I'm going to the New York Film Festival again. Below are the screenings I will be attending. If you are around, let me know. It would be great to meet all of you Film Twitter folks. Also, I will be recording podcasts about the films playing at the NYFF. Please let me know if you are interested in being on the podcasts. I would love to have you all on to talk about the movies you saw.
Sunday, September 27
3:00pm - 5:05pm: Mia Madre (ATH) [Nanni Moretti]
6:00pm - 8:20pm: The Lobster (ATH) [Yorgos Lanthimos]
9:00pm - 10:15pm: Shorts Program 4: New York (WRT) [Jason Giampietro, Nathan Silver, Sonya Goddy, Pacho Velez & Daniel Claridge, James N. Kienitz Wilkins, Ricky D'Ambrose, Joanna Arrow, Zia Anger, and Dustin Guy Defa]
Monday, September 28
7:00pm - 8:35pm: Early Sounds Middle Silence (FBT) [Nathaniel Dorsky]
9:00pm - 11:20pm: The Forbidden Room (WRT) [Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson]
Tuesday, September 29
6:00pm - 8:10pm: Journey to the Shore (ATH) [Kiyoshi Kurosawa]
9:15pm - 11:40pm: Mountains May Depart (FBT) [Jia Zhangke]
Wednesday, September 30
6:00pm - 8:25pm: Arabian Nights: Vol. 1, The Restless One (WRT) [Miguel Gomes]
9:00pm - 11:10pm: Cemetery of Splendour (ATH) [Apichatpong Weerasethakul]
Thursday, October 1
6:00pm - 8:30pm: Arabian Nights: Vol. 2, The Desolate One (WRT) [Miguel Gomes]
9:00pm - 11:00pm: Jia Zhangke: A Guy from Genyang (HGT) [Walter Salles]
Friday, October 2
6:00pm - 8:25pm: Arabian Nights: Vol. 3, The Enchanted One (WRT) [Miguel Gomes]
9:30pm - 10:55pm: The Late Quartet (FBT) [Nathaniel Dorsky]
11:00pm - 12:10am: Contemplations (FBT) [Nathaniel Dorsky]
Saturday, October 3
12:00pm - 2:25pm: My Golden Days (ATH) [Arnaud Desplechin]
4:00pm - 5:30pm: Projections Program 3 (HGT) [Ben Rivers, Giorgio Andreotta Calo, Mike Stoltz, Ana Vaz, Ben Russell, and Ernst Karel, Verena Paravel & Lucien Castaing-Taylor]
6:00pm - 7:15pm: Projections Program 4 (HGT) [Jared Buckhiester & Dani Leventhal, Curt McDowell, Alee Peoples, Lewis Klahr, and Peter Tscherkassy]
7:15pm - 8:25pm: Projections Program 7 (HGT/FBT) [Simon Fujiwara, Beatrice Gibson, Louis Henderson, Peggy Ahwesh, Fern Silva, and Ephraim Asili]
Sunday, October 4
12:00pm - 1:15pm: Visit or Memories and Confessions (WRT)[Manoel de Oliveira]
1:30pm - 2:35pm: Projections Program 8 / 88:88 (FBT) [Isiah Medina]
3:30pm - 4:50pm: Projections Program 9 (FBT/HGT) [James Richards, Louis Henderson, Michael Robinson, Jon Rafman, Sara Maggenheimer, and Cecile B. Evans]
6:00pm - 9:30pm: In Jackson Heights (WRT) [Frederick Wiseman]
Monday, October 5
5:30pm - 8:45pm: Homeland Iraq Year Zero (HGT) [Abbas Fahdel]
9:00pm - 12:20am: A Touch of Zen (WRT) [King Hu]
Tuesday, October 6
6:00pm - 7:35pm: In the Shadow of Women (ATH) [Philippe Garrel]
9:00pm - 11:00pm: Experimenter (ATH) [Michael Almereyda]
Wednesday, October 7
6:00pm - 8:15pm: No Home Movie (WRT) [Chantal Akerman]
9:00pm - 11:05pm: Chevalier (FBT) [Athina Rachel Tsangari]
Thursday, October 8
8:30pm - 10:20pm: The Treasure (WRT) [Corneliu Porumboiu]
Friday, October 9
6:00pm - 8:20pm: Carol (ATH) [Todd Haynes]
9:00 - 11:05pm: Right Now, Wrong Then (WRT) [Hong Sang-soo]
Saturday, October 10
1:00pm - 3:05pm: The Assassin (WRT) [Hou Hsiao-hsien]
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
NYFF 2014
