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
DVD Playhouse – May 2012
By Allen Gardner
Shame (20th Century Fox) Director Steve McQueen’s harrowing portrait of a Manhattan sex addict (Michael Fassbender, in the year’s most riveting performance) whose psyche goes into overload when his equally-troubled sister (Carey Mulligan) visits unexpectedly. Exquisitely-made on every level, save for the screenplay, which makes its point after about thirty minutes. While it tries hard to be a modern-day Last Tango in Paris, this fatal flaw makes it fall somewhat short. The much- ballyhooed sex scenes and frontal nudity are the least-interesting things about the film, incidentally, which is still a must-see for discriminating adults who seek out challenging material. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Featurettes. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-hd 5.1 surround.
Being John Malkovich (Criterion) Spike Jonze’s madcap film of Charlie Kaufman’s script, regarding a socially-disenfranchised puppeteer (John Cusack) who finds a portal into the mind of actor...
By Allen Gardner
Shame (20th Century Fox) Director Steve McQueen’s harrowing portrait of a Manhattan sex addict (Michael Fassbender, in the year’s most riveting performance) whose psyche goes into overload when his equally-troubled sister (Carey Mulligan) visits unexpectedly. Exquisitely-made on every level, save for the screenplay, which makes its point after about thirty minutes. While it tries hard to be a modern-day Last Tango in Paris, this fatal flaw makes it fall somewhat short. The much- ballyhooed sex scenes and frontal nudity are the least-interesting things about the film, incidentally, which is still a must-see for discriminating adults who seek out challenging material. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Featurettes. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS-hd 5.1 surround.
Being John Malkovich (Criterion) Spike Jonze’s madcap film of Charlie Kaufman’s script, regarding a socially-disenfranchised puppeteer (John Cusack) who finds a portal into the mind of actor...
- 5/7/2012
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
Via Criterion
"On March 8, 2012, Hollis Frampton went viral," begins Giampaolo Bianconi in Idiom. "The Criterion Collection, in preparation for the release of a long-anticipated Frampton box set [A Hollis Frampton Odyssey], posted a fragment from his 1968 film Surface Tension on Facebook; the clip was picked up by the New York Times blog City Room, and from there it spread. For a second, Frampton was everywhere."
Bianconi notes that some cinephiles objected to the Nyt's fascination with the film as a historical record of the City:
Frampton, though, was not only concerned with the materiality of film with regards to shape and texture, but also with materiality in terms of film being an historical artifact. To watch Surface Tension is to be fascinated by the images of New York, and illegitimizing that point of entry means that a facetious art-for-art's-sake conception of Frampton's work has foreclosed a more complete experience and understanding of the film.
"On March 8, 2012, Hollis Frampton went viral," begins Giampaolo Bianconi in Idiom. "The Criterion Collection, in preparation for the release of a long-anticipated Frampton box set [A Hollis Frampton Odyssey], posted a fragment from his 1968 film Surface Tension on Facebook; the clip was picked up by the New York Times blog City Room, and from there it spread. For a second, Frampton was everywhere."
Bianconi notes that some cinephiles objected to the Nyt's fascination with the film as a historical record of the City:
Frampton, though, was not only concerned with the materiality of film with regards to shape and texture, but also with materiality in terms of film being an historical artifact. To watch Surface Tension is to be fascinated by the images of New York, and illegitimizing that point of entry means that a facetious art-for-art's-sake conception of Frampton's work has foreclosed a more complete experience and understanding of the film.
- 4/27/2012
- MUBI
This Must Be the Place, one of the finest tumblrs out there for cinephiles (and let me hasten to add that there are more than a few!), has just wrapped an intense week-long special focus on Akira Kurosawa. Take a look at these paintings set next to their realizations on screen. In fact, just start by clicking on the Akira Kurosawa tag and take a leisurely weekend stroll through stills, animated gifs, quotations, posters and more.
Reading. At Movie Morlocks, David Kalat argues that another Kurosawa, Kiyoshi, is responsible to a considerable degree for a revival of interest in Japanese cinema in the West in the late 90s; the turning point, he argues, is Cure (1997).
René Clément's Gervaise (1956), an adaptation of Émile Zola's 1877 novel L'Assommoir, "is a masterpiece," argues Mark Le Fanu in Sight & Sound, "as good an example as one can get of the 'tradition of quality'...
Reading. At Movie Morlocks, David Kalat argues that another Kurosawa, Kiyoshi, is responsible to a considerable degree for a revival of interest in Japanese cinema in the West in the late 90s; the turning point, he argues, is Cure (1997).
René Clément's Gervaise (1956), an adaptation of Émile Zola's 1877 novel L'Assommoir, "is a masterpiece," argues Mark Le Fanu in Sight & Sound, "as good an example as one can get of the 'tradition of quality'...
- 3/25/2012
- MUBI
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