Born on Nov. 25, 1915, Augusto José Ramón Pinochet would rise through the ranks of the Chilean military and, having become commander-in-chief of the nation’s army, lead a coup against the country’s president Salvador Allende in 1973. This would kick off Pinochet’s political reign — and reign of terror — for the next 17 years. He’d escape persecution for the countless crimes committed during his regime and was unrepentant about his dictatorship (what were mass graves of dissidents but more “efficient ways of burials?”) up until his death in 2006.
This is what the history books tell us.
This is what the history books tell us.
- 9/15/2023
- by David Fear
- Rollingstone.com
Pablo Larraín’s primary mode is deconstruction, of everything from genre to myth to ideology. But given its intensely subjective point of view, El Conde shares more in common with Spencer and Jackie than the filmmaker’s earlier investigations into Chile’s tumultuous past, Post Mortem and No. The film seeks to dispense with the historical record and imagine what happens behind closed doors. Of course, there’s one important difference here: El Conde is certainly no stickler for verisimilitude, as the Augusto Pinochet (Jaime Vadell) of this film is a morose vampire fasting from blood in order to ease himself into death.
That premise might suggest that Larraín has sympathy for the devil, but El Conde is no hagiography. The film renders Pinochet as an aging, ever-prattling child of sorts, who no longer wants to live in a Chile that has no appreciation for all his “great work,” nor...
That premise might suggest that Larraín has sympathy for the devil, but El Conde is no hagiography. The film renders Pinochet as an aging, ever-prattling child of sorts, who no longer wants to live in a Chile that has no appreciation for all his “great work,” nor...
- 8/31/2023
- by Greg Nussen
- Slant Magazine
Salt Of The EarthPhoto: Public Domain
Salt Of The Earth is a movie that sees around corners. Partly—but only partly— because of the current Hollywood writers’ strike, it also speaks loudly to our time. A strike movie about labor unrest in a mining town, Salt Of The Earth was...
Salt Of The Earth is a movie that sees around corners. Partly—but only partly— because of the current Hollywood writers’ strike, it also speaks loudly to our time. A strike movie about labor unrest in a mining town, Salt Of The Earth was...
- 5/23/2023
- by Ray Greene
- avclub.com
This piece contains major spoilers for "Knock at the Cabin."
"Knock at the Cabin" simultaneously feels like classic M. Night Shyamalan and something completely new for him. While he's certainly tackled difficult and heavy topics in his work before, none have arguably been as explicit about unexplainable acts of God as this one. It will certainly be a divisive piece of filmmaking, but is it really a Shyamalan movie if it isn't divisive?
One thing about the director, however, is that he has a poignant and genuine love for the medium of film. He's gone on record numerous times about his wide range of influences, and he's one of the few filmmakers who can take classic genre tropes and turn them into something uniquely compelling. "Knock at the Cabin" is no different, as it flips the home invasion thriller on its end by making its intruders not only sympathetic, but...
"Knock at the Cabin" simultaneously feels like classic M. Night Shyamalan and something completely new for him. While he's certainly tackled difficult and heavy topics in his work before, none have arguably been as explicit about unexplainable acts of God as this one. It will certainly be a divisive piece of filmmaking, but is it really a Shyamalan movie if it isn't divisive?
One thing about the director, however, is that he has a poignant and genuine love for the medium of film. He's gone on record numerous times about his wide range of influences, and he's one of the few filmmakers who can take classic genre tropes and turn them into something uniquely compelling. "Knock at the Cabin" is no different, as it flips the home invasion thriller on its end by making its intruders not only sympathetic, but...
- 2/3/2023
- by Erin Brady
- Slash Film
Women are a force to be reckoned with both in real-life and in reel-life. Over the decades, strong women have permeated cinema from its infancy — remember Pearl White in the 1914 serial “The Perils of Pauline”? Viola Davis plays the title role in Gina Prince-Bythewood’s hit film “The Woman King.” The Oscar Emmy and Tony winner’s character leads a group of women warriors called the Agojie who protected the West African Kingdom of Dahomey from the 17th-19th centuries.
Reviews have been strong for the “The Woman King,” which earned 19 million on its opening weekend, especially for the Davis. Noted Variety: “She plays Nanisca, who in the film’s aggressive prologue, stands firm before a phalanx of well-armed soldiers, her hair fashioned into a kind of Mohawk. Scars visible on her face and shoulders We’ve never seen the actor like this, and not for a second do we...
Reviews have been strong for the “The Woman King,” which earned 19 million on its opening weekend, especially for the Davis. Noted Variety: “She plays Nanisca, who in the film’s aggressive prologue, stands firm before a phalanx of well-armed soldiers, her hair fashioned into a kind of Mohawk. Scars visible on her face and shoulders We’ve never seen the actor like this, and not for a second do we...
- 9/26/2022
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
Should someone ever construct a Film Hair Hall of Fame, or a museum dedicated to the greatest cinematic coifs to ever grace screens, we’d like to submit for inclusion Penélope Cruz’s ‘do from Official Competition. An untamable mane of red curls cascading out from her head and spilling over her shoulders, it is almost its own character; the closest way to describe it would be to imagine Medusa as played by Lucille Ball. It’s an alpha-follicular power move, a feral flex of frizz, and one that immediately...
- 6/16/2022
- by David Fear
- Rollingstone.com
“Brand New Cherry Flavor” takes place roughly 30 years ago. If the murderer’s row of college radio deep cuts didn’t eventually tip you off, the on-screen setup puts the new Netflix show somewhere in the “early ’90s.” What transpires after that simple introduction is a meticulous, slow-motion fever dream, one that transpires with the occasional help of pay phones, VHS tapes, and print headlines.
The new limited series has plenty more on its mind than aping a particular time and place. “Brand New Cherry Flavor” carries all the psychological trappings that come with the curdled glamor of Los Angeles, but this is a specific kind of Hollywood story; one that exists in its own self-contained universe, detached from a conventional decade-signaling aesthetic. Very quickly, the show establishes its primary concern isn’t enduring stardom or lavish luxury. It’s a supernatural revenge tale brought on by what’s ostensibly a simple legal dispute.
The new limited series has plenty more on its mind than aping a particular time and place. “Brand New Cherry Flavor” carries all the psychological trappings that come with the curdled glamor of Los Angeles, but this is a specific kind of Hollywood story; one that exists in its own self-contained universe, detached from a conventional decade-signaling aesthetic. Very quickly, the show establishes its primary concern isn’t enduring stardom or lavish luxury. It’s a supernatural revenge tale brought on by what’s ostensibly a simple legal dispute.
- 8/9/2021
- by Steve Greene
- Indiewire
New Year’s resolutions are a time to work towards a transformation of your body and/or your life. To honor these goals, this month we’re going to look at transformative roles in film. This week we look at some prominent examples of actors playing characters that are much younger than the actors’ actual age.
It’s one thing to mentally prepare to play a character in a movie or a play. It’s another thing to physically transform yourself in order to better identify with the role. Some transformations are only skin deep; extensive makeup or prosthetics may be sufficient to pull of the necessary look. Other transformations are more involved; many actors may take part in weeks, if not months, of preparations for a role. This can include intense training, specialized diets, and exhaustive exercise routines. The end result of an actor going through such a transformation...
It’s one thing to mentally prepare to play a character in a movie or a play. It’s another thing to physically transform yourself in order to better identify with the role. Some transformations are only skin deep; extensive makeup or prosthetics may be sufficient to pull of the necessary look. Other transformations are more involved; many actors may take part in weeks, if not months, of preparations for a role. This can include intense training, specialized diets, and exhaustive exercise routines. The end result of an actor going through such a transformation...