Once again, I shall be attending the New York Film Festival. Below is my schedule of screenings. If you're attending any of these screenings or have some of the same breaks in your NYFF schedule and made it to this page (either via Twitter, Facebook, following this blog, or just general creepiness), let me know. I would probably very much enjoy hanging out and discussing the movies with you before, between, and/or after screenings. Without further ado, here is my schedule:
9/27 Saturday
12:00 Misunderstood (Asia Argento)
3:00 La Sapienza (Green)
9:00 Goodbye to Language (Godard)
9/28 Sunday
3:00 Maps to the Stars (Cronenberg)
9:00 Whiplash (Chazzelle)
9/30 Tuesday
6:00 Hill of Freedom (Hong)
8:30 Saint Laurent (Bonello)
10/1 Wednesday
6:00 Timbuktu (Sissako)
9:00 The Look of Silence (Oppenheimer)
10/2 Thursday
6:00 Pasolini (Ferrara)
9:00 Heaven Knows What (Safdies)
10/4 Saturday
1:00 Sauerbruch Hutton Architects (Farocki)
7:00 Letters to Max (Baudelaire)
10/5 Sunday
12:00 The Princess of France (Pineiro)
4:00 National Gallery (Wiseman)
9:00 Eden (Hansen-Love)
10/6 Monday
9:00 Two Days, One Night (Dardennes)
10/7 Tuesday
6:00 Horse Money (Costa)
9:00 Jauja (Alonso)
10/8 Wednesday
6:00 Clouds of Sils Maria (Assayas)
10/9 Thursday
6:00 Listen Up Phillip (Perry)
10/10 Friday
6:00 The Forest (Desplechin) and Voila le enchainement (Denis)
9:00 Life of Riley (Resnais)
9/27 Saturday
12:00 Misunderstood (Asia Argento)
3:00 La Sapienza (Green)
9:00 Goodbye to Language (Godard)
9/28 Sunday
3:00 Maps to the Stars (Cronenberg)
9:00 Whiplash (Chazzelle)
9/30 Tuesday
6:00 Hill of Freedom (Hong)
8:30 Saint Laurent (Bonello)
10/1 Wednesday
6:00 Timbuktu (Sissako)
9:00 The Look of Silence (Oppenheimer)
10/2 Thursday
6:00 Pasolini (Ferrara)
9:00 Heaven Knows What (Safdies)
10/4 Saturday
1:00 Sauerbruch Hutton Architects (Farocki)
7:00 Letters to Max (Baudelaire)
10/5 Sunday
12:00 The Princess of France (Pineiro)
4:00 National Gallery (Wiseman)
9:00 Eden (Hansen-Love)
10/6 Monday
9:00 Two Days, One Night (Dardennes)
10/7 Tuesday
6:00 Horse Money (Costa)
9:00 Jauja (Alonso)
10/8 Wednesday
6:00 Clouds of Sils Maria (Assayas)
10/9 Thursday
6:00 Listen Up Phillip (Perry)
10/10 Friday
6:00 The Forest (Desplechin) and Voila le enchainement (Denis)
9:00 Life of Riley (Resnais)
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Durgnat On Form/Style and Content
Inspired by the recent post by Matt Zoller Seitz, here is an excerpt from Raymond Durgnat's wonderful book, Films and Feelings:
"Similarly a spectator used to looking for detailed psychology, realistic acting, location settings, and so on, may be quite at sea with films whose subtleties are entirely visual ones. Most film critics (outside Italy) have a literary background, and the fact that film, like novels, tell stories, reinforces their tendency to consider the 'core' of film as being somehow 'literary'. Their indebtedness to a (waning) fashion in literary criticism usually leads to the further assumption that the 'core' of literature is 'psychological insights' - exact definition and motives, and so on. To these displaced persons a film's visual qualities are only 'style'... The critics of, for example, Sight and Sound whom... typify a fading English critical orthodoxy, with all its confusions and contradictions - summarizble as: 'literary content' and 'style' are either indistinguishable or the same thing but the first emphatically more important than the second...
