 |
|
" Lynn Shelton's My Effortless Brilliance plays something like an overtly comic remake of Old Joy, with mountains swapped out for woods, and a third man wild card pushing the narrative along," wrote Karina Longworth at the SpoutBlog when she caught the film's premiere at SXSW earlier this year. "It's not quite like nothing I've ever seen before, but it's a nicely rendered, novella-esque character study with some impressive naturalistic performances." Now Shelton and her film come home, in a way; Brilliance is screening at the Seattle International Film Festival and Sean Axmaker talks with the determinedly independent filmmaker about learning to direct by editing and about the local Seattle film scene. Read article >>
|
|
|
In This Dispatch:
- What's New: Thief, Noriko and much more.
- What We're Watching: Storm, Carve Her Name, Roman Empire.
- Explore: Sidney Pollack; evolving distribution systems.
|
|
|
"[F]or all of its implication in its historical moment, The Thief of Bagdad plays - in the newly remastered DVD from the Criterion Collection - like a timeless fantasy, a pure and naïve expression of, as Sabu puts it in his famous curtain line, the search for 'some fun and adventure, at last!'" writes Dave Kehr in the New York Times. "I gained an immense amount of appreciation for the film through this Criterion package and the purity of the transfer presentation added to the fantasy element and amusement of the film," adds DVD Beaver's Gary W Tooze. "I predict this package will get some much deserved votes in our year-end poll." Read more here >> |
|
|
|
Raved the LA Times' Kevin Thomas of this sort-of prequel to Sion Sono's cult favorite Suicide Club: "A bravura, high-risk work that raises an array of provocative questions about parent-child relationships, the treacherous quest for happiness and fulfillment, the complex interplay between reality and make-believe and the mutability of identity...[A] tantalizing mystery tale, an acute social commentary on the world of the Internet and cult mentality, and an outrageous dark comedy. It's not a film for the impatient but rather for those who enjoy challenging, high-risk artistic ventures." |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
Ingmar Bergman was the one-man Swedish film industry for so long that sometimes it's hard to imagine anyone else working there, much less making a sci-fi/comic book/computer nerd movie like Storm. Even the younger generation like Jan Troell and Lasse Hallström were content to follow in Bergman's art-house footsteps, although they tended to overlook his penchant for exploring darkness and nightmares... And so it appears that the true students of Bergman are more daring filmmakers like Roy Andersson, Lukas Moodysson, Mikael Håfström and now perhaps the team of Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein, the men behind Storm, made in 2005 and now released on DVD by TLA Releasing. Storm works like a combination of The Matrix and Flatliners, but tied together with nightmarish strains emanating from elsewhere...r ead review >>
|
|
|
| |
Among the dozen or so excellent reasons to watch Carve Her Name With Pride is the fact that this film--about a WWII hero who happened to be woman--holds up marvelously. From its romantic scenes to its suspense, from the surprise at seeing a classic British beauty being put through a set of karate moves, to the heartfelt moments that bring a sudden reminder about "duty to country" in what was arguably--screw it: what was clearly--the last war that needed to be fought for reasons of right, wrong and necessity, this movie works. And another reason is to acquaint, or for the older viewer, reacquaint oneself with a marvelous actress named Virginia McKenna. Best known ... read review >> |
|
|
|
Anthony Mann may be the most underrated Hollywood director of all time. His career went through four distinct phases, from unremarkable "B" films to remarkable "B" films (the noirs T-Men and Raw Deal among them), to exceptional Westerns starring Jimmy Stewart ( Winchester '73, The Naked Spur, etc.) to epics.... The Academy has always been impressed with scale and spectacle, and these filmmakers all won Oscars for their large-scale work, but for some reason Mann's epics never turned them on. Mann was fired from his partly-completed Spartacus (1960) and he later dismissed his Cimarron (1960), but El Cid (1961) and The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), both recently released on DVD , look like they ought to have turned a few heads.... read review >>
|
|
| |
|
|
