It’s another eclectic month for Mubi releases as they’ve announced their July 2022 slate. When it comes to new releases, highlights include Albert Birney and Kentucker Audley’s inventive Sundance hit Strawberry Mansion, Andrew Dominik’s new Nick Cave and Warren Ellis documentary This Much I Know to Be True, Camilo Restrepo’s Los conductos, Laura Wendel’s Oscar-shortlisted drama Playground, and Lucrecia Martel’s new short North Terminal.
They’ll also be featuring Johnnie To’s Drug War, King Hu’s Raining in the Mountain, Terence Davies’ Sunset Song, Bertrand Bonello’s Zombi Child, a pair of features from both Diao Yi’nan and Athina Rachel Tsangari, and much more.
Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.
July 1 – Strawberry Mansion, directed by Albert Birney, Kentucker Audley | Mubi Spotlight
July 2 – The Wild Goose Lake, directed by Diao Yi’nan | The Electric Dark: Two Neo-noirs by Diao Yinan
July 3 – Little Girl,...
They’ll also be featuring Johnnie To’s Drug War, King Hu’s Raining in the Mountain, Terence Davies’ Sunset Song, Bertrand Bonello’s Zombi Child, a pair of features from both Diao Yi’nan and Athina Rachel Tsangari, and much more.
Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.
July 1 – Strawberry Mansion, directed by Albert Birney, Kentucker Audley | Mubi Spotlight
July 2 – The Wild Goose Lake, directed by Diao Yi’nan | The Electric Dark: Two Neo-noirs by Diao Yinan
July 3 – Little Girl,...
- 6/29/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
A delegation of 10 Polish producers will travel to the San Sebastian Film Festival to take part in the Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum, which this year selected the eastern European nation for its Focus on program.
For the sixth edition of Focus on, which invites industry professionals from a specific country or territory to the Spanish fest, Polish bizzers will have an opportunity to build professional networks with their counterparts elsewhere in Europe and in Latin America.
“We think Polish film is going through a great moment thanks to a very interesting new generation of filmmakers which we follow closely,” said San Sebastian industry head Esperanza Luffiego, selection committee member Roberto Cueto, and head of foreign press Gemma Beltrán by email.
They noted that the producers invited “have a record of international co-productions,” adding that their presence in the Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum is “part of the festival strategy creating an...
For the sixth edition of Focus on, which invites industry professionals from a specific country or territory to the Spanish fest, Polish bizzers will have an opportunity to build professional networks with their counterparts elsewhere in Europe and in Latin America.
“We think Polish film is going through a great moment thanks to a very interesting new generation of filmmakers which we follow closely,” said San Sebastian industry head Esperanza Luffiego, selection committee member Roberto Cueto, and head of foreign press Gemma Beltrán by email.
They noted that the producers invited “have a record of international co-productions,” adding that their presence in the Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum is “part of the festival strategy creating an...
- 9/9/2019
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
The Notebook is covering Tiff with an on-going correspondence between critics Fernando F. Croce, Kelley Dong, and editor Daniel Kasman.The Painted BirdDear Kelley and Fern,Leonardo has already written on Václav Marhoul’s sprawling and undeniably uncomfortable The Painted Bird, but since I know neither of you are seeing it, I wanted to expand a bit more on this picaresque of human suffering. Based on the 1965 novel by Polish writer Jerzy Kosiński (who also wrote Being There), it episodically shuttles an orphaned boy from person to person around an unnamed Eastern European countryside of such provincial poverty it might as well be pre-industrial. We see a Luftwaffe scout plane early on, yet the deliberately measured effect of Marhoul’s decidedly relaxed storytelling is that of slowly pushing this boy from an older, nearly medieval past of superstition, into a Christian community, then into the Second War World and a key post-war coda.
- 9/9/2019
- MUBI
It will help Poland to compete as a location with Hungary and the Czech Republic.
The Polish Film Institute (Pfi) has approved and will administrate a 30% cash rebate for incoming film, TV, documentary and animation productions that shoot in Poland from January 2019.