Let us first look at the implications of the antithesis of 'content' and 'style'. Among film critics 'content' is equated with 'literary content', that is anything in a film which a novelist could fairly easily put into words if he were writing 'the book of the film'. And 'style' becomes, virtually, anything which isn't 'content'.
In the other arts, the uses of the word 'style' are rather different. In painting 'literary content' is obviously of minor importance, while much great music is absolutely devoid of all 'literary content' whatsoever. By this definition abstract paintings and symphonies would be 'pure' style, altogether devoid of meaning - and importance? Clearly then there must be a sense in which 'style = content'.
The opening definition of 'style' in The Concise O.E.D. is: 'Manner of writing, speaking or doing... as opposed to the matter to be expressed or thing done.' In other words, an artist's 'style' is his answer to the problems with which he is faced in the course of creating his work of art...
Now let us look at 'style' in a medium other than the cinema. Two actors will declaim Shakespeare's words ('content') in altogether different ways ('style'). One makes Hamlet a warrior-hero who can't make up his mind. The other makes him a neurotic intellectual who can't steel himself to action. The 'literary content' is exactly the same but the 'theatrical content' (gesture, voice) is altogether different. So different that it transforms the meaning of the text. Here, the style is just as much a part of the content as the 'content'. In fact much of what film critics call 'literary content' is in fact 'theatrical content', depending less on the text than on acting and staging, and, to this extent, the ordinary fiction film is nearer the theatre than literature.
Of course, not all features of 'style' make much difference to the 'content'. It may make no difference whatsoever whether an actor lifts his left eyebrow before or after he waggles his right finger-tip. This is a change of 'content' too, but only a minor one.
From this definition, the question whether style is more important than content is a misleading one. Style is simply those pieces of content which arise out of the way the artist makes his basic points. These may (as often in painting and poetry) be only a pretext, a wire on which to 'thread the beads'. If style is 'manner of doing', then we can say that the way a thing is done is often a way of doing a different thing. To say 'sorry' superciliously is doing a different thing from saying 'sorry' courteously or servilely, etc. Certain tones of voice make 'sorry' mean: 'Look where you're going, you clumsy imbecile.' 'It ain't what you do it's the way you do it.' 'Le style, c'est l'homme.'
... The distinction between 'literary content' and 'visual style' is particularly misguided because even in the work of literature much of the 'content' comes from the 'style'. Suppose we call someone 'slow but thorough' we feel this is, on the whole, a compliment. His slowness is a trifling disadvantage, the last word acts as a summing-up, an assertion of value. But if we call him 'thorough but slow' there is an implication of criticism. The ideas and the words are exactly the same - but to change their order is like inserting some invisible words. One order says: 'We can rely on him.' The other: 'He should pull his socks up.' More often, literary 'style' is a matter of choosing different words - different ideas, different content. My friends are 'unfaltering', my enemies are 'obstinate'. I show 'intensity of purpose', you are a 'fanatic'. Our friends are 'original', our rivals 'eccentric'. Writers show such concern over points of 'style' because of their concern over points of 'content'.