- 1/17/2018
- by feeds@cinelinx.com (G.S. Perno)
- Cinelinx
Martin Scorsese is no stranger to The Criterion Collection, but that doesn’t make the announcement that his period drama “The Age of Innocence” will be officially joining the club in March 2018 any less exciting. Scorsese’s 1993 adaptation of Edith Wharton’s seminal novel will join other Scorsese films like “The Last Temptation of Christ” in the Collection.
Read More:‘Silence of the Lambs,’ ‘Night of the Living Dead,’ and More Join Criterion Collection in February 2018
“Innocence” is one of six new movies coming to Criterion in March 2018. Other new additions include Carl Theodor Dreyer’s silent masterpiece “The Passion of Joan of Arc” and Volker Schlöndorff’s largely-unseen “Baal.” You can head over to The Criterion Collection website to pre-order the titles now. Check out all the new additions below. Synopses provided by Criterion.
“Elevator to the Gallows”
For his feature debut, twenty-four-year-old Louis Malle brought together a mesmerizing performance by Jeanne Moreau,...
Read More:‘Silence of the Lambs,’ ‘Night of the Living Dead,’ and More Join Criterion Collection in February 2018
“Innocence” is one of six new movies coming to Criterion in March 2018. Other new additions include Carl Theodor Dreyer’s silent masterpiece “The Passion of Joan of Arc” and Volker Schlöndorff’s largely-unseen “Baal.” You can head over to The Criterion Collection website to pre-order the titles now. Check out all the new additions below. Synopses provided by Criterion.
“Elevator to the Gallows”
For his feature debut, twenty-four-year-old Louis Malle brought together a mesmerizing performance by Jeanne Moreau,...
- 12/15/2017
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
I am excited to be premiering Janus Films’ brand new poster for their re-release of The Passion of Joan of Arc, one of my all-time favorite films and one of the most beautiful films ever made. Designed by Eric Skillman, the new poster is simplicity itself, relying on a single still of Maria Falconetti as Joan in her most iconic pose, and although the beauty of Dreyer’s masterpiece is that almost any still from the film would be poster-worthy, this one is perfect. It’s the clarity of the image that carries the poster, and which whets the appetite for the digital restoration it heralds, but the type block below is suitably elegant and restrained.I did a previous feature on the film a few years ago, concentrating on the artwork of the great René Péron, but there are a number of other wonderful designs for the film which...
- 11/10/2017
- MUBI
With Harvey Weinstein gone, the entertainment industry operates under a new ruler: The gut check. He’s now a punching bag to represent abuse by powerful men, but now the real work begins. What about everyone else?
“Harvey is aberrant, to be sure, but no anomaly,” veteran screenwriter and USC professor Howard Rodman wrote me in an email. “He’s a rapist, but not the only rapist in our industry, and not the only serial predator by a very long shot. If we use his evident and overweening guilt to exculpate the rest of us, this will be for naught. What’s needed is a sea change. And maybe — just maybe — its time has come.”
Weinstein’s predation has a very, very long tail; new stories arrive daily, with the Los Angeles Police Dept. now opening an investigation into an alleged rape in 2013. “It’s been such crazy couple of weeks,...
“Harvey is aberrant, to be sure, but no anomaly,” veteran screenwriter and USC professor Howard Rodman wrote me in an email. “He’s a rapist, but not the only rapist in our industry, and not the only serial predator by a very long shot. If we use his evident and overweening guilt to exculpate the rest of us, this will be for naught. What’s needed is a sea change. And maybe — just maybe — its time has come.”
Weinstein’s predation has a very, very long tail; new stories arrive daily, with the Los Angeles Police Dept. now opening an investigation into an alleged rape in 2013. “It’s been such crazy couple of weeks,...
- 10/20/2017
- by Anne Thompson
- Thompson on Hollywood
With Harvey Weinstein gone, the entertainment industry operates under a new ruler: The gut check. He’s now a punching bag to represent abuse by powerful men, but now the real work begins. What about everyone else?
“Harvey is aberrant, to be sure, but no anomaly,” veteran screenwriter and USC professor Howard Rodman wrote me in an email. “He’s a rapist, but not the only rapist in our industry, and not the only serial predator by a very long shot. If we use his evident and overweening guilt to exculpate the rest of us, this will be for naught. What’s needed is a sea change. And maybe — just maybe — its time has come.”
Weinstein’s predation has a very, very long tail; new stories arrive daily, with the Los Angeles Police Dept. now opening an investigation into an alleged rape in 2013. “It’s been such crazy couple of weeks,...
“Harvey is aberrant, to be sure, but no anomaly,” veteran screenwriter and USC professor Howard Rodman wrote me in an email. “He’s a rapist, but not the only rapist in our industry, and not the only serial predator by a very long shot. If we use his evident and overweening guilt to exculpate the rest of us, this will be for naught. What’s needed is a sea change. And maybe — just maybe — its time has come.”
Weinstein’s predation has a very, very long tail; new stories arrive daily, with the Los Angeles Police Dept. now opening an investigation into an alleged rape in 2013. “It’s been such crazy couple of weeks,...
- 10/20/2017
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
The Passion Of Joan Of Arc (1928) Screens at 7:o0 Thursday, October 12th at The Schmidt Arts Center on the campus of Southwestern Illinois College in Belleville, Illinois (2500 Carlyle Ave ). The silent film will be accompanied by the Rats & People Motion Picture Orchestra.
Silent films with live music! There’s nothing like it and St. Louis is lucky to have The Rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra here. For the past several years, The Rats and People have actively defined both the local music and film cultures of our city. In addition to its prolific composition and live performance of new scores for films of the silent era, the ensemble – equal parts indie/punk-stalwart and classically trained composers/musicians – have provided the soundtrack for many of St. Louis’ most vital and acclaimed locally-produced contemporary films.
Thursday, October 12th at 7:00pm, The Rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra will perfrom their...
Silent films with live music! There’s nothing like it and St. Louis is lucky to have The Rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra here. For the past several years, The Rats and People have actively defined both the local music and film cultures of our city. In addition to its prolific composition and live performance of new scores for films of the silent era, the ensemble – equal parts indie/punk-stalwart and classically trained composers/musicians – have provided the soundtrack for many of St. Louis’ most vital and acclaimed locally-produced contemporary films.
Thursday, October 12th at 7:00pm, The Rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra will perfrom their...
- 9/28/2017
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Awards aren’t everything, but no one ever complained about having their hard work recognized. Consider that the impetus behind this list, which looks beyond awards season to shine a spotlight on the performances that have most affected us — if not necessarily the Academy — over the last 17 years. Some were contenders that got snubbed, while others were too out-there to ever be considered; all are worth praising.
Many others were and are, too — so many, in fact, that 25 spots weren’t enough for them all. Consider Denis Lavant’s bravura turn in “Holy Motors” or Maggie Gyllenhaal’s brilliant work in “Secretary,” among so many others, and remember that the first nine months of every moviegoing year feature plenty of performances worth remembering.
25. Jeon Do-yeon, “Secret Sunshine”
Lee Chang-dong movies abound in stellar performances — see also Yoon Jeong-hee in “Poetry” and Sol Kyung-gu and Moon So-ri in “Oasis” — but none...
Many others were and are, too — so many, in fact, that 25 spots weren’t enough for them all. Consider Denis Lavant’s bravura turn in “Holy Motors” or Maggie Gyllenhaal’s brilliant work in “Secretary,” among so many others, and remember that the first nine months of every moviegoing year feature plenty of performances worth remembering.
