide. I won't concern myself here with the box-office performance of The Fate of the Furious—nor will I attempt synopsis of this or the previous installments—except to note that enough money was taken on opening-day alone to confirm we can expect the ninth and tenth in this prodigiously lucrative Universal franchise to hit our screens late spring or early summer, in 2019 and 2021.Ideally the 10th—and, presuming Vin Diesel's September 2015 comment about "one last trilogy" is honored, final—picture should arrive exactly 20 years after Rob Cohen’s The Fast and the Furious bowed on 22nd June,...
- 5/8/2017
- MUBI
NEWSAndrzej WajdaJust under a month since his latest film, Afterimage, received its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, the great Polish director Andrzej Wajda (Ashes and Diamonds, Man of Marble) has died at the age of 90.How precious two minutes of film can be! The Czech national film archives have identified a previously lost film by Georges Méliès, says The Guardian: "The two-minute silent film Match de Prestidigitation (“conjuring contest”) from 1904 was found on a reel given to the archives by an anonymous donor, labelled as another film."The digital home of films in the Criterion Collection have moved around over the years, and, as of October 19, will find a new access point as an add-on subscription to Turner's new streaming service, FilmStruck. The service launches October 19.French director F.J. Ossang has surprisingly turned to crowdfunding to finish his new feature, 9 Doigts ("9 Fingers"). Shot in black and white 35 mm,...
- 10/12/2016
- MUBI
NEWSMost exciting for us this week is the news that the Cannes Un Certain Regard prizewinner this year, Juho Kuosmanen's wonderful debut film The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Mäki, will be having its North American premiere in the Discovery section of the Toronto International Film Festival. Mubi is distributing the film theatrically and digitally in the United States and United Kingdom.Recommended VIEWINGCourtesy of the Criterion Collection, excerpts of Ingrid Bergman's home movies, which include Alfred Hitchcock, made around the time of their collaboration on Spellbound. With the full lineup of the Toronto International Film Festival announced and the autumn film season nearly upon us, wonderful trailers have been released in an overwhelming deluge. Here are some of the highlights:The much-anticipated restoration and re-release of Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust.Hong Sang-soo's Yourself and Yours, which gets a typically wacky trailer.Bertrand Bonello's Nocturama,...
- 8/24/2016
- MUBI
The already-incredible line-up for the 2016 New York Film Festival just got even more promising. Ang Lee‘s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk will hold its world premiere at the festival on October 14th, the NY Times confirmed today. The adaptation of Ben Fountain‘s Iraq War novel, with a script by Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire), follows a teenage soldier who survives a battle in Iraq and then is brought home for a victory lap before returning.
Lee has shot the film at 120 frames per second in 4K and native 3D, giving it unprecedented clarity for a feature film, which also means the screening will be held in a relatively small 300-seat theater at AMC Lincoln Square, one of the few with the technology to present it that way. While it’s expected that this Lincoln Square theater will play the film when it arrives in theaters, it may be...
Lee has shot the film at 120 frames per second in 4K and native 3D, giving it unprecedented clarity for a feature film, which also means the screening will be held in a relatively small 300-seat theater at AMC Lincoln Square, one of the few with the technology to present it that way. While it’s expected that this Lincoln Square theater will play the film when it arrives in theaters, it may be...
- 8/22/2016
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
This article was published in response to Tales of Cinema: The Films of Hong Sang-soo, a complete retrospective at New York's Museum of the Moving Image. On June 23rd, Hong Sang-soo's Golden Leopard winning Right Now, Wrong Then will receive a theatrical release from Grasshopper Film. You can also read Christopher Small and Daniel Kasman's interview with Hong Sang-soo from the Locarno Film Festival here.With her back to the camera, pencil-like frame aping the posture of a nearby lighthouse that guards the border with the sea, Isabelle Huppert’s atypical protagonist in In Another Country (2012), while dozily imagining yet another iteration of the story's romantic dynamics, becomes a typical image by Hong Sang-soo: a character whose momentary break from their own dreamy game of interchangeable personalities we are suddenly, inexplicably privy to. It’s a day-dream moment that can only be reversed by a structural shift in the story; when Anne's lover,...