Such nuances of order, sound, vocabulary and so on, don't just colour the 'content' of a passage. They constitute its content. The passage may be badly written, but of interest as a description of an interesting event - traffic accident, a battle or a riot. But this event is not its 'literary content'. It's only the subject. Another passage may describe an apparently boring event, but bring to it a wealth of ideas and insights. And in this case we may speak of the author's 'style' as enlivening a banal 'content'. But this wealth of ideas and insights isn't 'mere' style - it is 'content'. And, here, to ask whether style or content is more important is like asking whether water is more important than H2O. It is not the importance of their subjects, but the richness of their 'content-style' which distinguishes good artists from mediocre ones.
Another quite common and useful sense of the word 'style' is to refer to the whole mass of details which go into a film but which happen to be confusing and difficult to describe in words. Thus a specific reaction - horror, joy, etc. - tends to be called 'content' because it is easy to define, it offers a nice, solid idea to lean on. On the other hand, an actor's posture, gestures, smiles, the quality of his glance, the tension of his facial muscles, the director's spatial relationships, the tones of grey caught by the cameraman, all these may be very eloquent and forceful in communicating experience (and so are 'content'). But because it is difficult to analyse or explain their exact meaning in words they tend to be referred to, vaguely, as 'style'. But here again 'content' and 'style' are indissoluble. In fact, here the 'content' - horror, joy - is a spectator's deduction from what the screen actually contains. This is why spectator's so often disagree on what a film's content is. The screen contains the style, but the not the content, which is the spectator's deduction, and not contained on the screen at all!"
"Similarly a spectator used to looking for detailed psychology, realistic acting, location settings, and so on, may be quite at sea with films whose subtleties are entirely visual ones. Most film critics (outside Italy) have a literary background, and the fact that film, like novels, tell stories, reinforces their tendency to consider the 'core' of film as being somehow 'literary'. Their indebtedness to a (waning) fashion in literary criticism usually leads to the further assumption that the 'core' of literature is 'psychological insights' - exact definition and motives, and so on. To these displaced persons a film's visual qualities are only 'style'... The critics of, for example, Sight and Sound whom... typify a fading English critical orthodoxy, with all its confusions and contradictions - summarizble as: 'literary content' and 'style' are either indistinguishable or the same thing but the first emphatically more important than the second...
Let us first look at the implications of the antithesis of 'content' and 'style'. Among film critics 'content' is equated with 'literary content', that is anything in a film which a novelist could fairly easily put into words if he were writing 'the book of the film'. And 'style' becomes, virtually, anything which isn't 'content'.
In the other arts, the uses of the word 'style' are rather different. In painting 'literary content' is obviously of minor importance, while much great music is absolutely devoid of all 'literary content' whatsoever. By this definition abstract paintings and symphonies would be 'pure' style, altogether devoid of meaning - and importance? Clearly then there must be a sense in which 'style = content'.
The opening definition of 'style' in The Concise O.E.D. is: 'Manner of writing, speaking or doing... as opposed to the matter to be expressed or thing done.' In other words, an artist's 'style' is his answer to the problems with which he is faced in the course of creating his work of art...
Now let us look at 'style' in a medium other than the cinema. Two actors will declaim Shakespeare's words ('content') in altogether different ways ('style'). One makes Hamlet a warrior-hero who can't make up his mind. The other makes him a neurotic intellectual who can't steel himself to action. The 'literary content' is exactly the same but the 'theatrical content' (gesture, voice) is altogether different. So different that it transforms the meaning of the text. Here, the style is just as much a part of the content as the 'content'. In fact much of what film critics call 'literary content' is in fact 'theatrical content', depending less on the text than on acting and staging, and, to this extent, the ordinary fiction film is nearer the theatre than literature.
Of course, not all features of 'style' make much difference to the 'content'. It may make no difference whatsoever whether an actor lifts his left eyebrow before or after he waggles his right finger-tip. This is a change of 'content' too, but only a minor one.