25. Jeon Do-yeon, “Secret Sunshine”
Lee Chang-dong movies abound in stellar performances — see also Yoon Jeong-hee in “Poetry” and Sol Kyung-gu and Moon So-ri in “Oasis” — but none...
- 9/2/2017
- by Michael Nordine, Anne Thompson, Chris O'Falt, Kate Erbland, David Ehrlich, Zack Sharf and Jude Dry
- Indiewire
That bad boy of (mostly) French cinema Walerian Borowczyk has been converting doubters into fans for sixty years, even though his pictures were never easy to see. Before he took a headlong leap into soft-core epics, he made some of the most creative and influential short films of his time — and they eventually became more erotic as well.
The Walerian Borowczyk Short Film Collection
Blu-ray
Olive Films
1959-1984 / B&W and Color / 1:66, 1:78 and 1:37 flat Academy / 144 min. / Street Date April 25, 2017 / available through the Olive Films website / 24.95
Directed by Walerian Borowczyk
This release brings back memories of traveling short subject shows, usually several reels’ worth of experimental films that would tour college campuses. Even in High School I’d drag my girlfriend to the University of Riverside, where huge crowds looking for the ‘In’ place to be would stare in attention at hours of abstract visuals, expressing their approval...
The Walerian Borowczyk Short Film Collection
Blu-ray
Olive Films
1959-1984 / B&W and Color / 1:66, 1:78 and 1:37 flat Academy / 144 min. / Street Date April 25, 2017 / available through the Olive Films website / 24.95
Directed by Walerian Borowczyk
This release brings back memories of traveling short subject shows, usually several reels’ worth of experimental films that would tour college campuses. Even in High School I’d drag my girlfriend to the University of Riverside, where huge crowds looking for the ‘In’ place to be would stare in attention at hours of abstract visuals, expressing their approval...
- 5/13/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Jennifer Leigh Williamson Jun 13, 2017
As far back as the 1920s, cinema has brought us feminist heroes. Here's a bunch of films way ahead of their time...
“I never realised until lately that women were supposed to be the inferior sex.” - Katharine Hepburn
Feminism, equality of the sexes. Often when watching old movies, the sexism of the time can catch you off guard. Bums are pinched, bimbos bounce, old maids glower and you shake your head and sigh, glad that those times have (mostly) passed. So when we see classic films with strong, intelligent, impressive, witty, ambitious, feminist female characters, equals to their male counterparts, we sit up and take notice. There are many great classic films with impressive female characters, too many to list here. This article is about the characters that have inspired me personally. Classic feminist films way ahead of their time.
Spoilers ahead...
The Passion Of Joan Of Arc...
As far back as the 1920s, cinema has brought us feminist heroes. Here's a bunch of films way ahead of their time...
“I never realised until lately that women were supposed to be the inferior sex.” - Katharine Hepburn
Feminism, equality of the sexes. Often when watching old movies, the sexism of the time can catch you off guard. Bums are pinched, bimbos bounce, old maids glower and you shake your head and sigh, glad that those times have (mostly) passed. So when we see classic films with strong, intelligent, impressive, witty, ambitious, feminist female characters, equals to their male counterparts, we sit up and take notice. There are many great classic films with impressive female characters, too many to list here. This article is about the characters that have inspired me personally. Classic feminist films way ahead of their time.
Spoilers ahead...
The Passion Of Joan Of Arc...
- 4/29/2017
- Den of Geek
On this day in history as it relates to the movies...
Corey Stoll as Hemingway
1892 Maria Falconetti is born. Delivers one of the best performances ever captured on film thirty-six years later in The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
1899 Famous author and real 'character' Ernest Hemingway is born. In addition to his work being made into films and TV miniseries he frequently pops up as a character in cinema played by everyone from Chris O'Donnell (In Love and War) to Corey Stoll (Midnight in Paris - robbed of an Oscar nod though we honored him here) and now Dominic West (Genius) ...and that's not even the half of it.
1922 Don Knotts is born. Mugs it up in 70+ film and TV projects including Three's Company, The Apple Dumpling Gang, and The Andy Griffith Show - 5 Emmy wins for Supporting Actor thereafter until his death in 2006
1948 Steven Demetre Georgiu is born in London.
Corey Stoll as Hemingway
1892 Maria Falconetti is born. Delivers one of the best performances ever captured on film thirty-six years later in The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
1899 Famous author and real 'character' Ernest Hemingway is born. In addition to his work being made into films and TV miniseries he frequently pops up as a character in cinema played by everyone from Chris O'Donnell (In Love and War) to Corey Stoll (Midnight in Paris - robbed of an Oscar nod though we honored him here) and now Dominic West (Genius) ...and that's not even the half of it.
1922 Don Knotts is born. Mugs it up in 70+ film and TV projects including Three's Company, The Apple Dumpling Gang, and The Andy Griffith Show - 5 Emmy wins for Supporting Actor thereafter until his death in 2006
1948 Steven Demetre Georgiu is born in London.
- 7/21/2016
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
The Passion Of Joan Of Arc (1928) Screens at 7:30 Saturday March 19th at Winifred Moore Auditorium on the campus of Webster University with live accompaniment by the Rats & People Motion Picture Orchestra and an introduction and post-film discussion by Andrew Wyatt, film critic for St. Louis Magazine’s Look/Listen arts-and-entertainment blog and the Gateway Cinephile film blog.
Silent films with live music! There’s nothing like it and St. Louis is lucky to have The Rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra here. For the past several years, The Rats and People have actively defined both the local music and film cultures of our city. In addition to its prolific composition and live performance of new scores for films of the silent era, the ensemble – equal parts indie/punk-stalwart and classically trained composers/musicians – have provided the soundtrack for many of St. Louis’ most vital and acclaimed locally-produced contemporary films.
Silent films with live music! There’s nothing like it and St. Louis is lucky to have The Rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra here. For the past several years, The Rats and People have actively defined both the local music and film cultures of our city. In addition to its prolific composition and live performance of new scores for films of the silent era, the ensemble – equal parts indie/punk-stalwart and classically trained composers/musicians – have provided the soundtrack for many of St. Louis’ most vital and acclaimed locally-produced contemporary films.
- 3/10/2016
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
The Eighth Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival — co-produced by Cinema St. Louis and the Webster University Film Series — celebrates St. Louis’ Gallic heritage and France’s cinematic legacy. The featured films span the decades from the 1920s through the early 1990s, offering a comprehensive overview of French cinema.
The fest is annually highlighted by significant restorations, and we’re especially pleased to present Jacques Rivette’s long-unavailable epic Out 1: Spectre Additional restoration highlights include Jean-Luc Godard’s A Married Woman and Max Ophüls’ too-little-seen From Mayerling To Sarajevo. Both Ophüls’ film and Louis Malle’s Elevator To The Gallows – with a jazz score by St. Louis-area native Miles Davis — screen from 35mm prints. All films will screen at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (47- E. Lockwood)
Music fans will further delight in the Rats & People Motion Picture Orchestra’s accompaniment and original score for Carl Th. Dreyer’s...
The fest is annually highlighted by significant restorations, and we’re especially pleased to present Jacques Rivette’s long-unavailable epic Out 1: Spectre Additional restoration highlights include Jean-Luc Godard’s A Married Woman and Max Ophüls’ too-little-seen From Mayerling To Sarajevo. Both Ophüls’ film and Louis Malle’s Elevator To The Gallows – with a jazz score by St. Louis-area native Miles Davis — screen from 35mm prints. All films will screen at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (47- E. Lockwood)
Music fans will further delight in the Rats & People Motion Picture Orchestra’s accompaniment and original score for Carl Th. Dreyer’s...