To qualify for the rebate, international producers will be required to work with a local partner and spend at least $1m in Poland for a feature film that is co-produced locally, $540,000 if the feature project is set up as a service production and works wtih a Polish line producer rather than co-producer, and $400,000 per episode for TV projects.
The Polish Film Institute (Pfi) has approved and will administrate a 30% cash rebate for incoming film, TV, documentary and animation productions that shoot in Poland from January 2019.
To qualify for the rebate, international producers will be required to work with a local partner and spend at least $1m in Poland for a feature film that is co-produced locally, $540,000 if the feature project is set up as a service production and works wtih a Polish line producer rather than co-producer, and $400,000 per episode for TV projects.
- 10/29/2018
- by Louise Tutt
- ScreenDaily
Mubi's retrospective The Many Sins of Walerian Borowczyk is showing February 12 - June 18, 2017 in the United States and in many other countries around the world.The late 1970s marks a stylistic departure for Walerian Borowczyk, as the Polish director moved away from a controlled, painterly style and toward a ‘corporeal’ style, wherein changes in aesthetic choices allowed him to explore the human body in greater depth than in his previous films. While the liberal portrayal of sex and sexuality (lending itself to the liberal portrayal of bodies, human or otherwise) is present in Borowczyk’s live-action films as early as his anthology Immoral Tales from 1973, the preoccupation with the body specifically comes to the fore with the films Behind Convent Walls (1978), Immoral Women (1979), L’armoire (1979), Lulu (1980), and The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Miss Osbourne (1981). It is in this four-year period that the viewer will notice Borowczyk's moving away...
- 4/6/2017
- MUBI
Assessing the Legacy of Ken Russell’s Masterpiece 45 Years Later.
Ken Russell’s The Devils (1971) holds the distinct honor of simultaneously being the most controversial and the most banned film of all time. It is a film lauded by film critics as a masterpiece, one that routinely tops Must See and Best Film lists, and yet it is still largely unavailable on DVD and has never been released without the interference of heavy handed studio censorship and edits. It is a film that critics encourage viewers to watch via an illegal stream, simply because it must be seen. So what is it about The Devils that makes it so beloved by everyone but the studio holding the key to its release?
The History
The Devils is based on The Devils of Loudun, a 1952 book by Aldous Huxley, as well as The Devils, a 1960 play by John Whiting. All three tell the story of the 1632 possession of 27 nuns...
Ken Russell’s The Devils (1971) holds the distinct honor of simultaneously being the most controversial and the most banned film of all time. It is a film lauded by film critics as a masterpiece, one that routinely tops Must See and Best Film lists, and yet it is still largely unavailable on DVD and has never been released without the interference of heavy handed studio censorship and edits. It is a film that critics encourage viewers to watch via an illegal stream, simply because it must be seen. So what is it about The Devils that makes it so beloved by everyone but the studio holding the key to its release?
The History
The Devils is based on The Devils of Loudun, a 1952 book by Aldous Huxley, as well as The Devils, a 1960 play by John Whiting. All three tell the story of the 1632 possession of 27 nuns...
- 7/18/2016
- by Jamie Righetti
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
★★★★☆ There's a moment of cinematic perfection around forty minutes into Jerzy Kawalerowicz's Austeria (1981). It's an instant of the kind of visual poetry that enlivens the medium in the viewer's mind and reminds us of the simple potency that film can have in the hands of a real master. A girl runs through a field, fleeing the sound of soldiers' gunshots. The picture is desaturated, like many films involving war; her dress is bright white against a sea of brown fronds in a clearly perishing crop. Suddenly she stops; she's been hit. And Kawalerowicz slowly turns the colour on to reveal a field of blood-red shrubbery, symbolically painted by her death. It's utterly chilling and incomprehensibly beautiful.