From this definition, the question whether style is more important than content is a misleading one. Style is simply those pieces of content which arise out of the way the artist makes his basic points. These may (as often in painting and poetry) be only a pretext, a wire on which to 'thread the beads'. If style is 'manner of doing', then we can say that the way a thing is done is often a way of doing a different thing. To say 'sorry' superciliously is doing a different thing from saying 'sorry' courteously or servilely, etc. Certain tones of voice make 'sorry' mean: 'Look where you're going, you clumsy imbecile.' 'It ain't what you do it's the way you do it.' 'Le style, c'est l'homme.'
... The distinction between 'literary content' and 'visual style' is particularly misguided because even in the work of literature much of the 'content' comes from the 'style'. Suppose we call someone 'slow but thorough' we feel this is, on the whole, a compliment. His slowness is a trifling disadvantage, the last word acts as a summing-up, an assertion of value. But if we call him 'thorough but slow' there is an implication of criticism. The ideas and the words are exactly the same - but to change their order is like inserting some invisible words. One order says: 'We can rely on him.' The other: 'He should pull his socks up.' More often, literary 'style' is a matter of choosing different words - different ideas, different content. My friends are 'unfaltering', my enemies are 'obstinate'. I show 'intensity of purpose', you are a 'fanatic'. Our friends are 'original', our rivals 'eccentric'. Writers show such concern over points of 'style' because of their concern over points of 'content'.
Such nuances of order, sound, vocabulary and so on, don't just colour the 'content' of a passage. They constitute its content. The passage may be badly written, but of interest as a description of an interesting event - traffic accident, a battle or a riot. But this event is not its 'literary content'. It's only the subject. Another passage may describe an apparently boring event, but bring to it a wealth of ideas and insights. And in this case we may speak of the author's 'style' as enlivening a banal 'content'. But this wealth of ideas and insights isn't 'mere' style - it is 'content'. And, here, to ask whether style or content is more important is like asking whether water is more important than H2O. It is not the importance of their subjects, but the richness of their 'content-style' which distinguishes good artists from mediocre ones.
Another quite common and useful sense of the word 'style' is to refer to the whole mass of details which go into a film but which happen to be confusing and difficult to describe in words. Thus a specific reaction - horror, joy, etc. - tends to be called 'content' because it is easy to define, it offers a nice, solid idea to lean on. On the other hand, an actor's posture, gestures, smiles, the quality of his glance, the tension of his facial muscles, the director's spatial relationships, the tones of grey caught by the cameraman, all these may be very eloquent and forceful in communicating experience (and so are 'content'). But because it is difficult to analyse or explain their exact meaning in words they tend to be referred to, vaguely, as 'style'. But here again 'content' and 'style' are indissoluble. In fact, here the 'content' - horror, joy - is a spectator's deduction from what the screen actually contains. This is why spectator's so often disagree on what a film's content is. The screen contains the style, but the not the content, which is the spectator's deduction, and not contained on the screen at all!"
Friday, January 17, 2014
2013 Moving Image Awards
Every year I have a silly award show for the best movies of the previous year. It's kind of like the Oscars, but with better nominations/winners and (unfortunately) no celebrities in attendance. So without further ado, here are the nominees.
