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"When it was over, I couldn't move," writes David Gates in Newsweek. "Despite a couple of slow stretches - and Dylan has them, too - I'm Not There turns out to be worthy of its subject. This isn't faint praise. It's a full-on rave." And raves are just what Todd Haynes' new film has been reaping ever since it premiered in Venice before wowing 'em at festivals in Toronto and New York - though there have been some less than stellar reviews, too. Hardly a surprise when it comes to a film running over two hours and featuring six actors (including Cate Blanchett(!), above) portraying various aspects and personas of one of the most lauded yet mysterious artists of our time. Sean Axmaker talks with Haynes about a cinematic highlight of the year. Read article >>
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In This Dispatch:
- What's New: Hearts of Darkness, Rescue Dawn, and more.
- What We're Watching: Colma, Monsieur Hire, and Volcano.
- Explore: Oswald's Ghost
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Hearts of Darkness... Rent 
"There were too many of us, we had access to too much equipment, too much money, and little by little we went insane. " Certainly one of the most clamored for of all MIA DVDs, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse is finally here, in a 2-disc set (bonuses: new commentaries, and a new doc). The film about the making of Apocalypse Now, and unraveling of its maker, Francis Ford Coppola, was directed by George Hickenlooper and Fax Bahr, with on set footage shot by Eleanor Coppola. "The making of a film has never been documented with more penetration and truth than in Hearts of Darkness," wrote Roger Ebert. |
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We stay in Vietnam for Werner Herzog's POW drama inspired by his own documentary, Little Dieter Needs to Fly. "Aside from a riveting adventure story [told] in all of its terrifying, stripped-down simplicity, Rescue Dawn is a fascinating study of human particularity," wrote LA Times' Carina Chocano. Adds the Austin Chronicle: "Herzog outdoes himself... making his most popularly accessible film yet and proving at the same time that he is among the most daring of all filmmakers and capable- like his characters--of almost anything." Not only is Christian Bale great in the lead, but Steve Zahn also gives a most moving performance. |
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School's out and unlike the fantasies of liberation depicted in Dazed and Confused, Fast Times, et al, the kids in Richard Wong's Colma: The Musical are in paralysis. With no ambition to leave, no community to build an identity with and not even a car to get out of town (it's set in a suburb south of San Francisco famous for having many more dead people than living), these three friends are left with nothing but time to weigh upon their own turgid angst... read full review >> |
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Here arrives still another previously unavailable cult item, Patrice Leconte's masterful voyeuristic thriller Monsieur Hire, which stars Michel Blanc, masterful as the titular character. "A moving and subtly unsettling film, as profound in its message as it is thoroughly engrossing," wrote acquarello on Strictly Film School. "The director takes pleasure in making the film a deeply sensuous experience, relying on less obvious means to bring out the true nature of Monsieur Hire and revelling in capturing the unspoken elements of his character," adds DVDTimes.
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The Criterion Collection recently released a double-disc special edition set of the 1984 John Huston film Under the Volcano, starring Albert Finney as an alcoholic ex-British consul named Geoffrey Firmin. Finney was nominated for an Academy Award for his portrayal of writer Malcolm Lowry's tragic figure (the film is based on Lowry's novel of the same title), and legendary director Huston ( The Maltese Falcon, Treasure of the Sierra Madre) remarked of Finney here, "I think it's the finest performance I've ever witnessed, let alone directed."
Read Full Review >> |
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"The central and most persuasive interview [in Oswald's Ghost] is with the late Norman Mailer, author of Oswald's Tale, who died on November 10," writes David D'Arcy, introducing his latest interview. "Although I'm a fan of Robert Stone's work, especially his hallucinatory doc, Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst, I was skeptical at first, not about the notion of a film that might put conspiratorial explanations of the JFK assassination to rest, but about the idea that there was anything left to be said about the shooting of JFK and the search for a 'mastermind.' I can recommend Oswald's Ghost to skeptics like myself, and to anyone else." Read more >> |
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Stuffed Turkeys
speaking of turkeys...
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