Hi there, readers and listeners! This post is just a quick update to let you know about the plans I have to take my blogging and podcasting hobby in a new direction. Since 2009 I’ve been working my way through the films of the Criterion Collection in the chronological order of their release in my Criterion Reflections blog, which I started on Blogspot and transitioned over to this site last year. I’ve also had more than a few side projects and diversions along the way, like The Eclipse Viewer podcast and dozens of review essays I’ve written for CriterionCast.
Now that I’ve run out of Eclipse Series movies to talk about, I need a new task to throw myself into. So I’ve decided to transform my blog into a podcast, where I will pick up right where I left off in my most recent Criterion Reflections review of Mr. Freedom,...
Now that I’ve run out of Eclipse Series movies to talk about, I need a new task to throw myself into. So I’ve decided to transform my blog into a podcast, where I will pick up right where I left off in my most recent Criterion Reflections review of Mr. Freedom,...
- 8/6/2017
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
David’s Quick Take for the tl;dr Media Consumer:
Mr. Freedom begins with a wail of sirens as Chicago cops swarm in to crack the skulls of rioters and looters. It ends with a catastrophic explosion that levels a city block in Paris and mutilates the body of the movie’s titular hero. In between all that, against a backdrop of Cold War intrigue and superpower paranoia run amok, we see scenes involving overt racist mockery, rape as a spectator sport, sacrilege, poisoning, prostitution, assassination, the sexist degradation of women and a pervasive attitude of unmitigated cynicism and ridicule toward the aspirations of the USA as a bulwark of liberty, democracy and decency against the forces of tyranny and oppression around the world. All the necessary ingredients for a robust satirical take-down of good old fashioned patriotism, American-style! The politics are radical, the humor is often guttural, and the...
Mr. Freedom begins with a wail of sirens as Chicago cops swarm in to crack the skulls of rioters and looters. It ends with a catastrophic explosion that levels a city block in Paris and mutilates the body of the movie’s titular hero. In between all that, against a backdrop of Cold War intrigue and superpower paranoia run amok, we see scenes involving overt racist mockery, rape as a spectator sport, sacrilege, poisoning, prostitution, assassination, the sexist degradation of women and a pervasive attitude of unmitigated cynicism and ridicule toward the aspirations of the USA as a bulwark of liberty, democracy and decency against the forces of tyranny and oppression around the world. All the necessary ingredients for a robust satirical take-down of good old fashioned patriotism, American-style! The politics are radical, the humor is often guttural, and the...
- 3/6/2017
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
Last night, at the end of a busy week at work when I was just in the mood to hang out at home and unwind a little, I decided that it was a good time for me to wrap up my viewing of Criterion ’68 by ingesting an assortment of short films that had accumulated, like the last crumbs of cereal at the bottom of the bag, in my chronological checklist of films that I’ve been blogging about over the years. It was a suitable occasion for me to fully immerse myself into what turned out to be a festival of random weirdness. My wife, recovering from a bout with illness, was feeling a bit better but wanted to find a productive use of her time with the resurgence of energy, so she kept herself busy by working on a new quilting project. That left me free to indulge without...
- 2/25/2017
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit platforms. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.
Complete Unknown (Joshua Marston)
Armed with two top-notch leads and a compelling premise, Joshua Marston‘s third feature, Complete Unknown, spends a lot of time hinting at which direction it will go, without going anywhere at all. Tom (Michael Shannon) is living with his wife Rehema (Azita Ghanizada) in New York City, spending the majority of his days drafting agricultural policy emails in a cramped government office. It is...
Complete Unknown (Joshua Marston)
Armed with two top-notch leads and a compelling premise, Joshua Marston‘s third feature, Complete Unknown, spends a lot of time hinting at which direction it will go, without going anywhere at all. Tom (Michael Shannon) is living with his wife Rehema (Azita Ghanizada) in New York City, spending the majority of his days drafting agricultural policy emails in a cramped government office. It is...
- 9/30/2016
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
David’s Quick Take for the tl;dr Media Consumer:
Stolen Kisses was Francois Truffaut’s third exploration of the character Antoine Doinel, to whom we were introduced when he was a child in The 400 Blows and was glimpsed a few years later in a short segment Antoine and Colette that was part of an omnibus film titled Love at 20. Here we see Antoine as a young man, as he stumbles into adulthood working a variety of unskilled entry-level jobs, impulsively falling in love and gliding from one scrape with authority into another as he seeks to find his way through the world. The tone of this film is lighter, more overtly a romantic comedy, and seemingly inconsequential in terms of enduring substance and social commentary when compared to The 400 Blows. It could have been easily plausible to make this same movie with a lead character of a different name,...