Film Availability
The Act of Killing - Available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon ($5), and iTunes ($5)
Bastards - Available for pre-order on iTunes (4/8)
Before Midnight - Available for streaming on Amazon ($15) and iTunes ($15)
Behind the Candelabra - Available for streaming on Amazon ($20) and iTunes ($20)
Computer Chess - Available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon ($5), and iTunes ($5)
Drug War - Available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon ($5), and iTunes ($5)
Frances Ha - Available for streaming on Netflix and iTunes ($5)
Her - In Theaters
In the Fog - Available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon ($0 for Prime, $5), and iTunes ($5)
Inside Llewyn Davis - In Theaters
Leviathan - Available for streaming on iTunes ($5)
The Lone Ranger - Available for streaming on Amazon ($6) and iTunes ($6)
Man of Tai Chi - Available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon ($5), and iTunes ($5)
Museum Hours - Available for streaming on iTunes ($5)
Night Across the Street - Available for streaming on iTunes ($5)
Pain & Gain - Available for streaming on Amazon ($15) and iTunes ($15)
Passion - Available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon ($5), and iTunes ($5)
Riddick - Available for streaming on Amazon ($6) and iTunes ($6)
Side Effects - Available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon ($4), and iTunes ($4)
Something in the Air - Available for streaming on Amazon ($0 for Prime, $5), and iTunes ($5)
Spring Breakers - Available for streaming on Amazon ($0 for Prime, $5) and iTunes ($5)
To the Wonder - Available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon ($5), and iTunes ($5)
Top of the Lake - Available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon ($20), and iTunes ($20)
The Unspeakable Act - Available for streaming on iTunes ($5)
The Wolf of Wall Street - In Theaters
The World's End - Available for streaming on Amazon ($6) and iTunes ($6)
You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet - Available for streaming on Netflix and iTunes ($5)
Best Picture
Bastards
Faust
Her
Leviathan
Like Someone in Love
Night Across the Street
Passion
A Touch of Sin
Viola
You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet!
Best Director
Claire Denis, Bastards
Abbas Kiarostami, Like Someone in Love
Abbas Kiarostami, Like Someone in Love
Brian De Palma, Passion
Alain Resnais, You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet!
Raul Ruiz, The Night Across the Street
Aleksandr Sokurov, Faust
Johnnie To, Drug War
Best Lead Performance, Female
Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
Julie Delpy, Before Midnight
Greta Gerwig, Frances Ha
Tallie Medel, The Unspeakable Act
Elizabeth Moss, Top of the Lake
Zhang Ziyi, The Grandmaster
Best Lead Performance, Male
Matt Damon, Behind the Candelabra
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Wolf of Wall Street
Ethan Hawke, Before Midnight
Sun Honglei, Drug War
Oscar Isaac, Inside Llewyn Davis
Joaquin Phoenix, Her
Best Supporting Performance, Female
Lola Creton, Bastards
Rooney Mara, Side Effects
Rachel McAdams, Passion
Jeanne Moreau, Gebo and the Shadow
Alba Rohrwacher, Dormant Beauty
Zhao Tao, A Touch of Sin
Best Supporting Performance, Male
Anton Adasinskiy, Faust
Mathieu Amalric, You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet!
James Franco, Spring Breakers
Nick Frost, The World's End
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Pain & Gain
Peter Mullan, Top of the Lake
Best Ensemble Performance
Bastards
Computer Chess
Drug War
Gebo and the Shadow
Viola
You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet!
Best Original Screenplay
Andrew Bujalski, Computer Chess
Jane Campion and Gerard Lee, Top of the Lake
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, Inside Llewyn Davis
Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke, and Richard Linklater, Before Midnight
Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, The World's End
Jia Zhangke, A Touch of Sin
Best Adapted Screenplay
Olivier Assays, Something in the Air
Darezhan Omirbaev, Student
Brian De Palma, Passion
Matias Pineiro, Viola
Alain Resnais and Laurent Herbiet, You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet!