- 7/5/2016
- MUBI
Rushes collects news, articles, images, videos and more for a weekly roundup of essential items from the world of film.NEWSPhoto by Apichatpong WeerasethakulLast weekend came the news that the great experimental filmmaker of At Sea (2007) and Three Landscapes (2013), Peter Hutton, has passed away.Journalist and author Michael Herr has also died, at the age of 76. He is best known in the film world for co-writing Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket and the narration to Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now.The first complete New York retrospective in 25 years of Greek auteur Theo Angelopoulos (Landscape in the Mist) will be coming to the Museum of the Moving image in July.Word comes from Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Twitter account that the Palme d'Or-winning Thai director has begun work on his next film following the wonderful Cemetery of Splendour.Recommended VIEWINGThe latest of Radiohead's multimedia promotion of their album A Moon Shaped...
- 6/29/2016
- MUBI
Rushes collects news, articles, images, videos and more for a weekly roundup of essential items from the world of film.NEWSLa chinoiseSay what? The Artist director Michel Hazanavicius is slated to make a drama out of the relationship between French New Wave master Jean-Luc Godard and his actress/muse-one-time-wife Anne Wiazemsky around the time of Godard's 1967 film, La chinoise. Sounds potentially horrible, but it is officially based on Wiazemsky's memoir Un an après. In a bizarre generational echo, Louis Garrel, so well known for embodying his father, director Philippe Garrel, in is set to star as Godard.We keep waiting, and waiting, and waiting for Terrence Malick long-in-the-making IMAX documentary, Voyage of Time. Now The Film Stage has found reference to an October theatrical release date. We'll believe it when we see it, but here's hoping.After Gavin Smith left editorship of Film Comment magazine, the Film Society of Lincoln...
- 5/4/2016
- MUBI
Today, May 1, marks the 75th anniversary of the premiere of Orson Welles's Citizen Kane. Celebrations are popping up everywhere, and Tuesday saw the publication of Harlan Lebo's new book, Citizen Kane: A Filmmaker’s Journey, a book that argues that press lord William Randolph Hearst conducted a serious and well-financed campaign to kill the movie. Today's entry then segues into a review of The Rhapsodes: How 1940s Critics Changed American Film Culture, David Bordwell's outstanding new book on Otis Ferguson, James Agee, Manny Farber and Parker Tyler. » - David Hudson...
- 5/1/2016
- Keyframe
Today, May 1, marks the 75th anniversary of the premiere of Orson Welles's Citizen Kane. Celebrations are popping up everywhere, and Tuesday saw the publication of Harlan Lebo's new book, Citizen Kane: A Filmmaker’s Journey, a book that argues that press lord William Randolph Hearst conducted a serious and well-financed campaign to kill the movie. Today's entry then segues into a review of The Rhapsodes: How 1940s Critics Changed American Film Culture, David Bordwell's outstanding new book on Otis Ferguson, James Agee, Manny Farber and Parker Tyler. » - David Hudson...
- 5/1/2016
- Fandor: Keyframe
Rushes collects news, articles, images, videos and more for a weekly roundup of essential items from the world of film.NEWSThe big news in Hollywood is that "the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has approved a series of major changes, in terms of voting and recruitment, also adding three new seats to the 51-person board — all part of a goal to double the number of women and diverse members of the Academy by 2020. The changes were approved by the board Thursday night in an emergency meeting," Variety reports. A major step, certainly, but we've still to see what the results will be. And certainly Academy membership does little to alter what kinds of movies get produced and by whom.Charles Silver, the head of the Museum of Modern Art's Film Study Center, passed away last week. IndieWire is running an homage by Laurence Kardish, a former MoMA film curator:"Perhaps,...
