The Lesser Berkeleys, Part Two
Glenn KennyAbove: Priscilla Lane, the primary Lane sister, in Varsity Show, 1937. "Were you drunk when I came home the other night?" my wife asked me a few days back. No, I was not, but why do you ask? "Well
Criticism
-
-
NYFF08: Keeping an eye on the kids ("Afterschool")
Daniel KasmanSince we have already talked about films in the New York Film Festival in terms of space and in terms of digital aesthetics, perhaps we should combine the two in Antonio Campos boarding school alienation
-
At the cinematheque: "Xiao Wu" (Jia Zhangke, China, 1997)
Ryland Walker KnightAbove: Xiao Wu (Hongwei Wang) cuffed and exposed in Fenyang. In connection with the Berkeley Art Museum exhibition “Mahjong: Contemporary Art from the Sigg Collection,” Pacific Film Archive has organized
-
Oshima Nagisa: Politics is Pulp (Intro/The Catch/Boy)
David PhelpsOver the next month, we’ll be highlighting some of the films of the traveling Oshima Nagisa retrospective.Lead provocateur of the Japanese New Wave (which he's always disowned), Oshima Nagisa was and remains
-
The Lesser Berkeleys, Part One
Glenn KennyAbove: Dick Powell and Joan Blondell, Gold Diggers of 1937.The Busby-Berkeley-ization of the American film musical seems to have flamed out almost as quickly as it caught fire. From 1933 to 1935, in pictures
-
NYFF08: History seen too clearly ("The Northern Land")
Daniel KasmanAbove: A digital image of Ana Moreira in The Northern Land. It looks like film festivals are finally starting to show digitally shot films (or shall we more correctly call them videos?) digitally, that
-
Now on DVD: "Mother of Tears" (Argento, Italy)
Ben SimingtonIt used to be that Dario Argento films were jam-packed with expressive details. Beginning in the early 1970s, alongside a penchant for intense, deliberate, graphic orgasms of violence, his reputation
-
NYFF08: A generation moving through space ("Cry Me a River")
Daniel KasmanHats off to the New York Film Festival, they’ve actually programmed a short film that I want to see! Chinese director Jia Zhangke, whose feature documentary hybrid what’s-it 24 City (reviewed from the
-
Tuesday Morning Foreign Region DVD Report (Special 'Why Pay More?' Edition): “La vie de Jésus” (Dumont, 1997) (Updated)
Glenn KennyThe most pertinent feature of the recent Eureka!/Masters of Cinema edition of Bruno Dumont's 1997 feature debut La vie de Jesus is a spanking new anamorphic and progressive scan encode. In case
-
NYFF08: Sort of everyday fairy tales ("Happy-Go-Lucky" / "Wendy and Lucy")
David PhelpsAbove: Sally Hawkins, the princess and the gypsy of Happy-Go-Lucky.On the outskirts of Mike Leigh’s blissful Happy-Go-Lucky lie child abusers, stalkers and supremacists, homeless, hairy troglodytes
-
NYFF08: Gathering the world's films
Daniel KasmanAbove: South Korean director Hong Sang-soo's masterful, mournful sex comedy, Night and Day, reviewed from Berlin. Many films in the 2008 New York Film Festival have been covered on the Notebook in one
-
The Venice Corto Cortissimo
Nicole OlivierThe Corto Cortissimo competition at the 65th Venice Film Festival early this September showcased twenty shorts over three days - some from starting filmmakers with the breeding of prestigious film schools