- 5/26/2015
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
★★★★☆ For his sixth feature, renowned Polish director Jerzy Kawalerowicz decided to board the Night Train (1959), inspired by his frequent trips to woo actress Lucyna Winnicka. She would star in the resulting thriller which was to prove no mere potboiler, but instead the chance to put his characters in an intense pressure cooker of tension. With his country having emerged from a period of cultural Stalinism, Kawalerowicz and screenwriter Jerzy Lutowski used generic motifs to place a cross-section of Polish society aboard the titular train together and psychologically examine them within the confines of one particular sleeping carriage.
- 5/17/2015
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
★★★★☆ With the fires of the Second World War still smouldering European cinema rose from the embers across the continent. At one time such resurgence took place through the Polish Film School, a movement intended to make films that would help their country come to terms with the war and all that had happened within her borders. Directors such as the colossal Andrzej Wajda, Jerzy Kawalerowicz and Wojciech Jerzy Has made films that sought to express the deep ramifications of the conflict and deconstruct national myths that they felt hindered healing. Notions of heroism are firmly in the sights of Andrzej Munk with his pitch black satire, Eroica (1958).
- 4/13/2015
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Martin Scorsese Presents Masterpieces of Polish Cinema brings together 24 films chosen by Scorsese, including The Last Day of Summer and Camouflage [pictured].
Kinoteka Polish Film Festival, BFI Southbank and Filmhouse Edinburgh are collaborating on a national UK tour of Polish cinema.
Martin Scorsese Presents Masterpieces of Polish Cinema brings together 24 films chosen by Scorsese, all restored and digitally remastered to 2K resolution, as well as a series of contextual workshops, talks, exhibitions and special guests, all with the aim of exploring Polish film culture.
Scorsese commented: “These are films that have great emotional and visual power – they’re ‘serious’ films that, with their depth, stand up to repeated viewings. There are many revelations in the season and whether you’re familiar with some of these films or not, it’s an incredible opportunity to discover for yourself the great power of Polish Cinema, on the big screen.”
The season includes films from the likes of Andrzej Wajda, [link...
Kinoteka Polish Film Festival, BFI Southbank and Filmhouse Edinburgh are collaborating on a national UK tour of Polish cinema.
Martin Scorsese Presents Masterpieces of Polish Cinema brings together 24 films chosen by Scorsese, all restored and digitally remastered to 2K resolution, as well as a series of contextual workshops, talks, exhibitions and special guests, all with the aim of exploring Polish film culture.
Scorsese commented: “These are films that have great emotional and visual power – they’re ‘serious’ films that, with their depth, stand up to repeated viewings. There are many revelations in the season and whether you’re familiar with some of these films or not, it’s an incredible opportunity to discover for yourself the great power of Polish Cinema, on the big screen.”
The season includes films from the likes of Andrzej Wajda, [link...
- 3/13/2015
- by ian.sandwell@screendaily.com (Ian Sandwell)
- ScreenDaily
"Tadeusz Konwicki, a prominent Polish writer and filmmaker whose works during the communist era lampooned the authoritarian Soviet-imposed system, has died," reports the AP. And Radio Poland notes that as a screenwriter, "he is noted for adapting Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz's novella Mother Joan of the Angels for Jerzy Kawalerowicz's cult 1961 film, which deals with possession in a 17th century nunnery. Among many other scripts, he also worked with Kawalerowicz on the epic adaptation of Boleslaw Prus's novel Pharoah. Konwicki likewise achieved success as a director with such films as Jump (Salto), the 1965 movie that became a favorite of Martin Scorsese. He also directed his own adaptation of Nobel Prize-winner Czeslaw Milosz's novel The Issa Valley, returning to the Lithuanian countryside of his youth." » - David Hudson...
- 1/9/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
"Tadeusz Konwicki, a prominent Polish writer and filmmaker whose works during the communist era lampooned the authoritarian Soviet-imposed system, has died," reports the AP. And Radio Poland notes that as a screenwriter, "he is noted for adapting Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz's novella Mother Joan of the Angels for Jerzy Kawalerowicz's cult 1961 film, which deals with possession in a 17th century nunnery. Among many other scripts, he also worked with Kawalerowicz on the epic adaptation of Boleslaw Prus's novel Pharoah. Konwicki likewise achieved success as a director with such films as Jump (Salto), the 1965 movie that became a favorite of Martin Scorsese. He also directed his own adaptation of Nobel Prize-winner Czeslaw Milosz's novel The Issa Valley, returning to the Lithuanian countryside of his youth." » - David Hudson...