- 2/16/2016
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
On Halloween, the tradition is to indulge in films replete with monsters, zombies, and creatures that go bump in the night. But those types of films don’t always provide the psychological terror cineastes may be craving. International and alternative cinema has always been willing to tread where conventional genre cinema dares not be it in films with strong themes, abrasive tones, or emotional depravity. Halloween can be a time not just to indulge in slimy viscera, but in the general suffering of humanity. These are eleven films whose punishment of the viewer with intense emotions and ideas make them not unlike horror films.
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) / Day of Wrath (1943)
The original king of despair, Carl Dreyer didn’t just gravitate toward miserable material, he embraced it with a technique so perfected, it felt predestined. In The Passion of Joan of Arc, a film consisting almost solely of close-ups,...
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) / Day of Wrath (1943)
The original king of despair, Carl Dreyer didn’t just gravitate toward miserable material, he embraced it with a technique so perfected, it felt predestined. In The Passion of Joan of Arc, a film consisting almost solely of close-ups,...
- 10/3/2015
- by Shane Ramirez
- SoundOnSight
Perhaps we can thank the critical success of his 2012 masterwork, Holy Motors for the resurgence of interest in the early works of Leos Carax, including not only a new documentary about the enigmatic filmmaker, but restorations and notable Blu-ray transfers of his first two titles, Boy Meets Girl (1984) and Mauvais Sang (1986) from Carlotta Films.
The introduction of Carax’s onscreen alter ego Denis Lavant, present in each of his five titles except for 1999’s troubled Pola X, feels very much like a loving homage of the Nouvelle Vague mixed with sublimation of melancholy emptiness in 1980s excess and the hollow virtues of young adulthood. In comparison to his other titles, Boy Meets Girl does feel very much like Carax’s first film, an artist figuring out his emotional resonance, his stylistic fascinations, a title that, in look and style feels strangely similar to David Lynch’s first film, Eraserhead (1977), another...
The introduction of Carax’s onscreen alter ego Denis Lavant, present in each of his five titles except for 1999’s troubled Pola X, feels very much like a loving homage of the Nouvelle Vague mixed with sublimation of melancholy emptiness in 1980s excess and the hollow virtues of young adulthood. In comparison to his other titles, Boy Meets Girl does feel very much like Carax’s first film, an artist figuring out his emotional resonance, his stylistic fascinations, a title that, in look and style feels strangely similar to David Lynch’s first film, Eraserhead (1977), another...
- 12/2/2014
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
+“Sometimes the class struggle is also the struggle of one image against another image, of one sound against another sound. In a film, this struggle is against images and sounds.”
- British Sounds
There was something in the air when Jean-Luc Godard took up the political banner of the late 1960s and shifted his filmmaking focus in terms of storytelling style and stories told, and in a general sense of formal reevaluation and reinvention. Always considered something of the enfant terrible of the French Nouvelle Vague, Godard was keen from the start to experiment with the conventional norms of cinematic aesthetics, from the jarring jump cuts of Breathless (1960), to the self-conscious playfulness of A Woman is a Woman (1961), to the genre deviations of Band of Outsiders (1964) and Made in USA (1966). But Godard was still, at a most basic level, operating along a fairly conventional plane of fictional cinema, one with...
- British Sounds
There was something in the air when Jean-Luc Godard took up the political banner of the late 1960s and shifted his filmmaking focus in terms of storytelling style and stories told, and in a general sense of formal reevaluation and reinvention. Always considered something of the enfant terrible of the French Nouvelle Vague, Godard was keen from the start to experiment with the conventional norms of cinematic aesthetics, from the jarring jump cuts of Breathless (1960), to the self-conscious playfulness of A Woman is a Woman (1961), to the genre deviations of Band of Outsiders (1964) and Made in USA (1966). But Godard was still, at a most basic level, operating along a fairly conventional plane of fictional cinema, one with...
- 10/17/2014
- by Jeremy Carr
- SoundOnSight
The Immigrant is a film of faces. That may seem simple, and perhaps it is, but James Gray‘s newest film does not try to be inscrutable. This is one of the virtues of melodrama, the raw and transparent quality of its emotion beaming from close-ups of the human face. Marion Cotillard‘s open, Catholic performance falls about her eyes, somewhere between Maria Falconetti and a Merchant Ivory adaptation of an Edith Wharton novel. Joaquin Phoenix‘s brow, meanwhile, seems ever wider and more brutal as he oscillates between compassion and selfish violence. Jeremy Renner wears eyeliner, like the star of a theoretically possible Mike Leigh film about Yiddish vaudeville entertainers. The plot is relatively straightforward, even initially cliché. Cotillard is Ewa, a woman just off the boat from Poland, with her sister Magda in tow. Yet when the Ellis Island officials notice that Magda is ill she is rushed off to the infirmary, where...
- 5/16/2014
- by Daniel Walber
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Every once in a while, an actor will come on the scene with impact, impressing everyone with a powerhouse debut performance. But sometimes a great freshmen performance fails to lead to a good follow up, and the person who made the impressive debut starts to fade from the scene. It’s always sad when such potential is unmet. Here are 10 actors who started with a bang but faded with a whimper.
Heather Donahue (The Blair Witch Project-1999) She came on the scene in a big way, starring in the low-budget hit film that became such a sensation and started the ‘hand-held-camera’ style of film making (Used in Paranormal Activity, Cloverfield and others). She seemed poised to be the new Jamie Lee Curtis, the horror film “it girl”. She got a lot of offers to do other horror films but turned them down, in order to prevent type casting. Since then,...
Heather Donahue (The Blair Witch Project-1999) She came on the scene in a big way, starring in the low-budget hit film that became such a sensation and started the ‘hand-held-camera’ style of film making (Used in Paranormal Activity, Cloverfield and others). She seemed poised to be the new Jamie Lee Curtis, the horror film “it girl”. She got a lot of offers to do other horror films but turned them down, in order to prevent type casting. Since then,...
- 1/3/2014
- by feeds@cinelinx.com (Rob Young)
- Cinelinx
Think silent films reached a high point with The Artist? The pre-sound era produced some of the most beautiful, arresting films ever made. From City Lights to Metropolis, Guardian and Observer critics pick the 10 best
• Top 10 teen movies
• Top 10 superhero movies
• Top 10 westerns
• Top 10 documentaries
• Top 10 movie adaptations
• Top 10 animated movies
• More Guardian and Observer critics' top 10s
10. City Lights
City Lights was arguably the biggest risk of Charlie Chaplin's career: The Jazz Singer, released at the end of 1927, had seen sound take cinema by storm, but Chaplin resisted the change-up, preferring to continue in the silent tradition. In retrospect, this isn't so much the precious behaviour of a purist but the smart reaction of an experienced comedian; Chaplin's films rarely used intertitles anyway, and though it is technically "silent", City Lights is very mindful of it own self-composed score and keenly judged sound effects.
At its heart,...
• Top 10 teen movies
• Top 10 superhero movies
• Top 10 westerns
• Top 10 documentaries
• Top 10 movie adaptations
• Top 10 animated movies
• More Guardian and Observer critics' top 10s
10. City Lights
City Lights was arguably the biggest risk of Charlie Chaplin's career: The Jazz Singer, released at the end of 1927, had seen sound take cinema by storm, but Chaplin resisted the change-up, preferring to continue in the silent tradition. In retrospect, this isn't so much the precious behaviour of a purist but the smart reaction of an experienced comedian; Chaplin's films rarely used intertitles anyway, and though it is technically "silent", City Lights is very mindful of it own self-composed score and keenly judged sound effects.
At its heart,...
