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In This Dispatch:
- What's New: Fados, Cheri, and more.
- What We're Watching: Objectified, Adoration, Woodpecker.
- Explore: Sitges '09: Film Fest of the Dead.
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Carlos Saura's collection of world music framed by elaborate stage production pays homage to music affectionately known at the "Portuguese Blues." "For those who've never before heard fado, Fados will be a revelation," wrote the SF Chronicle's Jonathan Curiel, "a window into a music that (like blues music) can be poetic, heartbreaking, melodramatic and redemptive, all at the same time." Adds Manhola Dargis, "This veteran Spanish director has, in his latest, created both a tribute to an art form and a performance archive." |
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Stephen Frears' turn of the century romance set in Belle Epoque Paris is Michelle Pfeiffer's show and she "transcends any hint of cliché 'cougar' voraciousness," wrote Owen Glieberman. "Plenty of terrible movies know how to work your tear ducts," wrote Peter Rainer. "Here's a weepie that, in Pfeiffer's performance, touches you on the highest levels." Adds Tasha Robinson: "A sumptuous, handsome portrait of a woman poised fearfully on the brink of decline, yet too proud to grab at rescue. |
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Design is all around us, as anyone who has ever been responsible for creating a design realizes early on. While many of us most often think about design in terms of the art we observe - paintings, magazines, movies, home interiors -- it is present and every bit as important in the everyday things we use: toothbrushes, computers, potato peelers and the like. Gary Hustwit, is back again with an equally wonderful example of the genre, Objectified, that turns our attention to the many objects we encounter in our daily lives and then shows us how vital good design is to how these objects work -- and how they affect us for better or worse... read review >> |
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Give Atom Egoyan 110 minutes and he'll give you a handful of unrealized MacGuffins and a whole big piece of his mind. Adoration, just out on DVD, spends more time dabbling in the soft art of misdirection than actually resolving a plot. In fairness, the film does portray our current technological moment (and the teenagers who are its biggest beneficiaries) quite accurately. If only the film's overarching message of our tech-induced de-sensitivity weren't so 1995 (hello The Net)... read review >> |
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"A beakful of yuks," raved Variety's Rob Nelson, "soars above the bulk of low-budget Amerindie farces." Adds the Austin Chronicle: "I found myself in awe of this tale about an amateur birdwatcher on a desperate mission. A highly entertaining, character-driven story, the film blends tragedy with comedy, truth with fiction, pathos with absurdity, and the result will have you simultaneously laughing and performing mental gymnastics to unravel its many layers." Film Radar: "Incredibly well-done... so realistic and so subtle that you never really know if it's fake or not." Go back and revisit Aaron Hillis' podcast with the director, Alex Karpovsky, from SXSW in 2008, as well as David Hudson's thoughts on the film. Read more >> |
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