Ron Reed

Letters of Note

Eric Rohmer died on Monday of this week at the age of 89. Filmwell pays tribute with a consideration of the French film maker’s playful look at free will and determinism, sex and spirituality.

The “District 9” that names this film is a township developed for space alien refugees: creatures nicknamed “prawns” because they look like huge sea shrimp with arms and legs. But in the word “prawns” we also hear “pawns”; the creatures are pawns to a system that fears that which is “alien”: that which looks, talks, and acts differently than majority culture. . . .

With films representing five countries and directors as diverse as Andrei Tarkovsky, Douglas Sirk, Lee Isaac Chung and the Coen brothers, this spontaneous festival of “films with a spiritual flavour” steals the cinematic spotlight from New York and even St. Louis. Organizers of the 2010 Winter Olympics express concern that the event “may draw focus” from their upcoming icy athlete-o-rama.

Excerpted from David Denby’s review, The New Yorker, November 16 2009 The Box, based on a story by Richard Matheson, doesn’t come close to Donnie Darko in psychological interest; it’s more a supernatural morality tale. . . . The great Frank Langella, soft-voiced and menacing, even with his flesh torn away, is a charmer. Is […]

excerpts from THE SIX COMMANDMENTS OF THE CHURCH OF THE ANTICHRIST by Larry Gross Film Comment, September/October 2009 . . . Lars von Trier . . . can’t seem to shut up about his beliefs, his lack of beliefs, his sincerity, his upbringing in a paradoxically rigid hippie commune, his phobias, his dishonest mommy (on […]

Excerpted from The Guardian, Charlotte Higgins Morace Park was footling around on eBay looking for antiques when he stumbled on an item that was listed casually as an “old film” – and even then he was really more interested in the tin it was in. “It had a lovely look to it,” said Park. But […]

13. If Canada is heaven, is North Dakota hell, Vanity Fair, the place of temptation and damnation? Isn’t Fargo in North Dakota? What would Marge Gunderson say about this?

“If people think that makes me weak, or mad, so be it. That is the path I am committed to. To love the sinner, but hate the sins. To assume the best in people, and not the worst. To believe that anyone, no matter how evil, can be redeemed… eventually.”