- 1/27/2016
- by Notebook
- MUBI
This article accompanies the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s dual retrospective of the films of Jacques Rivette and David Lynch and is part of an ongoing review of Rivette’s films for the Notebook, in light of several major re-releases of his work.“I’m going to the movies!” — Pauline Kael In Céline and Julie Go Boating Jacques Rivette takes the stuff of living—quite literally documentary shots of Paris in summertime 1973—and makes it a kind of mock-backdrop to a world of psychedelic fiction. The opening scene, built from criss-crossing point-of-view shots, takes routine images of parkgoers milling around on a warm day and whips them into a particular perspective, that of curious, cooing librarian Julie (Dominique Labourier), who sedately watches the goings-on while leafing through her book of magic. In documenting Julie’s subsequent pursual of Juliet Berto’s ragtag Céline, an impulse-effort to return shedded belongings...
- 12/30/2015
- by Christopher Small
- MUBI
In today's overview of new issues of film magazines and journals, we point to tributes to the late Chantal Akerman from Cinema Scope, Senses of Cinema and, in frieze, James Benning, Jem Cohen, Tacita Dean, Chris Dercon, Joanna Hogg, Sharon Lockhart and more. Among the dossiers in several issues: Pier Paolo Pasolini, William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives and Bruce Baillie and Paul Sharits. Quentin Tarantino is ushered into Senses' Great Directors Database. Adrian Martin writes about Maurice Pialat and Manny Farber. Kent Jones discusses "The Films in My Life" and his own documentary, Hitchcock/Truffaut. And much, much more. » - David Hudson...
- 12/22/2015
- Keyframe
In today's overview of new issues of film magazines and journals, we point to tributes to the late Chantal Akerman from Cinema Scope, Senses of Cinema and, in frieze, James Benning, Jem Cohen, Tacita Dean, Chris Dercon, Joanna Hogg, Sharon Lockhart and more. Among the dossiers in several issues: Pier Paolo Pasolini, William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives and Bruce Baillie and Paul Sharits. Quentin Tarantino is ushered into Senses' Great Directors Database. Adrian Martin writes about Maurice Pialat and Manny Farber. Kent Jones discusses "The Films in My Life" and his own documentary, Hitchcock/Truffaut. And much, much more. » - David Hudson...
- 12/22/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
After The Seventh Victim‘s disappointing returns, Val Lewton and Rko clashed over their next project. Lewton wanted a comedy, provisionally titled The Amorous Ghost, as a change of pace; studio boss Sid Rogell, Lewton’s bete noir, insisted on a sequel to Cat People, which Lewton resisted. Then Rko suggested a Universal-style monster rally, They Creep By Night, reuniting villains from past Lewton pictures. Charles Koerner rescued Lewton from this absurd prospect by pitching a maritime thriller. “Call it The Ghost Ship,” Koerner ordered. Lewton also scored a big, though past-his-prime star in Richard Dix, an Oscar nominee for Cimarron (1931).
The result is equal parts The Sea Wolf and M, with a dash of Edgar Allan Poe. Tom Miriam signs on as third officer on the ill-starred freighter Altair, ruled by Captain Stone (Richard Dix). At first Stone merely seems strict, but his homilies about authority take on a...
The result is equal parts The Sea Wolf and M, with a dash of Edgar Allan Poe. Tom Miriam signs on as third officer on the ill-starred freighter Altair, ruled by Captain Stone (Richard Dix). At first Stone merely seems strict, but his homilies about authority take on a...
- 10/29/2015
- by Christopher Saunders
- SoundOnSight
Martin Scorsese made one of the first English-language (and one of the very first American) pushes for Hong Sang-soo by recording an introduction for the South Korean helmer’s fifth feature, Woman Is the Future of Man. The video is brief, but he amply described Hong’s perpetually mysterious, endlessly inventive eye and ear for narrative construction by quoting Manny Farber’s words on Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope: “Hong Sang-soo’s pictures unpeel like an orange.” These films are populated by familiar constructs — the two leads are often a man and a woman; the man is usually a narrow-minded dork who’s traveling through a new land and always uncomfortable, particularly within the vicinity of the woman he inevitably likes — and its scenes consist of everyday activity: drinking, walking, conversation — often ending as the man reveals himself a selfish, creepy, and / or pathetic dope — and, in his earlier films,...