- 1/9/2015
- Keyframe
How would you program this year's newest, most interesting films into double features with movies of the past you saw in 2014?
Looking back over the year at what films moved and impressed us, it is clear that watching old films is a crucial part of making new films meaningful. Thus, the annual tradition of our end of year poll, which calls upon our writers to pick both a new and an old film: they were challenged to choose a new film they saw in 2014—in theatres or at a festival—and creatively pair it with an old film they also saw in 2014 to create a unique double feature.
All the contributors were given the option to write some text explaining their 2014 fantasy double feature. What's more, each writer was given the option to list more pairings, with or without explanation, as further imaginative film programming we'd be lucky to catch...
Looking back over the year at what films moved and impressed us, it is clear that watching old films is a crucial part of making new films meaningful. Thus, the annual tradition of our end of year poll, which calls upon our writers to pick both a new and an old film: they were challenged to choose a new film they saw in 2014—in theatres or at a festival—and creatively pair it with an old film they also saw in 2014 to create a unique double feature.
All the contributors were given the option to write some text explaining their 2014 fantasy double feature. What's more, each writer was given the option to list more pairings, with or without explanation, as further imaginative film programming we'd be lucky to catch...
- 1/5/2015
- by Notebook
- MUBI
Mother Joan of the Angels
Written by Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz, Tadeusz Konwicki, and Jerzy Kawalerowicz
Directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz
Poland, 1961
Tales of possession run deep through any religious or formerly religious society. They may act as a primitive explanation for madness, a cultural example of the physical manifestation of evil, or, on some occasions, a political tool. Though the horror of these events comes in accounts early enough to be placed in the Old Testament, there exists an intellectual horror of possession that pervades the modern world. Though not explicitly speaking of possession, René Descartes hypothesized an omnipotent “evil demon” thought experiment that may help with our idea of the “self”. The idea goes that this demon may be altering the physical world around us, such that our bodies, our environment, all our sensations, as well as the fundamentals of logic and mathematics may simply be an illusion. Whatever is left,...
Written by Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz, Tadeusz Konwicki, and Jerzy Kawalerowicz
Directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz
Poland, 1961
Tales of possession run deep through any religious or formerly religious society. They may act as a primitive explanation for madness, a cultural example of the physical manifestation of evil, or, on some occasions, a political tool. Though the horror of these events comes in accounts early enough to be placed in the Old Testament, there exists an intellectual horror of possession that pervades the modern world. Though not explicitly speaking of possession, René Descartes hypothesized an omnipotent “evil demon” thought experiment that may help with our idea of the “self”. The idea goes that this demon may be altering the physical world around us, such that our bodies, our environment, all our sensations, as well as the fundamentals of logic and mathematics may simply be an illusion. Whatever is left,...
- 10/24/2014
- by Zach Lewis
- SoundOnSight
Above: a Polish poster by Waldemar Swierzy for Mother Joan of the Angels (Jerzy Kawalerowicz, Poland, 1961).
Starting next Wednesday, New York’s Film Society of Lincoln Center, in association with Milestone Films, will kick off "Martin Scorsese presents Masterpieces of Polish Cinema," a must-see 21-film retrospective that will eventually tour the U.S. and Canada.
To accompany the series, Posteritati is mounting an exhibition in Lincoln Center of original Polish posters for most of the films in the series: a rare chance to see some of these masterpieces in the flesh. Where the film series highlights great auteurs like Andrzej Wajda, Krzysztof Zanussi, Wojciech Has and Krzysztof Kieslowski, the exhibition will feature their equivalents in graphic design such as Wojciech Fangor, Franciszek Starowieyski, Roman Cieślewicz, Andrzej Pągowski and Waldemar Świerzy. For those of you who can’t be in New York to see the show, I will be posting some...