- 11/22/2013
- The Guardian - Film News
If you’re a devout Catholic, or alternatively, just a fan of nuns – it may be worth steering clear of the cinema this weekend, because between the British drama Philomena and Guillaume Nicloux’s The Nun, the church comes under some real scrutiny, in films that challenge tradition and belief, as this French feature paints a somewhat bleak and disquieting picture of life in a convent.
Unlike her two older sisters, Suzanne Simonin’s (Pauline Etienne) parents cannot afford to marry off their daughter, instead forcing her against her will to live at a nunnery. Her agonising life transpires into becoming a tale of three Mother Superiors: the first being a kind-hearted woman who looks out for Suzanne, despite the teenager making reservations towards the church perfectly clear. The second is the vicious Christine (Louise Bourgoin), who subjects the youngster to both mental and physical abuse, while finally we have...
Unlike her two older sisters, Suzanne Simonin’s (Pauline Etienne) parents cannot afford to marry off their daughter, instead forcing her against her will to live at a nunnery. Her agonising life transpires into becoming a tale of three Mother Superiors: the first being a kind-hearted woman who looks out for Suzanne, despite the teenager making reservations towards the church perfectly clear. The second is the vicious Christine (Louise Bourgoin), who subjects the youngster to both mental and physical abuse, while finally we have...
- 10/29/2013
- by Stefan Pape
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Director Arnaud Desplechin sends Mathieu Amalric packing. Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Joaquin Phoenix and Marion Cotillard give us characters who decide on survival in James Gray's The Immigrant. Mathieu Amalric as a therapist of veiled past confronts the title's Native American war veteran played by Benicio Del Toro in Arnaud Desplechin's resonant Jimmy P: Psychotherapy Of A Plains Indian, and Gloria (Paulina García) in Sebastián Lelio's film knows that you don't need to be in a costume drama to dress up. Free association may lead from a skateboard ride in (Gloria producer) Pablo Larraín's No to dancing skeletons, Arthur Ripley's gripping The Chase to John Huston's Let There Be Light, and Maria Falconetti's performance in Dreyer's Jeanne d'Arc to rickets.
Who are you? How does reinvention work? Do we have to change country, nationality, language, or profession to become ourselves?
The Immigrant
Joaquin Phoenix...
Joaquin Phoenix and Marion Cotillard give us characters who decide on survival in James Gray's The Immigrant. Mathieu Amalric as a therapist of veiled past confronts the title's Native American war veteran played by Benicio Del Toro in Arnaud Desplechin's resonant Jimmy P: Psychotherapy Of A Plains Indian, and Gloria (Paulina García) in Sebastián Lelio's film knows that you don't need to be in a costume drama to dress up. Free association may lead from a skateboard ride in (Gloria producer) Pablo Larraín's No to dancing skeletons, Arthur Ripley's gripping The Chase to John Huston's Let There Be Light, and Maria Falconetti's performance in Dreyer's Jeanne d'Arc to rickets.
Who are you? How does reinvention work? Do we have to change country, nationality, language, or profession to become ourselves?
The Immigrant
Joaquin Phoenix...
- 10/13/2013
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Can another silent, black and white film be a smash hit after the Artist? If it packs a surreal Spanish twist, believes the director who recast Snow White as a matador in Blancanieves
In May 2011 the Spanish writer-director Pablo Berger was busily prepping his second film, Blancanieves. After an eight-year struggle to raise funding, he was finally about to start shooting a film whose uniqueness he was convinced would surprise and delight audiences the world over. After all, this was the sort of mainstream entertainment that hadn't been seen in decades — a black and white, silent movie, complete with lush orchestration.
But then came the Cannes film festival, and The Artist.
"Nobody knew about The Artist until it appeared in Cannes," he recalls, with a reflex ruefulness. "It was completely out of the blue. I was in my office in Madrid, doing the storyboards for my film, when a producer...
In May 2011 the Spanish writer-director Pablo Berger was busily prepping his second film, Blancanieves. After an eight-year struggle to raise funding, he was finally about to start shooting a film whose uniqueness he was convinced would surprise and delight audiences the world over. After all, this was the sort of mainstream entertainment that hadn't been seen in decades — a black and white, silent movie, complete with lush orchestration.
But then came the Cannes film festival, and The Artist.
"Nobody knew about The Artist until it appeared in Cannes," he recalls, with a reflex ruefulness. "It was completely out of the blue. I was in my office in Madrid, doing the storyboards for my film, when a producer...
- 7/11/2013
- by Demetrios Matheou
- The Guardian - Film News
The Passion of Joan of Arc
Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer
Written by Carl Theodor Dreyer & Joseph Delteil
France, 1928
The Toronto Silent Film Festival got off to an impressive start at Innis Hall on Thursday night, as a packed room experienced the inspired fusion of two complementary works of art, created 85 years apart. One of the most exciting things about silent films is their tantalizingly protean quality, thanks to the conditions under which they were produced. What might once have been considered a weakness (especially from the point of view of an autocratic auteur intent upon controlling every aspect of the production) has now become a source of strength. Because they rely upon the kindness of musical strangers in order to come fully into being, silent films have an open-endedness to them which makes them infinitely more available (at least in some ways) to contemporary audiences than classic films made...
Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer
Written by Carl Theodor Dreyer & Joseph Delteil
France, 1928
The Toronto Silent Film Festival got off to an impressive start at Innis Hall on Thursday night, as a packed room experienced the inspired fusion of two complementary works of art, created 85 years apart. One of the most exciting things about silent films is their tantalizingly protean quality, thanks to the conditions under which they were produced. What might once have been considered a weakness (especially from the point of view of an autocratic auteur intent upon controlling every aspect of the production) has now become a source of strength. Because they rely upon the kindness of musical strangers in order to come fully into being, silent films have an open-endedness to them which makes them infinitely more available (at least in some ways) to contemporary audiences than classic films made...
- 4/5/2013
- by David Fiore
- SoundOnSight
Odd List Aliya Whiteley Feb 19, 2013
Covering 85 years of cinema, Aliya provides her pick of 25 stylish, must-see French movies...
I’m going to kick this off in best New-Wave style by pointing out that we should be praising each great director’s body of work rather than showcasing favourite movies in a list format; after all, France came up with the concept of the auteur filmmaker, stamping their personality on a film, using the camera to portray their version of the world.
Yeah, well, personality is everything. So here’s a highly personal choice, arranged in chronological order, of 25 of the most individualistic French films. They may be long or short, old or new, but they all have one thing in common – they’ve got directorial style. And by that I don’t mean their shoes match their handbags.
The Passion Of Joan Of Arc (1928)
There are no stirring battle scenes,...
Covering 85 years of cinema, Aliya provides her pick of 25 stylish, must-see French movies...
I’m going to kick this off in best New-Wave style by pointing out that we should be praising each great director’s body of work rather than showcasing favourite movies in a list format; after all, France came up with the concept of the auteur filmmaker, stamping their personality on a film, using the camera to portray their version of the world.
Yeah, well, personality is everything. So here’s a highly personal choice, arranged in chronological order, of 25 of the most individualistic French films. They may be long or short, old or new, but they all have one thing in common – they’ve got directorial style. And by that I don’t mean their shoes match their handbags.
The Passion Of Joan Of Arc (1928)
There are no stirring battle scenes,...
- 2/18/2013
- by ryanlambie
- Den of Geek
(Carl Theodore Dreyer, 1928, Eureka!, PG)
One of three silent movies featured in Sight & Sound's latest poll of the 10 greatest pictures of all time, The Passion of Joan of Arc was made in France by the Danish master Carl Theodor Dreyer. To play the 19-year-old "Maid", he chose the 35-year-old Renée Falconetti, a French stage star specialising in light comedy. In keeping with his devotion to realism and austerity, his screenplay was based largely on a contemporary transcript of Joan's trial for heresy that concluded with her execution in 1431.