Aleksandr Sokurov and Marina Kreneva, Faust
Best Cinematography
Jose Luis Alcaine, Passion
Benoit Debie, Spring Breakers
Bruno Delbonnel, Faust
Agnes Godard, Bastards
Matthias Grunsky, Computer Chess
Katsumi Yanagijima, Like Someone in Love
Best Editing
Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel, Leviathan
Douglas Cise, Spring Breakers
Annette Dutertre, Bastards
Francois Gedigier, Passion
Bahman Kiarostami, Like Someone in Love
Frederick Wiseman, At Berkeley
Best Sound
Erik Aadahl, To the Wonder
Makar Akhpashev and Fonin Andrey, Faust
Makar Akhpashev and Fonin Andrey, Faust
Illiya Biserov, Student
Martin Boissau, Bastards
Pedro Costa, Sweet Exorcist
Nobuyuji Kikuchi, Like Someone in Love
Verena Paravel, Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Ernst Karel, and Jacob Ribicoff, Leviathan
Best Design
K.K. Barrett, Her
Michael Bricker, Computer Chess
William Chang, The Grandmaster
Jack Fisk, To the Wonder
Jess Gonchor, Inside Llewyn Davis
Elena Zhukova, Faust
Best Original Score or Soundtrack
Jorge Arriagada, Night Across the Street
T. Bone Burnett, Inside Llewyn Davis
Pino Donaggio, Passion
Cliff Martinez and Skrillex, Spring Breakers
Tindersticks, Bastards
Alexander Zlamal, Faust
Best Appropriated Score or Soundtrack
Olivier Assayas, Something in the Air
Noah Baumbach, Frances Ha
Steven Price and Edgar Wright, The World's End
Best Music Video / Televised Musical Performance
"Beauty and the Beat" by Justin Bieber and Jon Cho
"Black Skinhead (Live on SNL)" by Kanye West
"Bound 2" by Nick Knight and Kanye West
"Suit & Tie" by David Fincher and Justin Timberlake
"You're Not the One (Live on Letterman)" by Sky Ferreira
Film Availability
The Act of Killing - Available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon ($5), and iTunes ($5)
Bastards - Available for pre-order on iTunes (4/8)
Before Midnight - Available for streaming on Amazon ($15) and iTunes ($15)
Behind the Candelabra - Available for streaming on Amazon ($20) and iTunes ($20)
Computer Chess - Available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon ($5), and iTunes ($5)
Drug War - Available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon ($5), and iTunes ($5)
Frances Ha - Available for streaming on Netflix and iTunes ($5)
Her - In Theaters
In the Fog - Available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon ($0 for Prime, $5), and iTunes ($5)
Inside Llewyn Davis - In Theaters
Leviathan - Available for streaming on iTunes ($5)
The Lone Ranger - Available for streaming on Amazon ($6) and iTunes ($6)
Man of Tai Chi - Available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon ($5), and iTunes ($5)
Museum Hours - Available for streaming on iTunes ($5)
Night Across the Street - Available for streaming on iTunes ($5)
Pain & Gain - Available for streaming on Amazon ($15) and iTunes ($15)
Passion - Available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon ($5), and iTunes ($5)
Riddick - Available for streaming on Amazon ($6) and iTunes ($6)
Side Effects - Available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon ($4), and iTunes ($4)
Something in the Air - Available for streaming on Amazon ($0 for Prime, $5), and iTunes ($5)
Spring Breakers - Available for streaming on Amazon ($0 for Prime, $5) and iTunes ($5)
To the Wonder - Available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon ($5), and iTunes ($5)
Top of the Lake - Available for streaming on Netflix, Amazon ($20), and iTunes ($20)
The Unspeakable Act - Available for streaming on iTunes ($5)
The Wolf of Wall Street - In Theaters
The World's End - Available for streaming on Amazon ($6) and iTunes ($6)
You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet - Available for streaming on Netflix and iTunes ($5)
Monday, May 20, 2013
April '13 Screening Log
A log of the best films I saw in April of 2013. Inspired by Peter Labuza's log. Tiered by colors. Red is 5 stars, orange is 4 1/2 stars, green is 4 stars, blue is 3 1/2 stars, purple is 3 stars (out of a maximum of 5 stars).
