Seattle International Film Festival: Holy Rollers: The True Story of Card Counting Christians
At a Seattle coffee shop, a friend of mine is talking about an intriguing fellow that both of us know. “Do you know how he pays the bills?” My friend smiles slyly. His half-whisper suggests that our mutual friend is up to something risky. I’m surprised to say that I don’t know. “He plays blackjack. And he’s good at it. He’s on a team of... Read More
New Directors, New Films
If you’re in or around New York, make your way to Lincoln Center (Walter Reade Theater, more precisely) for New Directors/New Films. The Filmlinc blog has a nifty guide to this weekend’s must-see films. Read More
Liverpool (Alonso, 2008 – SLIFF 2009)
Reviews that object to the minimalism of Alonso’s Liverpool usually proceed along the lines of: too slight, too similar to his earlier work, or just simply, yawn. But I am not sure such responses noticed the remarkable contrasts and transitions that give the otherwise spare film its shape and momentum. Even just in the first few minutes we transition from the mechanical din of... Read More
Soul Food Unintentional Film Festival: Vancouver BC, Nov 24-30
The Mirror When I first started writing for Filmwell, I repeatedly voiced my intention to move to New York city. It seemed the cinematic centre of the world, at least when it came to films with a spiritual flavour. Dardenne and Tarkovsky retrospectives (with two of the three directors actually in attendance) made a Manhattan move almost mandatory. My own personal discovery of Big... Read More
Game of The Year (Grega, 2009 – SLIFF 2009)
Quotability is rarely used as a critical yardstick, but sometimes the shoe just fits. Films like The Big Lebowski, The Blues Brothers, or Office Space achieved their hallowed fandom aura so easily because of the way they become instantly portable. “Ah, ah, I almost forgot…I’m also going to need you to go ahead and come in on Sunday, too…” or “That rug really... Read More
Beeswax (Bujalski, 2009 – SLIFF 2009)
I guess if there is a metaphor that sums up Bujalski’s films, it is the constant hum of the hive in which repeated shapes are communally developed based on blind instinct propagating at a geometric scale. Even though bees move in patterns that seem erratic to the naked eye, they are actually very predictable to bee scientists. Beeswax teeters on this behavioral crux. It is a... Read More
Jerichow (Petzold, 2008 – SLIFF 2009)
(This is part of ongoing St. Louis International Film Festival coverage. Please click Festivals above for more reviews.) This loose visit to The Postman Always Rings Twice throws the whole notion of new German cinema for a loop. But this is what Christian Petzold seems good at: throwing things off balance. Every jot and tittle of the film is intensely precise, as if engineered rather... Read More
Munyurangabo (Chung, 2007 – SLIFF 2009)
Apparently, this is a Filmwell favorite, as Jeffrey Overstreet has already posted a lengthy two part interview with director Isaac Lee Chung. Chung was kind enough to let us post some of his thoughts. And Ron Reed even posted some screening dates. But as it is playing at this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival, I might as well toss an additional review into the mix. ... Read More
Lake Tahoe (Eimbcke, 2008 – SLIFF 2009)
Jeffrey Overstreet has already talked about this film at Filmwell. But it is screening at the St. Louis International Film Festival this year, and deserves as much attention as it can get. There are a few reasons why the minimalism of Lake Tahoe stands out among the large annual festival crop of similarly pared down films. The first is that Eimbcke’s approach to filmmaking seems... Read More
Police, Adjective (2009 Chicago International Film Festival)
We waited for our theater to open, a Romanian lady and I, chatting. She hadn’t been home for forty years, she admitted — not even since the end of Communism. Ceausescu (she spat the name like poison) had imprisoned her father for seven years. For what, she didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. It went without saying, in fact, that her father had been innocent, and... Read More
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