It’s been an interesting run-up to the Toronto International Film Festival, and in terms of the survival of the species, the good ol’ U.S.A. has been something of a race to the bottom. What would do us in first: violent neo-Nazis whose activities are almost explicitly condoned by the Klansman In Chief? Or a 1,000-year weather event on the Gulf Coast whose magnitude surely owes something to global climate change, and whose aftermath of collapsing dams and exploding chemical factories has everything to do with systematic neglect?Given the state of things down here, who wouldn’t want to repair to Canada for some challenging cinema? As always, the Toronto International Film Festival (Tiff) is the place to be in September, and Wavelengths once again features the best of the fest. This is because the films selected for Wavelengths are the opposite of escapism. Whether they tackle...
- 9/7/2017
- MUBI
Babette Mangolte. © Fleur van Muiswinkel If the name Babette Mangolte doesn’t ring with the same familiarity as such storied French cinematographers as Raoul Coutard and William Lubtchansky, it’s not for lack of innovation or accomplishment. Born in Montmorot in 1941, Mangolte moved to New York in 1970 following a number of years as an assistant cinematographer and apprentice to director Marcel Hanoun. There she quickly integrated herself into the city’s burgeoning experimental cinema scene, befriending luminaries such as Jonas Mekas and Stan Brakhage, and soon after met a 20-year-old Chantal Akerman whom she proceeded to collaborate with on a series of groundbreaking works throughout the mid-70s. Influenced as much by structuralism as the films of the French New Wave, Mangolte and Akerman deftly utilized time and space as cinematic conduits to visually articulate themes of dislocation, alienation, and female autonomy. Their most celebrated work, the landmark feminist dispositif Jeanne Dielman,...
- 3/30/2017
- MUBI
The twenty first entry in an on-going series of audiovisual essays by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin. Mubi will be showing Chantal Akerman's Tomorrow We Move (2004) from March 8 - April 7, 2017 in most countries around the world. Tomorrow We Move (2004) is Chantal Akerman’s most underrated film. A recent, ambiguous “tribute” to the director in Cineaste magazine dismissed most of her work in fiction filmmaking beyond the 1970s, and was especially down on those fictions involving music, comedy, love, passion, and obsession. So, into the bin go Night and Day (unmentioned in the article), Golden Eighties (“dated and silly”), La Captive (“elephantine, imitative, and strangely fake”), and Almayer’s Folly (sunk by that “terrible French actor Stanislas Merhar”). And Tomorrow we Move? It and A Couch in New York (1996) are merely “exercises that Akerman had to get out of her system.”There is frequently an element of self-portraiture in Akerman’s work,...
- 3/8/2017
- MUBI
Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.
Metrograph
The restoration of Josef von Sternberg’s Anatahan, about which more here, is now playing. Fellini’s Roma also shows on Friday.
Hitchcock, Lucas, and more are highlighted in a ’70s Universal series.
The Land Before Time plays on Saturday.
Museum of the Moving Image
The Martin Scorsese retro continues with The King of Comedy and Taxi Driver.
Metrograph
The restoration of Josef von Sternberg’s Anatahan, about which more here, is now playing. Fellini’s Roma also shows on Friday.
Hitchcock, Lucas, and more are highlighted in a ’70s Universal series.
The Land Before Time plays on Saturday.
Museum of the Moving Image
The Martin Scorsese retro continues with The King of Comedy and Taxi Driver.
- 2/3/2017
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Spring EquinoxOn November 10, James Benning premiered five of his latest works (thinking of red, wavelength, measuring change, Spring Equinox and Fall Equinox) at the Austrian Film Museum in Vienna, accompanied by a short response film by Michael Snow. Benning was also present for a Q&A before and between the screenings. Prompted by the pleasure as well as the discontent of the encounter with these films, we decided to engage in a dialogue that would offer us the time to interweave thoughts with as little space in between as possible.Dear Ivana,Writing to you about the new films of James Benning we have seen together at the Austrian Film Museum, I have the urge to begin with the end. It seems fitting, bearing in mind how Benning proceeds in his Spring Equinox, which I found to be the most vibrating film of the evening. Shot on a road passing...