First Viewings
1. Passion (Jean-Luc Godard, Switzerland/France, 1982)
2. Bob le flambeur (Jean-Pierre Melville, France, 1956)
3. Scenario du film 'Passion' (Jean-Luc Godard, Switzerland/France, 1982)
4. Real Life (Albert Brooks, USA, 1979)
5. To the Wonder (Terrence Malick, USA, 2012)
6. Manhunter (Michael Mann, USA, 1986)
7. The Three Musketeers (Paul W.S. Anderson, USA/France/UK/Germany, 2011)
8. Pain & Gain (Michael Mann, USA, 2013)
9. Upstream Color (Shane Carruth, USA, 2013)
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
The Springboard of the Self and the Pool of Ignorance
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| Manhunter (Michael Mann, 1986) |
I remember an interview in Creem magazine (or was it Crawdaddy?) with Ian Anderson in the very early '70s which he bemoaned the musical ignorance of the average rock fan and suggested —jokingly—that punters be required to whistle a twelve-bar blues before being allowed admittance to a performance. I thought that was dumb and, as they say, elitist, even when I was a kid. (I used to have this rather naive belief that in the free arena of opinion exchange, the best idea best expressed would have to win, which didn't turn out well, but that's another story.) And of course critical thought and subjectivity are inextricably linked, and anyone who says they're not is rather willfully lying. That said, beyond the direct experience there can, and should, be some kind of genuine detachment at least attempted; thought ought to do double the work that feeling did during the experience being put up for discussion. This is why the phrase "soundboard for the self" rubbed me so severely the wrong way; when I'm participating in, or consuming, criticism, how someone feels about something is pretty low on the list of potential material. I'm not so much interested in what you feel as what, and how, you think. And if you glibly announce, for instance, that a work we'll call for the purposes of this exercise "MAX" is a stuffy European relic that's ripe for parody, without betraying the slightest hint of awareness that "MAX" is in fact kind of a parody to begin with, then no, I'm not going to respect either your conclusion or your process. Too often the springboard of the self dives straight into a pool of ignorance, which is then privileged with the protest, "Well, that's MY opinion, anyway, and who are you to say it's wrong?"
Monday, April 1, 2013
March '13 Screening Log
A log of the best films I saw in March of 2013. Inspired by Peter Labuza's log. Tiered by colors. Red is 5 stars, orange is 4 1/2 stars, green is 4 stars, blue is 3 1/2 stars, purple is 3 stars (out of a maximum of 5 stars).
First Viewings
1. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, USA, 1962)
2. Dead or Alive 2: Birds (Takashi Miike, Japan, 2000)
3. The Blackout (Abel Ferrara, USA/France, 1997)
4. Cold Water (Olivier Assayas, France, 1994)
5. Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine, USA, 2012)
6. The Strawberry Blonde (Raoul Walsh, USA, 1941)
7. Rock-A-Bye Baby (Frank Tashlin, USA, 1958)
8. Wichita (Jacques Tourneur, USA, 1955)
9. Viola (Matías Piñeiro, Argentina, 2012)
10. The American Soldier (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, West Germany, 1970)
Also Notable: Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell, USA, 2012)
Revisited
1. Miami Vice (Michael Mann, USA/Germany, 2006)
First Viewings
1. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, USA, 1962)
2. Dead or Alive 2: Birds (Takashi Miike, Japan, 2000)
3. The Blackout (Abel Ferrara, USA/France, 1997)
4. Cold Water (Olivier Assayas, France, 1994)
5. Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine, USA, 2012)
6. The Strawberry Blonde (Raoul Walsh, USA, 1941)
7. Rock-A-Bye Baby (Frank Tashlin, USA, 1958)
8. Wichita (Jacques Tourneur, USA, 1955)
9. Viola (Matías Piñeiro, Argentina, 2012)
10. The American Soldier (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, West Germany, 1970)
Also Notable: Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell, USA, 2012)
Revisited
1. Miami Vice (Michael Mann, USA/Germany, 2006)
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