Carefully framed in claustrophobic settings, the picture is most notable for its close-ups, though Dreyer insisted on a whole town being built to represent medieval Rouen. This was Falconetti's only major film and over a period of a year under Dreyer's direction (a combination of cruelty and patience), her extraordinarily expressive face made for one of the greatest, most harrowing screen performances.
One of three silent movies featured in Sight & Sound's latest poll of the 10 greatest pictures of all time, The Passion of Joan of Arc was made in France by the Danish master Carl Theodor Dreyer. To play the 19-year-old "Maid", he chose the 35-year-old Renée Falconetti, a French stage star specialising in light comedy. In keeping with his devotion to realism and austerity, his screenplay was based largely on a contemporary transcript of Joan's trial for heresy that concluded with her execution in 1431.
Carefully framed in claustrophobic settings, the picture is most notable for its close-ups, though Dreyer insisted on a whole town being built to represent medieval Rouen. This was Falconetti's only major film and over a period of a year under Dreyer's direction (a combination of cruelty and patience), her extraordinarily expressive face made for one of the greatest, most harrowing screen performances.
- 2/17/2013
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Recently voted one of the Top 10 Greatest Films of All-Time by Sight & Sound magazine, Carl Theodor Dreyer's mesmeric film, The Passion of Joan Of Arc comes to UK Blu-ray and DVD on 19 November, courtesy of Eureka Entertainment's Masters of Cinema series. Maria Falconetti's stunning performance as the doomed young Christian rebel, is often hailed as one of the greatest displays of screen acting ever committed to film, and Dreyer's haunting, powerful and tragic silent classic has never looked better than in this stunning new restoration. The release includes a piano score performed by silent film composer Mie Yanashita for the 20 frames-per-second version, and a radical accompaniment by esteemed American avant-garde musician Loren Connors for the 24 fps presentation, as well as both...
- 9/21/2012
- Screen Anarchy
(Update: Adam B. Vary’s recap is live!) It’s been an understandable complaint issued by even some of Mad Men’s most ardent fans (including EW’s Ken Tucker) that the last few episodes of season 5 have traded subtle character shifts for sledgehammer shocks. Not to mention that every new installment threatened to spin its plot threads a little bit more obviously around a central unifying theme. So you would have guessed that the finale, titled “The Phantom,” would have saved the most jarring reveals for the end. But not so! By my reckoning at least, ‘The Phantom” was...
- 6/11/2012
- by Christian Blauvelt
- EW.com - PopWatch
Film buffs at America's TCM classic movies TV network have listed Hollywood's 10 best silent classics as a salute to this year's black and white Oscars favourite The Artist.
D.W. Griffith's 1915 Civil War movie The Birth of a Nation makes the list, as does Fritz Lang's Metropolis, Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments and Lon Chaney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
The most recent film on the list is 1928's The Passion of Joan of Arc, starring Renee Maria Falconetti.
D.W. Griffith's 1915 Civil War movie The Birth of a Nation makes the list, as does Fritz Lang's Metropolis, Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments and Lon Chaney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
The most recent film on the list is 1928's The Passion of Joan of Arc, starring Renee Maria Falconetti.
- 1/23/2012
- WENN
On Halloween, the tradition is to indulge in films replete with monsters, zombies, and creatures that go bump in the night. But those types of films don’t always provide the psychological terror cineastes may be craving. International and alternative cinema has always been willing to tread where conventional genre cinema dares not be it in films with strong themes, abrasive tones, or emotional depravity. Halloween can be a time not just to indulge in slimy viscera, but in the general suffering of humanity. These are eleven films whose punishment of the viewer with intense emotions and ideas make them not unlike horror films.
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) / Day of Wrath (1943)
The original king of despair, Carl Dreyer didn’t just gravitate toward miserable material, he embraced it with a technique so perfected, it felt predestined. In The Passion of Joan of Arc, a film consisting almost solely of close-ups,...
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) / Day of Wrath (1943)
The original king of despair, Carl Dreyer didn’t just gravitate toward miserable material, he embraced it with a technique so perfected, it felt predestined. In The Passion of Joan of Arc, a film consisting almost solely of close-ups,...
- 10/30/2011
- by Shane Ramirez
- SoundOnSight
In our newly on-camera law courts, it's a matter of time before someone can't handle the truth
Allowing television cameras inside English and Welsh law courts might be a good thing for democratic transparency, but in entertainment terms, it'll be a disaster. On the one hand it will reveal the gaping chasm between legal dramas like Damages or Anatomy of a Murder and the mundane reality of some old duffer in a wig droning on interminably. Worse still is the prospect of that extra limelight encouraging our proud legal system to amp up its performance aspects.
So brace yourself, magistrates, for a sudden rash of mavericks operating out of their cars (Matthew McConaughey in The Lincoln Lawyer), ditzy prosecutors using the courtroom as a catwalk (Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde), or macho barristers chewing the oak panelling (Al Pacino in … And Justice For All, The Devil's Advocate, you name it).
If we're lucky,...
Allowing television cameras inside English and Welsh law courts might be a good thing for democratic transparency, but in entertainment terms, it'll be a disaster. On the one hand it will reveal the gaping chasm between legal dramas like Damages or Anatomy of a Murder and the mundane reality of some old duffer in a wig droning on interminably. Worse still is the prospect of that extra limelight encouraging our proud legal system to amp up its performance aspects.
So brace yourself, magistrates, for a sudden rash of mavericks operating out of their cars (Matthew McConaughey in The Lincoln Lawyer), ditzy prosecutors using the courtroom as a catwalk (Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde), or macho barristers chewing the oak panelling (Al Pacino in … And Justice For All, The Devil's Advocate, you name it).
If we're lucky,...
- 9/7/2011
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
Much like Pa Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie, Michael Bay apparently believes that girls should be seen and not heard. How else do you explain the fact that, in every major trailer for Transformers: Dark of the Rising Fallen Moon, new co-star Rosie Huntington-Whiteley has barely had a line of dialogue? No doubt you were pondering: Would Huntington-Whiteley’s whole performance be performed in silent close-up, like Maria Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc? But, as was proven in a clip that debuted a fortnight ago, she actually she actually will speak in the movie.
- 6/3/2011
- by Darren Franich
- EW - Inside Movies
Clemence Poesy in The Silence of Joan
Photo: Sophie Dulac Distribution Standing in line for Philippe Ramos' The Silence of Joan (Jeanne Captive) another critic wondered aloud, "Will this be more Carl Theodor Dreyer or Luc Besson?" It's a question I would think anyone walking in was wondering considering The Passion of Joan of Arc and The Messenger are probably the two best known cinematic versions of The Maid of Orleans' tale even though several other versions have been told in-between the 71 years that separate the silent classic from the rather over-bearing Milla Jovovich edition. However, no matter what you think of those two, you'll even respect Besson's overblown edition much more than you will this latest telling, because at least he tried.
Here, The Silence of Joan makes hardly an effort to deviate from the story's path or offer up a unique way in presenting it. All we...
Photo: Sophie Dulac Distribution Standing in line for Philippe Ramos' The Silence of Joan (Jeanne Captive) another critic wondered aloud, "Will this be more Carl Theodor Dreyer or Luc Besson?" It's a question I would think anyone walking in was wondering considering The Passion of Joan of Arc and The Messenger are probably the two best known cinematic versions of The Maid of Orleans' tale even though several other versions have been told in-between the 71 years that separate the silent classic from the rather over-bearing Milla Jovovich edition. However, no matter what you think of those two, you'll even respect Besson's overblown edition much more than you will this latest telling, because at least he tried.