- 1/2/2017
- MUBI
Ext. New York – evening. A static shot of the Downtown Manhattan skyline, filmed from a Brooklyn rooftop. The Woolworth Building is silhouetted clearly among other less discernible structures, offices and apartment blocks. Thick plumes of smoke and dust shade much of the image on the left. To the right, bands of yellow light blend into the blue of the upper sky. As evening descends, the cityscape below is bathed in shadow first, giving a Magritte-like surrealness to this most surreal of American days: September 11, 2001. The title of the painter’s ‘Empire of Light’ might be applied here, with an additional descriptive: fading. Not only will the natural light ebb from the picture, shifting first through red hues and darker blues; the musical motif on the soundtrack, too, will slowly wear away to little more than a resonant drone. To describe this as the establishing shot of the twenty-first century might seem trite or insensitive.
- 9/6/2016
- MUBI
Every week, the CriticWire Survey asks a select handful of film and TV critics two questions and publishes the results on Monday morning. (The answer to the second, “What is the best film in theaters right now?” can be found at the end of this post.)
This week’s question: This past weekend saw the release of “Lights Out,” which is based on a horrifying short film. Shorts can have tremendous value, though even the best of them tend to fly under the radar. What is your favorite short film, and why?
Miriam Bale (@mimbale), freelance
I count this Resnais film about plastics, “La chant de la styrene,” and an industrial film by Les Blank about factory farm chickens, “Chicken Real,” among the best films, and certainly best docs, I’ve seen. And the Safdies’ short “John’s Gone” is probably my favorite of their movies, if not their best.
This week’s question: This past weekend saw the release of “Lights Out,” which is based on a horrifying short film. Shorts can have tremendous value, though even the best of them tend to fly under the radar. What is your favorite short film, and why?
Miriam Bale (@mimbale), freelance
I count this Resnais film about plastics, “La chant de la styrene,” and an industrial film by Les Blank about factory farm chickens, “Chicken Real,” among the best films, and certainly best docs, I’ve seen. And the Safdies’ short “John’s Gone” is probably my favorite of their movies, if not their best.
- 7/25/2016
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
Since any New York cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.
Film Society of Lincoln Center
“Lynch/Rivette” enters its final weekend, and some terrific things are in store. On Friday, Rivette‘s Paris Belongs to Us and Duelle will play at 3:30 and 9:15, respectively, while Lynch‘s Lost Highway screens at 6:30. The great, inevitable double feature is this Saturday, when Celine and Julie Go Boating...
Film Society of Lincoln Center
“Lynch/Rivette” enters its final weekend, and some terrific things are in store. On Friday, Rivette‘s Paris Belongs to Us and Duelle will play at 3:30 and 9:15, respectively, while Lynch‘s Lost Highway screens at 6:30. The great, inevitable double feature is this Saturday, when Celine and Julie Go Boating...
- 12/18/2015
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
In today's roundup of news and views: Jean-Marie Straub's Kommunisten, a translation of the latest short film by Jean-Luc Godard, a reassessment of Michael Snow's Wavelength, interviews with Lisandro Alonso, David Zellner and Nathan Zellner, Nick Broomfield and Eugène Green, plans to restore Buster Keaton's silent films, a Goodfellas reunion with Martin Scorsese and his cast and crew, an award for Richard Gere, a new adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, Albert Maysles's documentaries on the making of two Wes Anderson films—and more. » - David Hudson...
- 3/19/2015
- Keyframe
In today's roundup of news and views: Jean-Marie Straub's Kommunisten, a translation of the latest short film by Jean-Luc Godard, a reassessment of Michael Snow's Wavelength, interviews with Lisandro Alonso, David Zellner and Nathan Zellner, Nick Broomfield and Eugène Green, plans to restore Buster Keaton's silent films, a Goodfellas reunion with Martin Scorsese and his cast and crew, an award for Richard Gere, a new adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, Albert Maysles's documentaries on the making of two Wes Anderson films—and more. » - David Hudson...