- 9/18/2015
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
"The enjoyment of a work of art, the acceptance of an irresistible illusion, constituting, to my sense, our highest experience of "luxury," the luxury is not greatest, by my consequent measure, when the work asks for as little attention as possible. It is greatest, it is delightfully, divinely great, when we feel the surface, like the thick ice of the skater's pond, bear without cracking the strongest pressure we throw on it. The sound of the crack one may recognise, but never surely to call it a luxury." —Henry James, from The Preface to The Wings of the Dove (1909) "[The critic’s] choice of best salami is a picture backed by studio build-up, agreement amongst his colleagues, a layout in Life mag (which makes it officially reasonable for an American award), and a list of ingredients that anyone’s unsophisticated aunt in Oakland can spot as comprising a distinguished film. This prize picture,...
- 7/27/2015
- by Greg Gerke
- MUBI
In today's roundup of news and views: A new short from Laura Poitras, a profile of Nick Zedd, an excerpt from Jeff Lipsky's forthcoming memoir, a mid-90s interview with Peter Greenaway, an examination of the connections between Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now and Robert Wyatt's classic album Rock Bottom, Jonathan Rosenbaum on paintings by Manny Farber, an appreciation of Montgomery Clift, Josh Safdie and Alex Ross Perry on Entourage, interviews with Alejandro Jodorowsky and Roy Andersson, rumors of forthcoming films by Paul Thomas Anderson and Michael Haneke—and more. » - David Hudson...
- 6/9/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
In today's roundup of news and views: A new short from Laura Poitras, a profile of Nick Zedd, an excerpt from Jeff Lipsky's forthcoming memoir, a mid-90s interview with Peter Greenaway, an examination of the connections between Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now and Robert Wyatt's classic album Rock Bottom, Jonathan Rosenbaum on paintings by Manny Farber, an appreciation of Montgomery Clift, Josh Safdie and Alex Ross Perry on Entourage, interviews with Alejandro Jodorowsky and Roy Andersson, rumors of forthcoming films by Paul Thomas Anderson and Michael Haneke—and more. » - David Hudson...
- 6/9/2015
- Keyframe
Edited by Adam Cook
Above: the incredible new issue of Cinema Comparat/ive Cinema is online now under the theme of "Manny Farber: Systems of Movement". Among the included pieces is a conversation on Farber between Kent Jones and Jean-Pierre Gorin. As a welcome break from the Best of 2014 overload, David Bordwell & Kristin Thompson continue their tradition of instead focusing their attention on the best films of the year...90 years ago:
"These lists are our way of calling attention to important silent films that some readers may have overlooked. In one case here we point out a largely forgotten film that deserves to be better known, in the hope that an archive will take the hint. With the proliferation of silent-film festivals, of DVD and Blu-ray releases with restored prints and supplemental material, and of TCM’s eclectic screenings of foreign and silent titles, there seems to be considerably...
Above: the incredible new issue of Cinema Comparat/ive Cinema is online now under the theme of "Manny Farber: Systems of Movement". Among the included pieces is a conversation on Farber between Kent Jones and Jean-Pierre Gorin. As a welcome break from the Best of 2014 overload, David Bordwell & Kristin Thompson continue their tradition of instead focusing their attention on the best films of the year...90 years ago:
"These lists are our way of calling attention to important silent films that some readers may have overlooked. In one case here we point out a largely forgotten film that deserves to be better known, in the hope that an archive will take the hint. With the proliferation of silent-film festivals, of DVD and Blu-ray releases with restored prints and supplemental material, and of TCM’s eclectic screenings of foreign and silent titles, there seems to be considerably...
- 12/31/2014
- by Notebook
- MUBI
A holiday roundup of new issues of Cinema Scope, Senses of Cinema, Lola, La Furia Umana and many more titles gathers interviews with the likes of Christian Petzold, Nadav Lapid, Peter Strickland, Philip Kaufman, James Benning, Mike Hoolboom and Abderrahmane Sissako as well as articles on Manny Farber, Bruno Dumont's P'tit Quinquin, Roy Andersson's A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, Harun Farocki, Aleksandr Sokurov, Ernst Lubitsch, Terrence Malick, Jacques Becker, George Kuchar, Eric Rohmer, Hollis Frampton, Alex Proyas and the 25th anniversary of Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. » - David Hudson...
