Bordwell wades into the recent film criticism debate sparked by the Chronicle editorial. A choice snippet: Last year I moderated an Ebertfest panel consisting of a dozen or so critics. A student from the audience said he wanted to be a critic too. Instead of advising him to get into a more financially rewarding form […]
Freed from the tyranny of Indiewire list-nerd criteria, Doug Cummings has finally gotten around to listing his Top 10 for the year and Top 50 for the decade. Film Journey is a great resource in general, and his top 50 would be a wonderful way to catch up on cinema if one were so inclined.
And in the midst of all these changes, I think the loose descriptor “spirituality” has become an even more abstract point of common ground for this wide range of films. This is not the fault of the over 40 voters involved this time, the list of films nominated, or even the voting process. I actually don’t think it is even a problem.
The most recent issue of the delightfully ad hoc monthly periodical The Believer is packed with essays, reviews, etc… related to cinema. They typically offer a few full length items from their issues online. This month: Watching Shrek in Iran: Perhaps the question I should have been asking was this: What does it mean that […]
“It is very difficult to get rid of that hard physic in film,” Norstein said towards the end of the screening. “The image is just an outer layer under which something else is hidden.”
Unspoken Cinema just posted an essay on The Aesthetics of the Meandering Cinema that contains this intriguing tidbit: “When independent cinema however derives its weight from being socially relevant, there appears the question of the aptness or effectivity of its chosen aesthetic. Perhaps this is why there is always the nagging question of whether this […]
The Auteurs has an interview up with Goodbye Solo director Ramin Bahrani (part one and part two). Who knew that Bahrani is planning on directing a Western? Who knew that “the facts don’t really matter”? Who knew that Bahrani isn’t a big fan of the neo-realist label? Okay, that last one is actually a bit […]
When teaching courses on basic concepts in religious studies and comparative religion, I often find myself wondering what resources the history of cinema has to offer the classroom. Simply talking about rites of passage, religious language, or variations in Buddhist dogma while scribbling lecture aids on the chalkboard works well enough. But I often wish […]
If the central question of this film rotates on Schroedinger’s cat, the religious implication is this: If the tradition is the box, is God alive or is he dead?