- 3/19/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
In today's roundup of news and views: Jean-Marie Straub's Kommunisten, a translation of the latest short film by Jean-Luc Godard, a reassessment of Michael Snow's Wavelength, interviews with Lisandro Alonso, David Zellner and Nathan Zellner, Nick Broomfield and Eugène Green, plans to restore Buster Keaton's silent films, a Goodfellas reunion with Martin Scorsese and his cast and crew, an award for Richard Gere, a new adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, Albert Maysles's documentaries on the making of two Wes Anderson films—and more. » - David Hudson...
- 3/19/2015
- Keyframe
In today's roundup of news and views: Jean-Marie Straub's Kommunisten, a translation of the latest short film by Jean-Luc Godard, a reassessment of Michael Snow's Wavelength, interviews with Lisandro Alonso, David Zellner and Nathan Zellner, Nick Broomfield and Eugène Green, plans to restore Buster Keaton's silent films, a Goodfellas reunion with Martin Scorsese and his cast and crew, an award for Richard Gere, a new adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, Albert Maysles's documentaries on the making of two Wes Anderson films—and more. » - David Hudson...
- 3/19/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
‘Walking Dead’: Revisiting the Final Scene: - “As someone who hasn’t read the Walking Dead comic books — just as I haven’t read George R.R. Martin’s books that form the basis for Game of Thrones — I take in all the information simply as it’s doled out, without being privy to older nonshow references or working with the knowledge of what’s ahead.” - International TV Roundup: A Quality Quartet From The BBC In 2014: - While the bulk of our coverage here at Twitch is dominantly film related we do love a good bit of TV, particularly when the TV in question is … well … good. And though the year is early it is already shaping up to be very strong, indeed, over at the BBC where they are following up 2013 hits such as Peaky Blinders, Top Of The Lake and The Fall with a continued run of high quality work.
- 4/2/2014
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
For Bomb Magazine, Alan Licht talks to Michael Snow about his photography (thanks to Dave McDougall for the link!):
"Al: The films Side Seat Paintings Slides Sound Film (1970) and One Second in Montreal (1969) both feature still images. Were those in any way an outgrowth of the things you were doing in photography at the time?
Ms: I filmed Wavelength in ’66, finished it in ’67, and in the show is a piece called Atlantic which has photographs of waves. I took those photographs the same day I took the photograph that I used in Wavelength, so there’s a stretch in there. But One Second in Montreal is about controlling the durations that a still image is on the screen, which is a very obvious thing you can do with film. One Second in Montreal relates to Recombinant (1992), eighty 35 mm slides projected against a surface made for the images to be projected on,...
"Al: The films Side Seat Paintings Slides Sound Film (1970) and One Second in Montreal (1969) both feature still images. Were those in any way an outgrowth of the things you were doing in photography at the time?
Ms: I filmed Wavelength in ’66, finished it in ’67, and in the show is a piece called Atlantic which has photographs of waves. I took those photographs the same day I took the photograph that I used in Wavelength, so there’s a stretch in there. But One Second in Montreal is about controlling the durations that a still image is on the screen, which is a very obvious thing you can do with film. One Second in Montreal relates to Recombinant (1992), eighty 35 mm slides projected against a surface made for the images to be projected on,...
- 3/19/2014
- by Adam Cook
- MUBI
The 8th annual Wndx Festival of Moving Image is another epic celebration of experimental and avant-garde film held in Winnipeg, Canada, but this year the festival as an even epic-er retrospective of one of the giants of the field: Wndx fellow countryman Michael Snow.