- 12/25/2014
- Fandor: Keyframe
A holiday roundup of new issues of Cinema Scope, Senses of Cinema, Lola, La Furia Umana and many more titles gathers interviews with the likes of Christian Petzold, Nadav Lapid, Peter Strickland, Philip Kaufman, James Benning, Mike Hoolboom and Abderrahmane Sissako as well as articles on Manny Farber, Bruno Dumont's P'tit Quinquin, Roy Andersson's A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, Harun Farocki, Aleksandr Sokurov, Ernst Lubitsch, Terrence Malick, Jacques Becker, George Kuchar, Eric Rohmer, Hollis Frampton, Alex Proyas and the 25th anniversary of Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. » - David Hudson...
- 12/25/2014
- Keyframe
This year's poster for the Vienna International Film Festival is of a flame, and while around the world in other cinema-loving cities and at other cinema-loving festivals one might that that as a cue for a celluloid immolation and a move forever to digital, here in Austria cinema and film as film aren't burning up but rather are burning brightly.
The tributes and special programs in artistic director Hans Hurch's 2014 edition make this position clear: John Ford, Harun Farocki and 16mm, with new films by Tariq Teguia, Jean-Luc Godard, and Jean-Marie Straub accompanying older ones by the same directors. These aren't just retrospectives, they are revitalizing redoubts, inexhaustible fountains of flame, of sensitivity, of consciousness, and of intervention. With such a profound retrospective program, I hope you'll forgive me telling you very little of anything new at the festival; unless, that is, you like me count cinema revived as something always new.
The tributes and special programs in artistic director Hans Hurch's 2014 edition make this position clear: John Ford, Harun Farocki and 16mm, with new films by Tariq Teguia, Jean-Luc Godard, and Jean-Marie Straub accompanying older ones by the same directors. These aren't just retrospectives, they are revitalizing redoubts, inexhaustible fountains of flame, of sensitivity, of consciousness, and of intervention. With such a profound retrospective program, I hope you'll forgive me telling you very little of anything new at the festival; unless, that is, you like me count cinema revived as something always new.
- 11/12/2014
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
L.M. Kit Carson, the Texan film legend best known for David Holzman's Diary, has passed away at the age of 73. For Filmmaker Magazine, Vadim Rizov gathers some valuable insight from Fabrice Aragno, the cinematographer of Jean-Luc Godard's Adieu au langage. Eric Hynes provides an excellent and authentic New Yorker take on Gangs of New York for Reverse Shot's Martin Scorsese Symposium. Above: we're disappointed to hear that Paul Schrader's latest film has been essentially taken out of his hands—in response the filmmaker has disowned the picture. For Film Comment, Violet Lucca interviews Ruben Östlund about his acclaimed film, Force majeure:
"Lucca: Like your previous work, Force Majeure is intended to foster a philosophical debate about what human behavior means or implies. Do you envision that being more of an internal process, or do you want people to talk it out?
ÖStlund: Yeah, in a group.
"Lucca: Like your previous work, Force Majeure is intended to foster a philosophical debate about what human behavior means or implies. Do you envision that being more of an internal process, or do you want people to talk it out?
ÖStlund: Yeah, in a group.
- 10/21/2014
- by Notebook
- MUBI
In all of Frank Tashlin’s work, there is nothing quite so boldly staged as the delirious sequence in 1961′s The Ladies Man, in which Jerry Lewis, the film’s director and Tashlin’s nominal pupil, deconstructs a panic attack in twenty five seconds. Framed inside an enormous set that resembles the interior of a gargantuan and painstakingly detailed dollhouse, Lewis’ character, a terrified schlemiel by the name of Herbert H. Heebert, is in the midst of a mad dash up the set’s elaborate staircase when suddenly he’s literally beside himself with fright, splitting into two, then three, then four similarly fearstruck replicants, zig-zagging about the hallways until they all disappear one after another into the safety of their bedroom, the door slamming in quick succesion with four emphatic bangs. No, there was nothing close to this deft and dizzy blend of Psychology 101 and slapstick in Tashlin’s portfolio,...