Starting next Wednesday, New York’s Film Society of Lincoln Center, in association with Milestone Films, will kick off "Martin Scorsese presents Masterpieces of Polish Cinema," a must-see 21-film retrospective that will eventually tour the U.S. and Canada.
To accompany the series, Posteritati is mounting an exhibition in Lincoln Center of original Polish posters for most of the films in the series: a rare chance to see some of these masterpieces in the flesh. Where the film series highlights great auteurs like Andrzej Wajda, Krzysztof Zanussi, Wojciech Has and Krzysztof Kieslowski, the exhibition will feature their equivalents in graphic design such as Wojciech Fangor, Franciszek Starowieyski, Roman Cieślewicz, Andrzej Pągowski and Waldemar Świerzy. For those of you who can’t be in New York to see the show, I will be posting some...
- 1/31/2014
- by Adrian Curry
- MUBI
Russian distributor Luxor has picked up the upcoming film from actor/producer Alexander Nevsky, Black Rose, shooting in Moscow until July 7.
The production by Nevsky’s own La-based company Hollywood Storm has a cast including Kristanna Loken, Adrian Paul, Robert Davi, Matthias Hues, and world champion ballroom dancer and fitness model Oksana Sidorenko.
The screenplay by Brent Huff and George Saunders centres on a Moscow police major (played by Nevsky) who travels to Los Angeles to help the local police there investigate a series of murders in the Russian immigrant community.
After the Moscow shoot, the film will move to Los Angeles, and theatrical release is planned for December 2013.
Depardieu to play Caucasian hermit
Russian citizen Gérard Depardieu is to follow his title role in Irakli Kvirikadze’s Rasputin, which will close the Moscow International Film Festival on Saturday (June 29), with a part as a Caucasian hermit in Polish film-maker Jan Jakub Kolski’s next feature, My Mother...
The production by Nevsky’s own La-based company Hollywood Storm has a cast including Kristanna Loken, Adrian Paul, Robert Davi, Matthias Hues, and world champion ballroom dancer and fitness model Oksana Sidorenko.
The screenplay by Brent Huff and George Saunders centres on a Moscow police major (played by Nevsky) who travels to Los Angeles to help the local police there investigate a series of murders in the Russian immigrant community.
After the Moscow shoot, the film will move to Los Angeles, and theatrical release is planned for December 2013.
Depardieu to play Caucasian hermit
Russian citizen Gérard Depardieu is to follow his title role in Irakli Kvirikadze’s Rasputin, which will close the Moscow International Film Festival on Saturday (June 29), with a part as a Caucasian hermit in Polish film-maker Jan Jakub Kolski’s next feature, My Mother...
- 6/25/2013
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
I was a sceptic; I thought it could not be done. I did not believe that London could host such an important global event, let alone pull it off with such grandiose confidence. But now the Olympics are over and to be honest, I don’t want it to end. Particularly considering my last images may be that of Jessie J ruining Queen, or Liam Gallagher proving he needs Noel. But with Britain standing 3rd in the medal rankings, we can be proud of our athletes’ efforts. Whether it was handball, hockey or dressage, my eyes were opened to the magic of the Olympics and I’m sad to see them go. So why not cling on for a little bit longer and join me as I attempt to blur the realms of Film and the Summer Olympics.
If you haven’t read my previous parts, then please find them...
If you haven’t read my previous parts, then please find them...
- 9/3/2012
- by Dan Lewis
- Obsessed with Film
For cinephiles, animation afficionados and graphic design connoisseurs there is a must-see exhibition opening at the Museum of Modern Art in New York this Sunday. Quay Brothers: On Deciphering the Pharmacist’s Prescription for Lip-Reading Puppets is a beautifully staged, labyrinthine gallery show (which runs through January 7, 2013) containing a treasure-trove of drawings, photographs, book jackets, posters, puppets, dioramas, installations, and, of course, films that make up the life’s work to date of those enigmatic identical twin filmmakers Stephen and Timothy Quay.
