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In This Dispatch:
- What's New: Chop Shop, Joe Strummer, and more.
- What We're Watching: Witnesses, Tracey Fragments, and Honeydripper.
- Explore: New look for Central!
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" Ramin Bahrani's Chop Shop is a low-budget vérité triumph, set in Queens beyond the sight of baseball fans in nearby Shea Stadium," wtote David Edelstein in New York. "Bahrani's concentration is close to supernatural as he tracks the young, prepubescent Ale ( Alejandro Polanco) from job to soul-numbing job, some legal, some extralegal, to the point where you're forced to suspend altogether your moral judgments and watch with a mixture of pain and awe." Much more here, and see also our interview with the filmmaker here. |
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Quite simply, writes Salon's Andrew O'Hehir, "The most powerful documentary I've seen all year, and one of the two or three best films ever made about an artist or musician." Adds the NY Times' A.O. Scott: "The film is much more than a biography of the Clash’s guitarist and lead singer: It’s history, criticism, philosophy and politics, played fast and loud." |
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While fans of the work of the French writer/director André Téchiné will queue up for his newest film, The Witnesses, this first-rate study of a time (the early 1980s), place (Paris) and people (a disparate group connected by everything from friendship and love to employment and sex) also make a fine entry-point for anyone new to this moviemaker. I've never seen a Téchiné film I did not like, but I admit that some ( Wild Reeds, My Favorite Season, Thieves) are more immediately accessible and enjoyable than others ( J'embrasse pas, Changing Times) The Witnesses is among this director's most quietly pleasurable yet disturbing ensemble pieces. All its characters are... Read review >> |
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Even though The Tracey Fragments, an offbeat Canadian film starring Ellen Page, was made before the wildly successful Juno, it was only after viewers and critics were left dumbfounded by the actress's spot-on, deadpan performance in the latter film that Tracey could get a theatrical (and a subsequent DVD) release in the US. As with Juno, Page's Tracey is an intelligent, out-of-the-mainstream, teenage girl who's dealing with important issues. But the overall sunny outlook... read review >> |
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Politically progressive, consistently independent writer/director John Sayles takes his sweet time with Honeydripper, which has a rather slight story and still runs over the two-hour mark. Fortunately, the operative word here is "sweet" -- as in gentle, satisfying and dulcet, rather than sugary or saccharine. This sweetness comes in so many forms--from the wonderfully genuine performances in the redolent tale Sayles tells, to the music that weaves it way--insinuating, sexy, and finally charmingly explosive--throughout the film. It's especially apparent in some of Sayles' writing. Watch for the exquisite scene in which a character muses about how the first slave to learn piano-playing might have managed this: It's thoughtful, specific, wonderfully imagined and executed... read review >> |
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Brand new! GreenCine has upgraded the look, feel and interface of its content side, GC Central and invites you to come by to take a look. We think the new design, which uses Drupal v.6, will make it easier to find articles, point you to more DVDs on the site, interact with the community, and in general have more fun poking around. And we'll be tweaking and updating its features as go along, too. So... Go! >>
Lastly, rest in peace, Bruce Conner. |
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