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"If you're lucky enough to have ever been part of a band of deeply close friends, then add writer/director Ferzan Ozpetek's new film Saturn in Opposition ( Saturno Contro) to your must-see list immediately," wrote James Van Maanen when he caught the film as part of this summers Open Roads series of new Italian Films at the Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York [updated review here]. It was then, too, that he got a chance to talk with the director about his work - and more than a little, too, about what the current administrations in the US and Italy are really after. Meantime, with Saturn in Opposition now out on DVD, you can take James's advice, too. Read more >> |
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In This Dispatch:
- What's New: Kaurismaki, Foot Fist and much more.
- What We're Watching: Unforeseen, Noise, and Bill Douglass.
- Special Promo: Greenify Contest!
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From Criterion (by way of their Eclipse collection): The poignant, deadpan films of Aki Kaurismäki are pitched somewhere in the wintry nether lands between comedy and tragedy. And rarely in his body of work has the line separating those genres seemed thinner than in what is often identified as his "Proletariat Trilogy," Shadows in Paradise, Ariel, and The Match Factory Girl. In these three films, something like social-realist farces, Kaurismäki surveys the working-class outcasts of his native Finland with detached yet disarming amusement. Featuring commanding, off-key visual compositions and delightfully dour performances, the films in this triptych exemplify the talents of a unique and highly influential film artist. |
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And now for something completely different, "an itsy-bitsy, ultra-indie, super-silly comedy packing huge laughs and unexpected heart" (Nathan Lee, NY Times). " Danny McBride [the FX guy in Tropic Thunder] has created such a distinctive character in Simmons, at once engaging and repulsive, that it's hard not to keep watching even while cringing," wrote Mark Olsen in the LA Times. Adds Peter Hartlaub in the SF Chronicle: "[L]ow budget in all the right ways - so hilarious, testosterone-charged and yet cringe-inducing to watch that the result is almost exhausting." |
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A mostly terrific, beautifully shot documentary that uses a microcosmic story of development in Austin, Texas, to tell another of a more cosmic environmental struggle affecting us all. The film splits focus between an ongoing battle between environmentalists and developers over Barton Springs, a longtime favorite site of sunbathers and swimmers, as well as a place where some even find religion (Baptists long used it as a spot for baptisms, while another woman interviewed in the film talked about the spiritual nature of being at the spot itself); and the way development encroaches on rapidly shrinking farmland in the area... Read more >> |
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While Noise will confirm many of the prejudices country folk feel about the big city, the movie should have those of us who actually live in the latter frothing at the mouth within minutes. Why? Because writer/director Henry Bean's ( The Believer) new film delivers up a picture of one of the more crazy-making though least recognized (it is not, after all, mugging, murder, robbery or rape) urban problems: noise pollution. Due to his clever premise, an almost believable follow-through and a first-rate sound department, Noise makes the most of the titular annoyances and ends up seducing you into cheering for... Read more >> |
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"Despite his sparse output, around six hours in total, Bill Douglas is one of the major British filmmakers of the last forty years," notes DVDTimes, "and this DVD set does a handsome job of presenting his autobiographical Trilogy." Adds Rhys Graham on Senses of Cinema, "The cinema created in and through Bill Douglas' extraordinary works was one that retained a modesty of ambition and an economy of means that seems to have been clearly intended to speak directly to the hearts of its viewers. This was a cinema that should have been popular and vagrant." |
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GreenCine and the Green Business Alliance are here to help you go green at home! Enter our contest to win a free home application to the Green Business Alliance Program and a free DVD - PBS Home Video's Design: e2, which examines the economies of being environmentally conscious in green building design. Upon the greenifying of your home, you'll win more free swag, including a plaque to boast your newly earned "green" status, a canvas tote, wrist band and window cling, compliments of the Green Business Alliance. Go here for details >> |
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Economics 101
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