It’s no secret how much the Quays are enamoured of and indebted to Eastern European literature and music, but it is maybe less well known how much they owe to East European graphic design and, most especially, to Polish poster art. Legend has it that on their very first day at the Philadelphia College of Art—where they were studying illustration—they walked into an exhibition...
It’s no secret how much the Quays are enamoured of and indebted to Eastern European literature and music, but it is maybe less well known how much they owe to East European graphic design and, most especially, to Polish poster art. Legend has it that on their very first day at the Philadelphia College of Art—where they were studying illustration—they walked into an exhibition...
- 8/10/2012
- MUBI
★★★☆☆ Jerzy Kawalerowicz's Mother Joan of the Angels (1961) is perhaps a film you watch because you feel you should. Like reading Dickens, if your passion is for books, or visiting the Tate Modern if it's art, Kawalerowicz's cult work is pre-requisite, though not necessarily easy viewing for fans of cinema. This depiction of demonic possession in a 17th century Polish convent, starring Lucyna Winnicka in the titular role with support from Mieczyslaw Voit and Anna Ciepielewska, remains a visually stunning exercise of startling cinematic imagery.
Read more »...
Read more »...
- 6/5/2012
- by CineVue
- CineVue
(1957-60, 12, Second Run)
After the horrors of the Nazi occupation and repressive postwar Soviet domination, Polish cinema suddenly took off in the mid-50s to become a major international force. Initially, it was Andrzej Wajda's trilogy (1954-58) on wartime resistance that attracted attention. That was followed by a wave of films approaching contemporary society with skilful circumspection before there was a further clampdown in the late 1960s. The four films in this well-documented box set are all first-rate. Only Andrzej Munk's Eroica (1957), a black comedy in two parts (one about spiv caught up with the resistance, the other set in a concentration camp) takes place during the war. Both Wajda's acutely observed Innocent Sorcerers (1960), about a newly qualified, jazz-loving doctor and his problems with emotional commitment, and Janusz Morgenstern's little-known, loosely knit Goodbye, See You Tomorrow (1960), about a young stage director falling for a visiting French beauty,...
After the horrors of the Nazi occupation and repressive postwar Soviet domination, Polish cinema suddenly took off in the mid-50s to become a major international force. Initially, it was Andrzej Wajda's trilogy (1954-58) on wartime resistance that attracted attention. That was followed by a wave of films approaching contemporary society with skilful circumspection before there was a further clampdown in the late 1960s. The four films in this well-documented box set are all first-rate. Only Andrzej Munk's Eroica (1957), a black comedy in two parts (one about spiv caught up with the resistance, the other set in a concentration camp) takes place during the war. Both Wajda's acutely observed Innocent Sorcerers (1960), about a newly qualified, jazz-loving doctor and his problems with emotional commitment, and Janusz Morgenstern's little-known, loosely knit Goodbye, See You Tomorrow (1960), about a young stage director falling for a visiting French beauty,...
- 3/18/2012
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
The East End Film Festival opens this evening with Roger Sargent's doc, The Libertines: There Are No Innocent Bystanders. The festival then kind of goes berserk on Sunday with Movie Mayday, "a free day of cinema, live music, cinema trails, virtual tours, filmmaking competitions, quizzes and talks blanketing the whole of London's East End," and a screening of Ken Russell's The Devils (1971) at the Barbican that Electric Sheep's pretty excited about. They also urge readers not to miss Friday's screening of Jerzy Kawalerowicz's Mother Joan of Angels (1961) "in the beautiful church of St John on Bethnal Green."
Update, 4/29: "As part of the East End Film Festival, legendary Portishead Adrian Utley was approached to select a film to screen and introduce; he chose the new digitally restored Taxi Driver — cleaned up by Martin Scorsese himself." Simon Jablonski: "The Quietus spoke to Adrian Utley to find out the details...