- 8/13/2014
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
Probably the single most influential piece of film criticism in my life is Manny Farber's piece on Preston Sturges, and in particular his paean to the Sturges stock company ~
"They all appear to be too perfectly adjusted to life to require minds, and, in place of hearts, they seem to contain an old scratch sheet, a glob of tobacco juice, or a brown banana. The reason their faces--each of which is a succulent worm's festival, bulbous with sheer living--seem to have nothing in common with the rest of the human race is precisely because they are so eternally, agelessly human, oversocialized to the point where any normal animal component has vanished. They seem to be made up not of features but a collage of spare parts, most of them as useless as the vermiform appendix."
There are things I don't love about Farber—his insistence upon virility as a...
"They all appear to be too perfectly adjusted to life to require minds, and, in place of hearts, they seem to contain an old scratch sheet, a glob of tobacco juice, or a brown banana. The reason their faces--each of which is a succulent worm's festival, bulbous with sheer living--seem to have nothing in common with the rest of the human race is precisely because they are so eternally, agelessly human, oversocialized to the point where any normal animal component has vanished. They seem to be made up not of features but a collage of spare parts, most of them as useless as the vermiform appendix."
There are things I don't love about Farber—his insistence upon virility as a...
- 5/15/2014
- by David Cairns
- MUBI
Part of the Tony Scott: A Moving Target critical project. Go here for the project's description, index and links to project's other movement.
This is one "movement" of our exquisite corpse-style critical project, Tony Scott: A Moving Target, which coincidentally begins with a look at Crimson Tide, the same movie that begins the other movement. As outlined in the introduction to the entire project, this project began in my mind, as something fairly simple: a snaking continuum of scene analysis. This is only in part what resulted.
The varied responses I got back from my group—"mine" in the sense that it is the one I participated in, since Gina's contribution closes Movement B—seem to say as much about the participating critics as they do about Tony Scott's films and the overlap between the two: the perception of Scott's films and career. Thus many entries, including my own,...
This is one "movement" of our exquisite corpse-style critical project, Tony Scott: A Moving Target, which coincidentally begins with a look at Crimson Tide, the same movie that begins the other movement. As outlined in the introduction to the entire project, this project began in my mind, as something fairly simple: a snaking continuum of scene analysis. This is only in part what resulted.
The varied responses I got back from my group—"mine" in the sense that it is the one I participated in, since Gina's contribution closes Movement B—seem to say as much about the participating critics as they do about Tony Scott's films and the overlap between the two: the perception of Scott's films and career. Thus many entries, including my own,...
- 11/27/2012
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
This article is part of the critical project Tony Scott: A Moving Target in which an analysis of a scene from a Tony Scott film is passed anonymously to the next participant in the project to respond to with an analysis of his or her own.
<- the previous analysis | movement index | the next analysis ->
"Visually the film is quite impressive, something like a confetti storm in which the spectator never gets to rest."
–Manny Farber, 1968
Participating in this writing game is a little like being crossed between Robert Bresson’s A Man Escaped (1956) and Jean Genet’s Un chant d’amour (1950). Both prison films, both about Men on Fire. One implicitly gay, the other explicitly so. Alone in my cell, like in Bresson, I am doing my bit to chip my way through to collective freedom and enlightenment. And, meanwhile, I am being presented, like in Genet, with things—all kinds of things—to help me along,...
<- the previous analysis | movement index | the next analysis ->
"Visually the film is quite impressive, something like a confetti storm in which the spectator never gets to rest."
–Manny Farber, 1968
Participating in this writing game is a little like being crossed between Robert Bresson’s A Man Escaped (1956) and Jean Genet’s Un chant d’amour (1950). Both prison films, both about Men on Fire. One implicitly gay, the other explicitly so. Alone in my cell, like in Bresson, I am doing my bit to chip my way through to collective freedom and enlightenment. And, meanwhile, I am being presented, like in Genet, with things—all kinds of things—to help me along,...
- 11/26/2012
- by Adrian Martin
- MUBI
Dear Danny,
Rushing from screen to screen with Tiff’s closing weekend just around the corner, that mix of excitement and exhaustion (a condition Manny Farber once dubbed “Festivalitis”) does indeed become more and more pronounced. Fortunately, the ratio of excitement has for me remained high even when my eyes occasionally grow heavy, thanks largely to alternately stirring and maddening films like Terrence Malick’s latest vision of Eden lost.
