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We're proud to unveil the first part of Simon Augustine's lengthy but rewarding, fascinating primer on the depcition of Mental Illness in Film: "Some of the most iconic and compelling characters in American cinematic history are those who embody madness in one of its many forms... characters [who] struggle with a relationship between reality and image, trying to find a fulcrum between the outside world and imagination... " Read more >> |
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In This Dispatch:
- What's New: Sugar, Sin Nombre, and more.
- What We're Watching: Toe Tactic, Ecoute le Temps, Torchwood: Children.
- Explore: Rob Zombie podcast.
- Contests: Taking Woodstock, redux.
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Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's ( Half Nelson) lovely film about a Dominican pitcher struggling to make it to the big leagues and pull himself and his family out of poverty, "is both sad and hopeful," writes A.O. Scott, "but the film's sorrow and its optimism arise from its rarest and most thrilling quality, which is its deep and humane honesty." Salon's Andrew O' Hehir calls Sugar "a moving, surprising and provocative baseball flick that rises immediately to No. 1 with a bullet on my personal list." GC's Craig Phillips calls it "a lovely, moving treat." |
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In former cinematographer Cary Joji Fukunaga 's directorial debut (a multi-award winner at Sundance), a young Honduran woman joins her father and uncle on an odyssey to cross the gauntlet of the Latin American countryside en route to the US. Along the way she crosses paths with a teenage Mexican gang member trying to outrun his violent past. Writes Roger Ebert: "It contains risk, violence, a little romance, even fleeting moments of humor, but most of all, it sees what danger and heartbreak are involved. It is riveting from start to finish." Adds the LA Times: "There is bitter and breathtaking truth in the story and in the storytelling." |
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Imagine a police-procedural in which the investigator, possessed with an (unknown to her) sixth sense, captures very odd things on a tape recorder, and you’ll have some idea of the unusual French "mystery" Ecoute Le Temps (which means literally, Listen to Time, though the English translation is the more marquee-ready but less meaningful Fissures). While the character mentioned above might sound like Patricia Arquette on TV’s Medium, this is a small-budget French film, after all, so there’s more grit and less gloss to the proceedings. (The cinematography, by Dominique Colin ( L'auberge Espagnole, Russian Dolls), is wonderful, however... read review >> |
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Over the decades a minor sub-genre has emerged in science fiction. As far as I know it has no name, so I hereby dub it the "Diplomatic Alien" genre. As opposed to the more familiar and numerous alien invasion stories, where mighty alien races appear without warning and proceed to wreak unprecedented mayhem ( War of the Worlds, Independence Day, Mars Attacks, etc.), there has been another, much more interesting strain of alien invasion films which may have begun with The Day the Earth Stood Stilli>. In these stories the aliens come to negotiate, and naturally this sets the stage for all sorts of interesting social and political commentary. The TV spin-off Torchwood: Children of Earth, while not without flaws, is still a welcome addition to this genre... read more >> |
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Metal god and psychotronic auteur Rob Zombie's 2007 Halloween remake had an unusual twist on John Carpenter's slasher-movie gold standard, in that it treated the story of silent bogeyman Michael Myers as a sociological case study. Now Zombie brings Myers back in Halloween II, which just opened, and Aaron Hillis chatted with him for a new podcast. More >> |
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Reminder! Taking Woodstock, the new film from Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee, is based on the memoirs of Elliot Tiber and stars Demetri Martin as Elliot, who inadvertently played a role in making 1969’s Woodstock Music and Arts Festival into the famed happening it was. The film features a standout ensemble cast, and songs from a score of ‘60s musical icons. And now thanks to GC and Focus Features, you can win a copy of the soundtrack CD, a cool t-shirt and some air freshener (!) Be one of 5 lucky winners by entering to win now. Details >> |
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