Here, The Silence of Joan makes hardly an effort to deviate from the story's path or offer up a unique way in presenting it. All we...
- 5/15/2011
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Short hair on female characters is usually a humiliating punishment – and a small step to alien, monster or homicidal maniac
All the way through Scream 4, I was itching for a freeze-frame of Hayden Panettiere's hairdo, so that I could give it an in-depth examination. What the hell was it? Some kind of demi-pompadour with the curlicues glued flat? I suspect that if you were to poke at it, it would be rock-solid, like a Ken doll coiffure. I think it's great they gave her short hair. But did it have to be so weird?
Then again, short hair invariably seems weird in a Hollywood where flowing locks are the norm. Even Demi Moore, who rocked the pixie cut in Ghost, now sports a poker-straight curtain. Hilary Swank goes long between androgyny trims for Boys Don't Cry or Amelia. Who is known for their short hair nowadays? Halle Berry?...
All the way through Scream 4, I was itching for a freeze-frame of Hayden Panettiere's hairdo, so that I could give it an in-depth examination. What the hell was it? Some kind of demi-pompadour with the curlicues glued flat? I suspect that if you were to poke at it, it would be rock-solid, like a Ken doll coiffure. I think it's great they gave her short hair. But did it have to be so weird?
Then again, short hair invariably seems weird in a Hollywood where flowing locks are the norm. Even Demi Moore, who rocked the pixie cut in Ghost, now sports a poker-straight curtain. Hilary Swank goes long between androgyny trims for Boys Don't Cry or Amelia. Who is known for their short hair nowadays? Halle Berry?...
- 4/28/2011
- by Anne Billson
- The Guardian - Film News
The following video comes courtesy of "The New York Times" from their "Fourteen Actors Acting: A Video Gallery of Classic Screen Types" project scored by Owen Pallett and directed by Solve Sundsbo. This came online yesterday, but as I looked through the various silent performances I couldn't make out just what "classic" screen types each was mimicking. So, as everyone and their mother posted the videos yesterday I was hoping someone would shed some light on each so I could pass the information on to you, but alas, no one that I've found has mentioned a single film in relation to each performance. I didn't even notice anyone mentioning how Tilda Swinton is obviously channeling Maria Falconetti's performance from The Passion of Joan of Arc or Jennifer Lawrence's obvious Janet Leigh in Psycho impression.
I can't help but be reminded of North by Northwest from Anthony Mackie's video,...
I can't help but be reminded of North by Northwest from Anthony Mackie's video,...
- 12/9/2010
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Filed under: Cinematical
Everyone knows that there are three reasons why teens are such a hot and dependable box office commodity: sex, sex, and their penchant for hot and raging religious fanaticism. Wait... one of those things seems wrong (I think it's the second "sex.") But seriously folks, religious fervor is simply too prickly a subject - and one not sufficiently prom-oriented - to find its way into most Hollywood films about and intended for teenagers. I'm sure 'Degrassi' has it covered on the TV side of things, but my generation is still anxiously awaiting our own 'The Passion of Joan of Arc,' and just because Carl Theodor Dryer has been a lazy bastard dead in recent years doesn't mean that contemporary filmmakers should let the studios confine such an increasingly topical subject to the fringe and foreign likes of 'Martyrs' and 'Silent Light' (if this reads like...
Everyone knows that there are three reasons why teens are such a hot and dependable box office commodity: sex, sex, and their penchant for hot and raging religious fanaticism. Wait... one of those things seems wrong (I think it's the second "sex.") But seriously folks, religious fervor is simply too prickly a subject - and one not sufficiently prom-oriented - to find its way into most Hollywood films about and intended for teenagers. I'm sure 'Degrassi' has it covered on the TV side of things, but my generation is still anxiously awaiting our own 'The Passion of Joan of Arc,' and just because Carl Theodor Dryer has been a lazy bastard dead in recent years doesn't mean that contemporary filmmakers should let the studios confine such an increasingly topical subject to the fringe and foreign likes of 'Martyrs' and 'Silent Light' (if this reads like...
- 9/17/2010
- by David Ehrlich
- Moviefone
Filed under: Cinematical
Everyone knows that there are three reasons why teens are such a hot and dependable box office commodity: sex, sex, and their penchant for hot and raging religious fanaticism. Wait... one of those things seems wrong (I think it's the second "sex.") But seriously folks, religious fervor is simply too prickly a subject - and one not sufficiently prom-oriented - to find its way into most Hollywood films about and intended for teenagers. I'm sure 'Degrassi' has it covered on the TV side of things, but my generation is still anxiously awaiting our own 'The Passion of Joan of Arc,' and just because Carl Theodor Dryer has been a lazy bastard dead in recent years doesn't mean that contemporary filmmakers should let the studios confine such an increasingly topical subject to the fringe and foreign likes of 'Martyrs' and 'Silent Light' (if this reads like...
Everyone knows that there are three reasons why teens are such a hot and dependable box office commodity: sex, sex, and their penchant for hot and raging religious fanaticism. Wait... one of those things seems wrong (I think it's the second "sex.") But seriously folks, religious fervor is simply too prickly a subject - and one not sufficiently prom-oriented - to find its way into most Hollywood films about and intended for teenagers. I'm sure 'Degrassi' has it covered on the TV side of things, but my generation is still anxiously awaiting our own 'The Passion of Joan of Arc,' and just because Carl Theodor Dryer has been a lazy bastard dead in recent years doesn't mean that contemporary filmmakers should let the studios confine such an increasingly topical subject to the fringe and foreign likes of 'Martyrs' and 'Silent Light' (if this reads like...
- 9/17/2010
- by David Ehrlich
- Cinematical
The close-up is one of the few areas in which cinema genuinely demonstrates the maxim 'show, don't tell'. So will Botox put it at risk?
Towards the end of The Leopard, there's a 20-second close-up, in which Burt Lancaster stares into a mirror and a tear runs down his cheek. And we feel his pain. It's of a different order to the close-ups in The Expendables, where the beaten-up mugs of Sylvester Stallone and Mickey Rourke have evidently known pain, but we don't share it. I, at any rate, was too preoccupied with trying to map the strange, rugged topography of their faces.
Let us put aside for now the distinctions between medium close-up, close-up and extreme close-up, though I did recently stumble across the pleasing information that, in French, the medium shot is also known as the plan Américain – so-called because in westerns it allows us to see the...
Towards the end of The Leopard, there's a 20-second close-up, in which Burt Lancaster stares into a mirror and a tear runs down his cheek. And we feel his pain. It's of a different order to the close-ups in The Expendables, where the beaten-up mugs of Sylvester Stallone and Mickey Rourke have evidently known pain, but we don't share it. I, at any rate, was too preoccupied with trying to map the strange, rugged topography of their faces.
Let us put aside for now the distinctions between medium close-up, close-up and extreme close-up, though I did recently stumble across the pleasing information that, in French, the medium shot is also known as the plan Américain – so-called because in westerns it allows us to see the...
- 8/27/2010
- by Anne Billson
- The Guardian - Film News
Colston Hall, Bristol
Plenty of pop artists have written and performed soundtracks for silent films recently, but few are as fit for the job as Portishead's Adrian Utley and Goldfrapp's Will Gregory. Their groups have always made ambitious, cinematic music, and both men have classical clout – Gregory as a former saxophonist for the London Sinfonietta, and Utley as a composer for film and TV.
This is their first live score together, for a long-lost 1928 expressionist classic. It was found again in 1981, and an ensemble of electric guitars, voices, synthesisers, brass, harp and percussion, conducted by BBC presenter Charles Hazlewood, are here recreating and amplifying its menace and myths.
