Notebook Reviews: Nicholas Winding Refn's "Drive"
Daniel KasmanThis arty genre film, stripped to its purest beauty, including that of its lead Ryan Gosling, has the zen calm of the soulless.
reviews
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Notebook Reviews: Samuel Fuller's "House of Bamboo" (1955)
Fernando F. CroceSamuel Fuller in Japan, like tabloid ink sprayed on kakejiku scrolls.
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Notebook Reviews: Evan Glodell’s "Bellflower"
Fernando F. CroceA striking debut suspended between low-key, Sundance relationship drama and hyper-saturated, ’70s-style grindhouser.
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Notebook Reviews: Miranda July's "The Future"
Fernando F. CroceArguably the strangest study of artistic and parental anxiety since Eraserhead.
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Notebook Reviews: Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "World on a Wire"
Fernando F. CroceThe sci-fi masterpiece, part “Alphaville”, part Fritz Lang, part “The Matrix”, yet wholly original.
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The Forgotten: The Red Sea Reels
David CairnsAbove: If you ever wondered what a pharaoh's nursery would look like... He was born Manó Kertész Kaminer in Hungary in 1886, began directing as Kertész Mihály, switched to
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Notebook Reviews: Denis Villeneuve’s “Polytechnique” and John Carpenter’s “The Ward”
Fernando F. CroceFramed in a close shot, college students go about their business around a Xerox machine when a spray of bullets suddenly rips into the image. Polytechnique, Denis Villeneuve's 2009 fictionalized account
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Notebook Reviews: Michael Bay’s “Transformers: Dark of the Moon”
Fernando F. Croce"Visual, therefore visceral," snaps John Malkovich in Transformers: Dark of the Moon as some sort of wacky Michael Bay proxy, a conglomerate martinet who screams at his crew, checks out the leading lady
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Notebook Reviews: Azazel Jacobs’ “Terri”
Fernando F. CroceAzazel Jacobs has an acute eye for houses that, without ever crumbling the low-key naturalism of his narratives, can mutate from mere settings to mysterious visualizations of the characters’ often
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Notebook Reviews: Michael Rowe’s “Leap Year”
Fernando F. CroceTo Laura (Mónica del Carmen), the desolate protagonist of Michael Rowe’s absorbing debut Leap Year, the sight of a neighboring couple cuddling before the TV is a recurring vision of romance
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Edinburgh 2011. The Water of Life: Alexander Mackendrick's "Whisky Galore" (1949)
David Cairns"To the west, there is nothing, except America." Revived at Edinburgh Internbational Film Festival, Alexander Mackendrick's first film, Whisky Galore! (released in the USA as Tight Little Island) is
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Edinburgh 2011. Whatever We Want to Be: Marie Losier's "The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye"
David CairnsMarie Losier's documentary tells the story of a couple. They happen to comprise Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, industrial music pioneer of the bands Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, and Lady Jaye Breyer