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" Boarding Gate, B-movie heir to Phil Karlson and Ingmar Bergman, screws any pretence of naturalism for hallucinatory confrontations," writes David Pratt-Robson in Slant. "If, like its protagonist, the film is brutally forthright, in B-movie tradition, that's because all it cares about is expressivity - raw impact and momentum.... Down and totally dirty, Boarding Gate is one of the best genre films in years." Boarding Gate marks an unofficial follow-up to filmmaker Olivier Assayas' 2002 cyberpunk opus demonlover. With the new film, Asia Argento joins Maggie Cheung, Virginie Ledoyen and Connie Nielsen in the ranks of Assayas heroines. And Steve Erickson talks with Assayas. Read article >>
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In This Dispatch:
- What's New: Them, Lost Highway, and oodles more.
- What We're Watching: Wristcutters, L'Age D'or and Bonnie & Clyde.
- Explore: Planet B-Boy.
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"The film that terrified Europe has come to America" read the tagline for this French horror film, a "nifty little chiller set in Romania" (Guardian UK). A short, sharp and shocking work, Them is "one of the most intelligent and unnerving horror films in recent memory." (Chicago Tribune) Adds Scott Weinberg in Cinematical:, "There's a lot of talent behind the slickly minimalistic Them, and based on the directors' inaugural effort, I'm definitely looking forward to their future exploits." |
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David Lynch's surrealist thriller takes some crazy turns off the road, and had a bumpy road on DVD, too ((the previous non-widescreen version was Canadian). At last, here it is, widescreen and as indescribable as ever. Wrote Jonathan Rosenbaum: "[The film is] not merely a defiant and confident comeback after five years of silence, but an audacious move away from conventional narrative and back toward the formal beauty of Eraserhead, Lynch's first (and best) feature. By no means a meditative work in the sense that Eraserhead is, Lost Highway is defined less by visual and aural textures than by narrative flow, assaulting the viewer with a battery of effects." We'd also add that Robert Blake's presence in the film is now even scarier. |
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Reviewer Erin Donovan notes, "Despite its grim backdrop (and pat ending), Wristcutters' humor is surprisingly sweet and moving... Like all great love stories, [it] starts out with a suicide. Patrick Fugit ( Almost Famous, Saved!) plays Zia, a young man so devastated from a recent break up he wakes up one morning, tidies his apartment, climbs into the tub and slashes his wrists. While drifting into death he fantasizes about his ex-girlfriend living the rest of her life in total devastation. Unfortunately, instead of being left to rest in peace, Zia wakes up in a Purgatory, a colorless wasteland inhabited by the entire population of people who ever committed suicide. Each of them is forced to live out what would have been the term of their natural life in a place described as 'just like life, but crappier.'"... read review here >>
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L' Age D'Or (1930) marks not only Luis Buñuel's feature debut, but also the ill-fated ending of a rather unusual, yet extremely creative, collaboration. Having enjoyed a successful cooperation while making their much talked about short Un Chien Andalou (1928), Buñuel and Salvador Dalí, two of the most well respected surrealist artists of the era, attempted to replicate their experience. Sadly, well before L'Age was completed their friendship was fractured for good... read review here >>
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Arthur Penn's classic crime drama, way ahead of its time, finally in a DVD release it deserves: a new 2-disc edition featuring a brand-new, cleaned-up transfer and a second disc of drool-worthy bonus features. From DVDTalk's rave review: "Though much is made of the level of violence in Bonnie & Clyde, which was certainly more blood-soaked than 1967 audiences were used to, the film also looks progressive for how it was shot." And the DVD itself is "the first time this film has really gotten its due in the digital age."
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" Planet B-Boy considers the international resurgence of breakdancing and closely follows five of the most prominent teams from Korea, Japan, France, and the US as they prepare for the annual Battle of the Year (aka the 'World Cup' of b-boying) at its home base in Braunschweig, Germany, which is attended by 10,000 spectators." As the doc opens in New York and Los Angeles this weekend before rolling out across the nation, Cathleen Rountree talks with director Benson Lee. Full article >>
Keep checking back on our Central site for more interviews coming very soon.
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