Stolen Kisses was Francois Truffaut’s third exploration of the character Antoine Doinel, to whom we were introduced when he was a child in The 400 Blows and was glimpsed a few years later in a short segment Antoine and Colette that was part of an omnibus film titled Love at 20. Here we see Antoine as a young man, as he stumbles into adulthood working a variety of unskilled entry-level jobs, impulsively falling in love and gliding from one scrape with authority into another as he seeks to find his way through the world. The tone of this film is lighter, more overtly a romantic comedy, and seemingly inconsequential in terms of enduring substance and social commentary when compared to The 400 Blows. It could have been easily plausible to make this same movie with a lead character of a different name,...
- 8/7/2016
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
Since any New York cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.
Metrograph
Frederick Wiseman‘s High School begins a week-long run.
“Welcome to Metrograph: A to Z” offers multiple titles this weekend, including Assayas‘ Boarding Gate, The Beguiled, and Nicolas Roeg‘s Bad Timing.
A 35mm print of Carol screens on Saturday night.
Cary Grant and Irene Dunne star in My Favorite Wife, playing this Sunday.
Museum...
Metrograph
Frederick Wiseman‘s High School begins a week-long run.
“Welcome to Metrograph: A to Z” offers multiple titles this weekend, including Assayas‘ Boarding Gate, The Beguiled, and Nicolas Roeg‘s Bad Timing.
A 35mm print of Carol screens on Saturday night.
Cary Grant and Irene Dunne star in My Favorite Wife, playing this Sunday.
Museum...
- 3/25/2016
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Trey Parker and Matt Stone's 'outrageous, irreverent' comedy is the gusher of pointless profanity and smut that will cheer the myriad fans of South Park. The ultimate message of this cringe-worthy spectacle is that liberals are dupes and traitors, foreigners are either evil or morons, and kicking ass around the world is our national birthright. Go team! Team America: World Police Blu-ray Warner /Paramount 2004 / Color / 2:40 widescreen / 98 min. / Street Date October 13, 2015 / available through the WBshop / 9.98 Starring voices of Trey Parker, Matt Stone, others. Cinematography Bill Pope Film Editor Thomas M. Vogt Original Music Harry Gregson-Williams Written by Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Pam Brady Produced by Trey Parker, Scott Rudin, Matt Stone Directed by Trey Parker
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Team America: World Police looks like a show designed for the kids, yet it's too raw for most adults. It is an optimal feature concept for Trey Parker and Matt Stone,...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Team America: World Police looks like a show designed for the kids, yet it's too raw for most adults. It is an optimal feature concept for Trey Parker and Matt Stone,...
- 12/8/2015
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Above: 1968 Hans Hillmann poster for Shadows (John Cassavetes, USA, 1959).
There is an exhibition of the great German graphic designer Hans Hillmann currently running at the Museum Folkwang in Essen, Germany. Devoted entirely to Hillmann’s film posters from 1952 to 1974, the show, called The Title is Continued in the Picture, runs through the 1st of September and I’m sorry that I didn’t know about it sooner. But for those of us who can’t make it to the Ruhr in the next three weeks, the website Kunst + Film has posted a wonderful, almost-as-good-as-being-there video of the show.
The revelation of the video for me is the size of that Seven Samurai poster. Where most of Hillmann’s film posters are 33" x 23" (slightly smaller than a Us one-sheet), and the Cassavetes above is only 16.5" x 23", that glorious Seven Samurai is 93" x 132", or 11 feet wide.
While many of Hillmann’s witty,...
There is an exhibition of the great German graphic designer Hans Hillmann currently running at the Museum Folkwang in Essen, Germany. Devoted entirely to Hillmann’s film posters from 1952 to 1974, the show, called The Title is Continued in the Picture, runs through the 1st of September and I’m sorry that I didn’t know about it sooner. But for those of us who can’t make it to the Ruhr in the next three weeks, the website Kunst + Film has posted a wonderful, almost-as-good-as-being-there video of the show.
The revelation of the video for me is the size of that Seven Samurai poster. Where most of Hillmann’s film posters are 33" x 23" (slightly smaller than a Us one-sheet), and the Cassavetes above is only 16.5" x 23", that glorious Seven Samurai is 93" x 132", or 11 feet wide.