Wndx is screening multiple works by Snow throughout the fest, which runs Sept. 25-29, including his classic and breakthrough films like Back and Forth and La Région Centrale; plus, other experimental works such as To Lavoisier, Who Died in the Reign of Terror, Sstoorrty, Triage and Prelude. However, most exciting is the 12-hour continuous loop of “Wvlnt” (Wavelength for Those Who Don’t Have the Time), a superimposed reworking of Snow’s groundbreaking and legendary Wavelength.
The festival isn’t limited to one filmmaker clearly and there are loads of experimental short film programs during the week that feature work by filmmakers such as Aaron Zeghers,...
Wndx is screening multiple works by Snow throughout the fest, which runs Sept. 25-29, including his classic and breakthrough films like Back and Forth and La Région Centrale; plus, other experimental works such as To Lavoisier, Who Died in the Reign of Terror, Sstoorrty, Triage and Prelude. However, most exciting is the 12-hour continuous loop of “Wvlnt” (Wavelength for Those Who Don’t Have the Time), a superimposed reworking of Snow’s groundbreaking and legendary Wavelength.
The festival isn’t limited to one filmmaker clearly and there are loads of experimental short film programs during the week that feature work by filmmakers such as Aaron Zeghers,...
- 9/25/2013
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
News.
Jesús "Jess" Franco has passed away at the age of 82. Cléo, "a journal of film and feminism" founded by Kiva Reardon, has just unveiled its debut issue online. For your reading pleasure: pieces on Holy Motors, Haywire, Harmony Korine and more. A new issue from desistfilm is now online, including a Q&A with David Gatten conducted by Notebook regular David Phelps.
Above: an interview with Thomas Vinterberg (The Hunt) from the newly released 12th issue of The Seventh Art. As part of the Bard SummerScape Festival held at Bard College, a Russian emigré cinema series will be running this July and August, featuring films by Jean-Luc Godard, Jean Epstein and others.
Finds.
Above: via Indiewire, a gorgeous exclusive new poster for Spring Breakers (featuring an image from what just may be the film's best scene). Chinese cinema expert Shelly Kraicer has a new piece up on Cinema Scope...
Jesús "Jess" Franco has passed away at the age of 82. Cléo, "a journal of film and feminism" founded by Kiva Reardon, has just unveiled its debut issue online. For your reading pleasure: pieces on Holy Motors, Haywire, Harmony Korine and more. A new issue from desistfilm is now online, including a Q&A with David Gatten conducted by Notebook regular David Phelps.
Above: an interview with Thomas Vinterberg (The Hunt) from the newly released 12th issue of The Seventh Art. As part of the Bard SummerScape Festival held at Bard College, a Russian emigré cinema series will be running this July and August, featuring films by Jean-Luc Godard, Jean Epstein and others.
Finds.
Above: via Indiewire, a gorgeous exclusive new poster for Spring Breakers (featuring an image from what just may be the film's best scene). Chinese cinema expert Shelly Kraicer has a new piece up on Cinema Scope...
- 4/4/2013
- by Adam Cook
- MUBI
The La Weekly's Karina Longworth has turned a lunch with Elvis Mitchell, a lot of research and several phone calls into today's must-read. "One of the best known, and definitely most controversial, living film critics in America, Mitchell is both irresistibly charming and legendarily incapable of playing by the rules, or perhaps simply oblivious to them." And now: "He's been brought to Lacma as the embodiment of a major break from business as usual at the museum's film department." In one of the best pieces of film-related reporting I've seen in a long while, Karina outlines two histories, first, that of Lacma's evolution from "one of the city's premier destinations for cinephiles" to an institution with a "strategy to plumb the film industry for patrons," and second, that of the "former New York Times film critic who lunches at swank restaurants with movie stars and drives off in a cherry-red convertible.
- 11/17/2011
- MUBI
What follows is the Toronto International Film Festival's announcement of the lineup for Wavelengths, its avant-garde program. To reiterate, the text comes from the festival, which runs from September 9 through 18. See, too, the lineups for Visions, Contemporary World Cinema, Future Projections and the Galas and Special Presentations; entries on further programs are on the way — as are links and notes on this one.
