(Ed. Note: Originally published at Film-Think.) I desperately wanted to like Henry Poole is Here, as all the ideas in the film are so worth considering. I also wanted to really like it because it is a film of my favorite genre, one which I have been covering for years in obscurity, that being Non-Canonical […]
(Ed. Note: Originally published at Film-Think.) Spike Lee’s dolly shots in 25th Hour may be the best post-9/11 commentary on film – shocked minds drifting to and fro among aftermath. At first, pulling Anna Paquin and Philip Seymour Hoffman through a Manhattan nightclub on dollies seems contrived, not out of sync with New York nightlife. But […]
(Ed. Note: Originally published at Film-Think.) “According to a new gospel of ugliness, there is already more Junkspace under construction in the 21st century than survived from the 20th…” “God is dead, the author is dead, history is dead, only the architect is left standing.” – Rem Koolhaas Junkspace, a term coined by architect Rem Koolhaas, […]
(Ed. Note: Originally published at Film-Think.) Encounters at the End of the World has the merit of addressing two of my long held fascinations at the same time, Antarctica and Werner Herzog. The former has been a lifelong point of interest, having something to do with stark horizons, the personality of nature, and wayfaring to […]
(Ed. Note: This was originally published at Image Facts.) I still can’t for the life of me put my finger on why I like Linklater’sSchool of Rock so much. Rosenbaum quipped on a radio program that “If Jean Renoir had decided to make a movie about rock and roll musicians in the 6th grade, it would have […]
(Ed. Note: This was originally published at Image Facts.) The first time I saw Tape I could hardly take it. It is relentless, theCome and See of thirtysomethings in the 90’s. It is a film about regret and forgiveness, about getting something of your chest, the torment of raw guilt. And, as an adapted stage play, it takes place […]
(Ed. Note: Originally published at Image Facts.) Quite possibly the best filmed incarnation of Buddhist ideology,Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring, is a transcendent and visually poetic ode to one of Eastern mysticism’s core doctrines. An old monk and a young boy live together in a one room temple that floats in the middle of a […]
(Ed. Note: Originally published at Image Facts.) “Exquisite Yearning!… Exotic Living! High in a hidden mountain village of a strange land and extravagant dreams and desires become exciting realities!” (Tagline to the film. No, seriously, it really is.) The successes of Powell’s Black Narcissus are well documented. Scorsese said it was being like “bathed in color,” the over-realized […]
(Ed. Note: Originally published at Image Facts.) “Big they fought! Big they loved! Big their story!” (This is the actual publicity tagline for the film. How fantastic is that?) The term “horizonless landscape” pops up often both in exhibition catalogs of contemporary photography and descriptions of post-modern culture. In its literal sense, it refers to […]