Malick’s To the Wonder feels curiously anchorless, which is especially weird as its story aims for the tightest focus on romantic couples since the days of Borzage. “Love makes us one,” go the murmurs on the characteristically dense soundscape as the camera swirls and swoons with the characters’ rush of infatuation, following them from Mont St. Michel to Oklahoma. The vertiginous impressionism accelerates, but the lack of character detailing—the lovers played by Ben Affleck and Olga Kurylenko become abstractions,...
Rushing from screen to screen with Tiff’s closing weekend just around the corner, that mix of excitement and exhaustion (a condition Manny Farber once dubbed “Festivalitis”) does indeed become more and more pronounced. Fortunately, the ratio of excitement has for me remained high even when my eyes occasionally grow heavy, thanks largely to alternately stirring and maddening films like Terrence Malick’s latest vision of Eden lost.
Malick’s To the Wonder feels curiously anchorless, which is especially weird as its story aims for the tightest focus on romantic couples since the days of Borzage. “Love makes us one,” go the murmurs on the characteristically dense soundscape as the camera swirls and swoons with the characters’ rush of infatuation, following them from Mont St. Michel to Oklahoma. The vertiginous impressionism accelerates, but the lack of character detailing—the lovers played by Ben Affleck and Olga Kurylenko become abstractions,...
- 9/15/2012
- MUBI
Above: Max Ophüls' Komedie om geld. Image courtesy of Cineteca di Bologna.
The 26th edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato is over—like the end of a dream. If you are lucky enough, and not so fond of sleeping and eating, and also have little social bonds that allow you the minimum of lingering with fellow cinephiles, then you would be able to see only 10 percent of the films shown at the festival. As much as it's a festival of discovery and cinephilia, it’s also a festival of guilt and regrets since you ineluctably miss many things.
Il Cinema Ritrovato is a miniature of life that among all the beautiful things you have to choose, and every decision grants you a piece of the truth. But all the images, all the pieces of this broken mirror in which we see ourselves is as valid as what the person next to me,...
The 26th edition of Il Cinema Ritrovato is over—like the end of a dream. If you are lucky enough, and not so fond of sleeping and eating, and also have little social bonds that allow you the minimum of lingering with fellow cinephiles, then you would be able to see only 10 percent of the films shown at the festival. As much as it's a festival of discovery and cinephilia, it’s also a festival of guilt and regrets since you ineluctably miss many things.
Il Cinema Ritrovato is a miniature of life that among all the beautiful things you have to choose, and every decision grants you a piece of the truth. But all the images, all the pieces of this broken mirror in which we see ourselves is as valid as what the person next to me,...
- 7/6/2012
- MUBI
Andrew Sarris, a leading movie critic during a golden age for reviewers who popularized the French reverence for directors and inspired debate about countless films and filmmakers, died Wednesday. He was 83.
Sarris died at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan after complications developed from a stomach virus, according to his wife, film critic Molly Haskell.
Sarris was best known for his work with the Village Voice, his opinions especially vital during the 1960s and 1970s, when movies became films, or even cinema, and critics and fans argued about them the way they once might have contended over paintings or novels.
No longer was the big screen just entertainment. Thanks to film studies courses and revival houses, movies were analyzed in classrooms and in cafes. Audiences discovered such foreign directors as Federico Fellini and Ingmar Bergman, rediscovered older works by Howard Hawks, John Ford and others from Hollywood, and...
Sarris died at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan after complications developed from a stomach virus, according to his wife, film critic Molly Haskell.
Sarris was best known for his work with the Village Voice, his opinions especially vital during the 1960s and 1970s, when movies became films, or even cinema, and critics and fans argued about them the way they once might have contended over paintings or novels.
No longer was the big screen just entertainment. Thanks to film studies courses and revival houses, movies were analyzed in classrooms and in cafes. Audiences discovered such foreign directors as Federico Fellini and Ingmar Bergman, rediscovered older works by Howard Hawks, John Ford and others from Hollywood, and...
