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As the exclusive North American distributor of the DEFA film archives (Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft, the state-run studio of former East Germany, which disbanded after reunification), First Run Features has smartly doled out a pair of discs this past week showcasing unlike artistic mediums with plenty of thematic overlap in the GDR era: rock music and animation. Aaron Hillis has more about the illuminating rock doc whisper & SHOUT and the collection Red Cartoons: Animated Films From East Germany. More >> |
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In This Dispatch:
- What's New: Bright Star, Whip It, and much more.
- What We're Watching: You, the Living, Death in the Garden, Outrage.
- Explore: Dax Shepard/Katie Aselton podcast.
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Jane Campion's lovely period piece about the romance between English poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne is "the rare film about the life of an artist that is itself a work of art," wrote Slate's Dana Stevens. "What makes the movie extraordinary, however," adds David Denby, "is not so much the portrait of a poet as the accuracy and the detail of the period re-creation." The movie is "romantic in every possible sense of the word." ( A.O. Scott.) |
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Roger Ebert calls Drew Barrymore's sporty dramedy "an unreasonably entertaining movie, causing you perhaps to revise your notions about women's Roller Derby, assuming you have any." Ellen Page plays a rebellious Texas teen who trades in her small town beauty pageant crown for the rowdy world of roller derby. "Laced with good-natured hipster kitsch and endearingly goofy girl power, Whip It is a gas," adds Variety's Rob Nelson. |
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Swedish-born filmmaker Roy Andersson began making films in the late 1960s, but to date has completed only nine films: five shorts and four features. That makes him one of the deliberate filmmakers in history, up there with Bresson and Kubrick. On top of that, it took a while for his latest film, You, the Living, to reach theaters. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007, had a single screening a year later at the San Francisco International Film Festival and then -- thanks to newly refurbished distributor Palisades Tartan -- finally opened in a couple of U.S. theaters in the summer of 2009. All this slowness probably prevents Andersson from being the major director he deserves to be... Read review >> |
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If you’re familiar with the early to middle period of Spanish director Luis Buñuel, you may not be surprised at what he does with the dark adventure/melodrama from 1956, Death In The Garden. I would guess that this was work-for-hire for the director who began his career with the classics Un chien andalou and L'âge d'or, and then went on the do everything from anti-Franco propaganda films during the Spanish Civil War to late, semi-great works like Tristana and That Obscure object of Desire... Read more >> |
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To each generation of gay rights activists there is a galvanizing moment where the status quo becomes intolerable. In the 80s it was the Reagan administration's denial of AIDS while half a million Americans died; in the 90s it was the passage of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," banning gays from serving in the military. In the Aughts it was the totality of the 2004 Republican strategy to win the presidency and house seats by funding anti-gay measures across the states' to encourage religious fundamentalists to vote. The documentary Outrage presents BlogActive creator Michael Rogers as the leader of a new opposition movement. Rogers employs the... Read review >> |
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