The eerie whirr of the hall's film projector leads us into the action, but the music begins monotonously. Bass trombones, tuba and drums plod out obvious hints of portent, while shrill sopranos and tenors arrive like godly shorthand. But as Joan's fate darkens,...
Plenty of pop artists have written and performed soundtracks for silent films recently, but few are as fit for the job as Portishead's Adrian Utley and Goldfrapp's Will Gregory. Their groups have always made ambitious, cinematic music, and both men have classical clout – Gregory as a former saxophonist for the London Sinfonietta, and Utley as a composer for film and TV.
This is their first live score together, for a long-lost 1928 expressionist classic. It was found again in 1981, and an ensemble of electric guitars, voices, synthesisers, brass, harp and percussion, conducted by BBC presenter Charles Hazlewood, are here recreating and amplifying its menace and myths.
The eerie whirr of the hall's film projector leads us into the action, but the music begins monotonously. Bass trombones, tuba and drums plod out obvious hints of portent, while shrill sopranos and tenors arrive like godly shorthand. But as Joan's fate darkens,...
- 5/11/2010
- by Jude Rogers
- The Guardian - Film News
In one of Vivre Sa Vie’s 12 chapter-like “tableaux,” and one of the most famous scenes in Jean-Luc Godard’s career, star Anna Karina watches Maria Falconetti’s unsettlingly raw performance in Carl Dreyer’s The Passion Of Joan Of Arc. It’s the moment when Falconetti’s Joan has been sentenced to die at the stake. Karina’s character seems to have little in common with the woman she watches, but Falconetti’s fate moves her to fingernail-sized tears in one of only a few moments when it’s clear what’s going on beneath her carefully composed ...
- 4/21/2010
- avclub.com
Watching a classic movie on the big screen for the first time is akin to traveling back in time to meet your parents before you were born. Whatever you thought you knew no longer applies.
I've seen Carl Theodor Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) several times at home, but SXSW gave me the opportunity to experience it the way it was meant to be seen. Or at least an approximation: I doubt that Dreyer ever imagined that his movie might be accompanied by musicians playing synthesizers, or that people would be eating a breakfast burrito and sipping hot coffee at a place called the Alamo Drafthouse while his inspirational film unreeled. I was immediately -- I mean literally from the moment the first image appeared -- captivated, and quickly became enthralled in the drama of an 82-year-old creation. And I realized that everything I thought I knew...
I've seen Carl Theodor Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) several times at home, but SXSW gave me the opportunity to experience it the way it was meant to be seen. Or at least an approximation: I doubt that Dreyer ever imagined that his movie might be accompanied by musicians playing synthesizers, or that people would be eating a breakfast burrito and sipping hot coffee at a place called the Alamo Drafthouse while his inspirational film unreeled. I was immediately -- I mean literally from the moment the first image appeared -- captivated, and quickly became enthralled in the drama of an 82-year-old creation. And I realized that everything I thought I knew...
- 3/22/2010
- by Peter Martin
- Cinematical
It's likely that the Oscar has gone to the wrong performance in the Best Actress category more times than it has for Best Actor. You won't find Bette Davis here for All About Eve, or Gloria Swanson for Sunset Boulevard; they were both beaten by Judy Holliday for Born Yesterday.
There's no Shirley Maclaine for The Apartment, no Sigourney Weaver for either good Alien performance, no Angela Bassett for What's Love Got to Do With It?, no Cate Blanchett for Elizabeth, and no Maria Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc. Just think of how different this list would look only counting those oversights.
But here are our rankings of the best performances to ever win Best Actress. Debate away...
There's no Shirley Maclaine for The Apartment, no Sigourney Weaver for either good Alien performance, no Angela Bassett for What's Love Got to Do With It?, no Cate Blanchett for Elizabeth, and no Maria Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc. Just think of how different this list would look only counting those oversights.
But here are our rankings of the best performances to ever win Best Actress. Debate away...
- 3/4/2010
- by Colin Boyd
- GetTheBigPicture.net
Less than a week worth of recovering from the Sundance Film Festival, and we are already looking forward to our next, big film fest coverage. That would be the South by Southwest Film Festival held annually in Austin, Texas. Last year, Scott and I brought you all kinds of coverage from the Lone Star State, and this year doesn’t look to be much different.
With that, the announcement came last night of the feature films that will be playing at the SXSW Film Festival. Previous announcement were already made about films like Cold Weather, Electra Luxx, Hubble 3D, Lemmy, Saturday Night, and The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights making their debut. Kick-ass was recently announced as the opening night film, as well.
Among the other films being presented this year are some Sundance darlings, a few, highly anticipated premieres, and MacGruber.
Check out the full list...
With that, the announcement came last night of the feature films that will be playing at the SXSW Film Festival. Previous announcement were already made about films like Cold Weather, Electra Luxx, Hubble 3D, Lemmy, Saturday Night, and The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights making their debut. Kick-ass was recently announced as the opening night film, as well.
Among the other films being presented this year are some Sundance darlings, a few, highly anticipated premieres, and MacGruber.
Check out the full list...
- 2/4/2010
- by Kirk
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Late yesterday the SXSW Fim Festival, which runs from March 12-20 in Austin, TX, announced the full lineup of films that will be screening at this year’s event. And baby, it’s quite a list. Mixing big name films with intimate indie gems, the sheer number of films and the vast array of talented filmmakers is sure to be a hit with attendees and critics alike.
This lineup includes premieres of studio films such as Universal’s MacGruber, Lionsgate’s teen superhero actioneer Kick-Ass and smaller films like Tim Blake Nelson’s Leaves of Grass, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Micmacs, Michel Gondry’s The Thorn in the Heart and Steven Soderbergh’s And Everything Is Going Fine. With so many films to watch, it will be very difficult to find time to seem them all during the events nine days. But hell, we’re going to try.
For more on...
This lineup includes premieres of studio films such as Universal’s MacGruber, Lionsgate’s teen superhero actioneer Kick-Ass and smaller films like Tim Blake Nelson’s Leaves of Grass, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Micmacs, Michel Gondry’s The Thorn in the Heart and Steven Soderbergh’s And Everything Is Going Fine. With so many films to watch, it will be very difficult to find time to seem them all during the events nine days. But hell, we’re going to try.
For more on...
- 2/4/2010
- by Chris Ullrich
- The Flickcast
The 2010 SXSW Film Festival and Conference has announced its initial slate of titles. The list is rife with hot world premieres (Kick-Ass), films fresh from Sundance (The Runaways, Cyrus), hot titles from the 2009 editions of Tiff and Cannes that haven't had much U.S. play (Enter the Void, Dogtooth, Trash Humpers), interesting documentaries (Lemmy, The People v. George Lucas) and much, much more. Simon Rumley's Red, White & Blue, which has received much praise on Twitch based on its Iffr screenings, will have its North American premiere.
Midnight programming courtesy of Fantastic Fest is also back with titles like Higanjima, Monsters, Serbian Film, Outcast, and a yet to be announced special film. Keep eye out for SXSW coverage at Twitch, but for now, pursue the massive list below (descriptions courtesy of SXSW).
Headliners
Big names, big talent: Headliners bring star power to SXSW, featuring red carpet premieres and gala film...
Midnight programming courtesy of Fantastic Fest is also back with titles like Higanjima, Monsters, Serbian Film, Outcast, and a yet to be announced special film. Keep eye out for SXSW coverage at Twitch, but for now, pursue the massive list below (descriptions courtesy of SXSW).
Headliners
Big names, big talent: Headliners bring star power to SXSW, featuring red carpet premieres and gala film...
- 2/4/2010
- Screen Anarchy
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