While many of Hillmann’s witty,...
- 8/10/2013
- by Adrian Curry
- MUBI
When I went to see Captain America: The First Avenger this past weekend, I enjoyed it immensely. It was a fun, nostalgic look at 1940′s America and with enough of the Second World War as to not paint it too beautifully. It was corny, but in a way that you don’t mind. Like how a grandfather is corny, which in turn makes you think fondly and just shake your head and smile. Not offensive in any way, just the way Captain America has always been. And I even read the comic book when he was turned into a werewolf (he was known as Cap Wolf, turned into the beast by Nightshade. Don’t believe me? Look it up.).
It also had me thinking of other patriotic heroes through the years and ultimately had me come right home and give William Klein’s 1969 Mr. Freedom, a hilarious look at a...
It also had me thinking of other patriotic heroes through the years and ultimately had me come right home and give William Klein’s 1969 Mr. Freedom, a hilarious look at a...
- 7/29/2011
- by James McCormick
- CriterionCast
A few weeks ago I began a four-part miniseries here, reviewing Eclipse films that deal with the topic of marriage. My first selection was Ernst Lubitsch’s One Hour With You, published almost exactly a year after I covered a different Lubitsch film, Monte Carlo here in this same column.
Now, even though I ran out of time to complete the series in June as I originally intended, the concluding installment, The Model Couple from Eclipse Series 9: The Delirious Fictions of William Klein, is unleashed one year after Mr. Freedom was the object of my attention over the Independence Day holiday weekend. I don’t know that these coincidences portend any particularly deep meaning, but they provide a lead into this review, so as far as I’m concerned, they serve a purpose.
Better yet, The Model Couple also makes a great follow-up to last week’s film, Allan King’s A Married Couple.
Now, even though I ran out of time to complete the series in June as I originally intended, the concluding installment, The Model Couple from Eclipse Series 9: The Delirious Fictions of William Klein, is unleashed one year after Mr. Freedom was the object of my attention over the Independence Day holiday weekend. I don’t know that these coincidences portend any particularly deep meaning, but they provide a lead into this review, so as far as I’m concerned, they serve a purpose.
Better yet, The Model Couple also makes a great follow-up to last week’s film, Allan King’s A Married Couple.
- 7/4/2011
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
For the second consecutive year, my hometown of Grand Rapids Mi is hosting ArtPrize, a citywide art festival that will end this coming weekend with the award of $449,000 in cash prizes, including a cool quarter-million to the overall winner. ArtPrize has come up with a hybrid of Facebook-style “liking” and American Idol’s popularity contest to determine the winners, and with votes cast by a wide cross-section of the general public, it’s not surprising that some of the artists who are serious about becoming finalists base their appeal to the masses more on kitsch and cleverness than on refined artistic techniques or challenging thematic statements. Last year, one of the big money winners was a guy who made large portraits of attractive women using red, yellow, blue, black and white push-pins as his pixels. Anyone who’s ever worked with the most rudimentary digital paint program could see what he was up to,...
- 10/4/2010
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
The world today isn’t very interesting.
Everyone’s dissatisfied.
You ought to try and have a good time.
You’re right. That’s the only way.
I guess that’s about it.
After a weekend packed with tweets, blogs and breaking news about hotly anticipated fantasy/action/adventure/sci-fi movies from the San Diego Comic-Con, I’m sure that some of us are ready to spend a few minutes thinking about poignant, calm, reality-based films for grown-ups as a refreshing change of pace. At least I hope so, since that’s where I’m trying to draw your attention. For this week’s column, I’ve chosen Yasujiro Ozu’s Early Spring, from Eclipse Series 3: Late Ozu. It’s Ozu’s follow-up to Tokyo Story, one of those perennial candidates for “greatest film of all time,” at least within some subsets of the art house crowd. I’ve...
Everyone’s dissatisfied.
You ought to try and have a good time.
You’re right. That’s the only way.
I guess that’s about it.
After a weekend packed with tweets, blogs and breaking news about hotly anticipated fantasy/action/adventure/sci-fi movies from the San Diego Comic-Con, I’m sure that some of us are ready to spend a few minutes thinking about poignant, calm, reality-based films for grown-ups as a refreshing change of pace. At least I hope so, since that’s where I’m trying to draw your attention. For this week’s column, I’ve chosen Yasujiro Ozu’s Early Spring, from Eclipse Series 3: Late Ozu. It’s Ozu’s follow-up to Tokyo Story, one of those perennial candidates for “greatest film of all time,” at least within some subsets of the art house crowd. I’ve...