- 6/20/2012
- by AP
- Huffington Post
Roger Ebert has a lot to celebrate when he turns 70 on June 18. Despite the horrible ailments of the last decade that have taken away his ability to eat, drink, or speak, he's still America's leading movie critic, a distinction he's held for more than 30 years. (Of course, he shared the honor for much of that time with his TV frenemy Gene Siskel, until the latter's death in 1999.) An avid adapter to social media, he's used the Internet to make his reviews more widely read than ever. (You can read some of his most memorable critiques in the gallery at the bottom.) But what does it mean, at a time when film criticism as a profession is all but dead, to be the top critic? And what role has Ebert's own career played in making criticism what it is today? By bringing criticism to TV, did he (however inadvertently) dumb...
- 6/15/2012
- by Gary Susman
- Moviefone
DVD Playhouse—February 2012
By Allen Gardner
To Kill A Mockingbird 50th Anniversary Edition (Universal) Robert Mulligan’s film of Harper Lee’s landmark novel pits a liberal-minded lawyer (Gregory Peck) against a small Southern town’s racism when defending a black man (Brock Peters) on trumped-up rape charges. One of the 1960s’ first landmark films, a truly stirring human drama that hits all the right notes and isn’t dated a bit. Robert Duvall makes his screen debut (sans dialogue) as the enigmatic Boo Radley. DVD and Blu-ray double edition. Bonuses: Two feature-length documentaries: Fearful Symmetry and A Conversation with Gregory Peck; Featurettes; Excerpts and film clips from Gregory Peck’s Oscar acceptance speech and AFI Lifetime Achievement Award; Commentary by Mulligan and producer Alan J. Pakula; Trailer. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS 2.0 mono.
Outrage: Way Of The Yakuza (Magnolia) After a brief hiatus from his signature oeuvre of Japanese gangster flicks,...
By Allen Gardner
To Kill A Mockingbird 50th Anniversary Edition (Universal) Robert Mulligan’s film of Harper Lee’s landmark novel pits a liberal-minded lawyer (Gregory Peck) against a small Southern town’s racism when defending a black man (Brock Peters) on trumped-up rape charges. One of the 1960s’ first landmark films, a truly stirring human drama that hits all the right notes and isn’t dated a bit. Robert Duvall makes his screen debut (sans dialogue) as the enigmatic Boo Radley. DVD and Blu-ray double edition. Bonuses: Two feature-length documentaries: Fearful Symmetry and A Conversation with Gregory Peck; Featurettes; Excerpts and film clips from Gregory Peck’s Oscar acceptance speech and AFI Lifetime Achievement Award; Commentary by Mulligan and producer Alan J. Pakula; Trailer. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS 2.0 mono.
Outrage: Way Of The Yakuza (Magnolia) After a brief hiatus from his signature oeuvre of Japanese gangster flicks,...
- 2/26/2012
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
Leo Goldsmith introduces Late Hitchcock, a series running all week at Not Coming to a Theater Near You: "The border between guilt and innocence is fuzzier than ever in this phase, as is the line that separates sex from violence. The formation of the couple, the overriding principle of Hitchcock's work from the very start of his career, is especially embattled throughout Hitchcock's later films, challenged in the most shocking fashion in Marnie's marital rape scene, all but totally ignored in smothering political endgames of Topaz, and brutally cut short through violent sex-murder in Frenzy." Not Coming will be presenting Marnie at 92Y Tribeca on Friday.
In other news. At Film Studies for Free, Catherine Grant alerts us to a new issue of Screening the Past, "Screen Attachments," edited by Catherine Fowler and Paola Voci: "The obvious highlight is a brilliant article by Francesco Casetti ["Cinema Lost and Found: Trajectories of Relocation"], but a quick glance at...
In other news. At Film Studies for Free, Catherine Grant alerts us to a new issue of Screening the Past, "Screen Attachments," edited by Catherine Fowler and Paola Voci: "The obvious highlight is a brilliant article by Francesco Casetti ["Cinema Lost and Found: Trajectories of Relocation"], but a quick glance at...
- 12/14/2011
- MUBI
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