Update, 4/29: "As part of the East End Film Festival, legendary Portishead Adrian Utley was approached to select a film to screen and introduce; he chose the new digitally restored Taxi Driver — cleaned up by Martin Scorsese himself." Simon Jablonski: "The Quietus spoke to Adrian Utley to find out the details...
- 4/29/2011
- MUBI
By Michael Atkinson
Our official "B-movie" distribution stream -- straight-to-dvd releases -- grows in number and variety every year, as fewer films can be, or at least are, affordably shown theatrically than ever before. And these titles still can't qualify for awards or polls of any kind, or often even reviews, as the number of theatrical screens continues to drop. Does this make any sense? Here're my favorites from this year, the movies that first saw American screens (big or small) on digital video in 2008, be they brand new or decades old.
1. "Sophie's Place"
Lawrence Jordan, U.S., 1986
The renowned yet all-but-forgotten avant-garde filmmaker's grand animated masterpiece, a Victorian-styled dream-collage-painting-fever-feature brimming with hundreds of inexplicable epiphanies and a sense of visual magic that is all but utterly unique to Jordan. This honey was ensconced in Facets' lavish, under-celebrated set "The Lawrence Jordan Album," which in itself is more of an...
Our official "B-movie" distribution stream -- straight-to-dvd releases -- grows in number and variety every year, as fewer films can be, or at least are, affordably shown theatrically than ever before. And these titles still can't qualify for awards or polls of any kind, or often even reviews, as the number of theatrical screens continues to drop. Does this make any sense? Here're my favorites from this year, the movies that first saw American screens (big or small) on digital video in 2008, be they brand new or decades old.
1. "Sophie's Place"
Lawrence Jordan, U.S., 1986
The renowned yet all-but-forgotten avant-garde filmmaker's grand animated masterpiece, a Victorian-styled dream-collage-painting-fever-feature brimming with hundreds of inexplicable epiphanies and a sense of visual magic that is all but utterly unique to Jordan. This honey was ensconced in Facets' lavish, under-celebrated set "The Lawrence Jordan Album," which in itself is more of an...
- 12/17/2008
- by Michael Atkinson
- ifc.com
By Michael Atkinson
When we first met Aki Kaurismäki, in 1989 when "Ariel" had its run as probably the first Finnish film to play theatrically in America since Jörn Donner's "Portraits of Women" (1970), we more or less fell in love. Lost in the hollow skull of the Reagan-Bush '80s, suffering the ascension of Spielberg and Ivan Reitman and Shane Black, wondering what remote atoll international art cinema had escaped to, and more or less completely ignorant of Finnish life, we had every reason to embrace this last of the red hot deadpan existentialists, whose films somehow altered the cellular structure of working class depression and turned it into cool comedy. His distinctively bittersweet dyspepsia established Kaurismäki, in a thick run of films that included "Leningrad Cowboys Go America" (1989), "The Match Factory Girl" (1990) and "La Vie de Bohème" (1992), as a new arthouse brand name, a kind of vodka-weary Bresson-meets-Tati.
Kaurismäki...
When we first met Aki Kaurismäki, in 1989 when "Ariel" had its run as probably the first Finnish film to play theatrically in America since Jörn Donner's "Portraits of Women" (1970), we more or less fell in love. Lost in the hollow skull of the Reagan-Bush '80s, suffering the ascension of Spielberg and Ivan Reitman and Shane Black, wondering what remote atoll international art cinema had escaped to, and more or less completely ignorant of Finnish life, we had every reason to embrace this last of the red hot deadpan existentialists, whose films somehow altered the cellular structure of working class depression and turned it into cool comedy. His distinctively bittersweet dyspepsia established Kaurismäki, in a thick run of films that included "Leningrad Cowboys Go America" (1989), "The Match Factory Girl" (1990) and "La Vie de Bohème" (1992), as a new arthouse brand name, a kind of vodka-weary Bresson-meets-Tati.
Kaurismäki...
- 9/23/2008
- by Michael Atkinson
- ifc.com
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