Wavelengths 1: Analogue Arcadia. As celluloid threatens to disappear altogether, Wavelengths launches with a celebratory and elegiac program comprised of doomed desire, vanishing worlds and a love of analogue. Wavelengths launches with a rare screening of Tacita Dean's Edwin Parker (USA/United Kingdom — courtesy of the Marion Goodman Gallery), an intimate portrait of Cy Twombly, one of the great artistic geniuses of the past century. The film's inclusion in the Festival has been exclusively made possible in honour of Twombly, who died on July 5. Dean is...
Wavelengths 1: Analogue Arcadia. As celluloid threatens to disappear altogether, Wavelengths launches with a celebratory and elegiac program comprised of doomed desire, vanishing worlds and a love of analogue. Wavelengths launches with a rare screening of Tacita Dean's Edwin Parker (USA/United Kingdom — courtesy of the Marion Goodman Gallery), an intimate portrait of Cy Twombly, one of the great artistic geniuses of the past century. The film's inclusion in the Festival has been exclusively made possible in honour of Twombly, who died on July 5. Dean is...
- 8/16/2011
- MUBI
After three separate announcements (here, here and here), the Toronto International Film Festival has announced the final line-up for their Galas and Special Presentations, as well as a few other categories. Most notable is Andrea Arnold‘s Fish Tank follow-up Wuthering Heights, the next film from Timecrimes director Nacho Vigalondo, as well as Dogtooth director Yorgos Lanthimos’ Alps.
We also get Whit Stillman‘s Damsels in Distress starring Greta Gerwig and Geoffrey Fletcher’s Violet & Daisy starring Saoirse Ronan and James Gandolfini. In what should be a little fun we have Gary McKendry‘s Killer Elite starring Robert De Niro, Clive Owen and Jason Statham. We also get Owen’s horror flick Intruders and Joel Schumacher‘s Trespass starring Nicole Kidman and Nicolas Cage. Check out the full line-ups below.
Galas
Closing Night Film
Page Eight David Hare, United Kingdom
International Premiere
Johnny Worricker (Bill Nighy) is a long-serving M15 officer.
We also get Whit Stillman‘s Damsels in Distress starring Greta Gerwig and Geoffrey Fletcher’s Violet & Daisy starring Saoirse Ronan and James Gandolfini. In what should be a little fun we have Gary McKendry‘s Killer Elite starring Robert De Niro, Clive Owen and Jason Statham. We also get Owen’s horror flick Intruders and Joel Schumacher‘s Trespass starring Nicole Kidman and Nicolas Cage. Check out the full line-ups below.
Galas
Closing Night Film
Page Eight David Hare, United Kingdom
International Premiere
Johnny Worricker (Bill Nighy) is a long-serving M15 officer.
- 8/16/2011
- by jpraup@gmail.com (thefilmstage.com)
- The Film Stage
Updated through 6/10.
To Hellman and Back: An Evening with Monte Hellman is set for this evening at the Walter Reade Theater, and here's how the New York Times' Dave Kehr recommends you be there if you can: "The undisputed master of the existential road movie (Two-Lane Blacktop, 1971) will be present for a 6 pm sneak preview of his new feature, Road to Nowhere, to be followed by a rare screening of Mr Hellman's magnificently bleak adaptation of Charles Willeford's novel Cockfighter, starring Warren Oates as an itinerant gambler. A discussion with Mr Hellman follows the screening, as does a book party celebrating the reissue of the Willeford novel from PictureBox Books."
"Combining an almost quaint self-reflexiveness with state-of-the-art digital filmmaking, Road concerns the production of a film based on a controversial lovers' double-suicide in North Carolina," explains Nick Pinkerton in the Voice. "Director Mitchell Haven (Tygh Runyan) is determined to...