- 7/26/2010
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
As soon as they see a bike, they can’t quit, and off they go.
Another annual running of the Tour de France just began last weekend, and the timing couldn’t be better for the nation that hosts the world’s greatest bicycle race. The French national soccer team suffered humiliating opening-round failure in the just-concluded World Cup of football/soccer in South Africa, an embarrassment compounded by the fact that their neighbors to the north (Netherlands) and south (Spain) played for the trophy. Even in light of the snide sarcasm directed their way in last week’s featured Eclipse title Mr. Freedom, France badly needs the boost to their collective self-esteem provided by this impressive, internationally renowned event.
Though I’m a sports fan (American baseball and football mainly), I have to admit I’ve never paid close attention to or even understood the Tour de France, despite...
Another annual running of the Tour de France just began last weekend, and the timing couldn’t be better for the nation that hosts the world’s greatest bicycle race. The French national soccer team suffered humiliating opening-round failure in the just-concluded World Cup of football/soccer in South Africa, an embarrassment compounded by the fact that their neighbors to the north (Netherlands) and south (Spain) played for the trophy. Even in light of the snide sarcasm directed their way in last week’s featured Eclipse title Mr. Freedom, France badly needs the boost to their collective self-esteem provided by this impressive, internationally renowned event.
Though I’m a sports fan (American baseball and football mainly), I have to admit I’ve never paid close attention to or even understood the Tour de France, despite...
- 7/12/2010
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
F-r-double-e-d, D-o-m spells Freedom! We fight for freedom, for one and for all!
It’s you-and-me-dom, and ten foot tall! Freedom, freedom, and oh-can-you-see-dom!
We’ll always beat ‘em with star-spangled freedom!
Another Independence Day has come and gone in the USA, but before we bundle up the bunting, furl up the flags and blaze that last pack of firecrackers, let’s take a few minutes to celebrate the meaning and grandeur behind all that traditional hoopla: I’m talkin’ about Freedom!
Yeah, Freedom, that wonderful essential quality of life we all enjoy here in America, unique among the nations in granting Freedom as a birthright to its natural born and duly assimilated citizens. Freedom, that allows us to choose our own destiny, chart our own course, shrug off the rules that don’t apply to us and righteously snuff out any and all tyrants that dare to stand in our way.
It’s you-and-me-dom, and ten foot tall! Freedom, freedom, and oh-can-you-see-dom!
We’ll always beat ‘em with star-spangled freedom!
Another Independence Day has come and gone in the USA, but before we bundle up the bunting, furl up the flags and blaze that last pack of firecrackers, let’s take a few minutes to celebrate the meaning and grandeur behind all that traditional hoopla: I’m talkin’ about Freedom!
Yeah, Freedom, that wonderful essential quality of life we all enjoy here in America, unique among the nations in granting Freedom as a birthright to its natural born and duly assimilated citizens. Freedom, that allows us to choose our own destiny, chart our own course, shrug off the rules that don’t apply to us and righteously snuff out any and all tyrants that dare to stand in our way.
- 7/5/2010
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
For our Tribeca preview today, we’re taking a peek at the French biopic, Gainsbourg, Je t’Aime… Moi Non Plus (or Gainsbourg, vie héroïque, depending on where you look), from writer/director/artist: Joann Sfar.
The film examines the life of Serge Gainsbourg, the influential French musician, filmmaker, and actor. In presenting this preview, we’re only showing you the teaser, as presently there aren’t many clips on line with subtitles. You can find another longer look at the film on YouTube, provided by Universal France. The film is based on Sfar’s graphic novel about Gainsbourg, and you can find several incredible illustrations from the director on the film’s website, although you’ll have to navigate through the French menus. One last note, according to the cast notes, Doug Jones will be appearing in the film, which is pretty sweet, as we don’t get enough...
The film examines the life of Serge Gainsbourg, the influential French musician, filmmaker, and actor. In presenting this preview, we’re only showing you the teaser, as presently there aren’t many clips on line with subtitles. You can find another longer look at the film on YouTube, provided by Universal France. The film is based on Sfar’s graphic novel about Gainsbourg, and you can find several incredible illustrations from the director on the film’s website, although you’ll have to navigate through the French menus. One last note, according to the cast notes, Doug Jones will be appearing in the film, which is pretty sweet, as we don’t get enough...
- 4/15/2010
- by Ryan Gallagher
- CriterionCast
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