To Hellman and Back: An Evening with Monte Hellman is set for this evening at the Walter Reade Theater, and here's how the New York Times' Dave Kehr recommends you be there if you can: "The undisputed master of the existential road movie (Two-Lane Blacktop, 1971) will be present for a 6 pm sneak preview of his new feature, Road to Nowhere, to be followed by a rare screening of Mr Hellman's magnificently bleak adaptation of Charles Willeford's novel Cockfighter, starring Warren Oates as an itinerant gambler. A discussion with Mr Hellman follows the screening, as does a book party celebrating the reissue of the Willeford novel from PictureBox Books."
"Combining an almost quaint self-reflexiveness with state-of-the-art digital filmmaking, Road concerns the production of a film based on a controversial lovers' double-suicide in North Carolina," explains Nick Pinkerton in the Voice. "Director Mitchell Haven (Tygh Runyan) is determined to...
- 6/10/2011
- MUBI
Caught up as we might be in all the hoopla over the Cannes lineup, we shouldn't overlook several other festivals and events either already underway or opening today.
The Films of Bette Gordon is a five-program series on at New York's Anthology Film Archives through Sunday. "The series includes two of Gordon's landmark works, Variety (1984 [image above]) and The United States of America (1975)," notes Amy Taubin for Artforum. "The latter was co-directed by James Benning, Gordon's boyfriend at the time. It plays on Program 1, preceded by two other Gordon/Benning collaborations, Michigan Avenue (1973) and i-94 (1974), and followed by three of Gordon's solo turns, Still Life (1972), An Erotic Film (1975), and An Algorithm (1977). All six films are being shown in new prints, courtesy of Anthology's preservations program. All were made during the 'structuralist' period of American avant-garde filmmaking, and with the exception of The United States of America, all involve elaborate layering and/or...
The Films of Bette Gordon is a five-program series on at New York's Anthology Film Archives through Sunday. "The series includes two of Gordon's landmark works, Variety (1984 [image above]) and The United States of America (1975)," notes Amy Taubin for Artforum. "The latter was co-directed by James Benning, Gordon's boyfriend at the time. It plays on Program 1, preceded by two other Gordon/Benning collaborations, Michigan Avenue (1973) and i-94 (1974), and followed by three of Gordon's solo turns, Still Life (1972), An Erotic Film (1975), and An Algorithm (1977). All six films are being shown in new prints, courtesy of Anthology's preservations program. All were made during the 'structuralist' period of American avant-garde filmmaking, and with the exception of The United States of America, all involve elaborate layering and/or...
- 4/18/2011
- MUBI
It seems like only yesterday that the American Film Institute released their 100 Years...100 Movies [1] list. Actually though, it was over 10 years ago when we first got our look at that "definitive" list of the 100 best American movies. They then did a ten year anniversary of it in 2007 with only minor adjustments and both years Citizen Kane held the number one place as the best American movie. Of course, the problem with those lists is that they only list American films. While Hollywood might be considered the epicenter of film, the art form itself spans the globe, way beyond American borders. That's why the Toronto International Film Festival came up with their Essential 100 movies. Created by merging lists made by Toronto Film Festival supporters along with another made by their programmers, these are supposed to be the 100 essential movies every cinephile must see. And it starts off with a bang as Citizen Kane has been toppled.
- 12/22/2010
- by Germain Lussier
- Slash Film
The 9th annual Lausanne Underground Film Festival may just run for a mere five days in Switzerland on Oct. 20-24, but it hits with the force of a 10p-ton megaton bomb over that time period, packing in so much mind-boggling underground madness it’ll make your head explode.
Every year, the fest feels like 5 or 6 festivals crammed into one. There’s the fest that pays homage to the history of experimental filmmaking, there are the retrospectives of several cult festivals, a feature film competition section, a short film competition section and more.
Three filmmakers are especially getting major retrospective love this year. First, there’s legendary Canadian experimental filmmaker Michael Snow who will be in attendance at screenings of his classic films Wavelength, <–> and La région centrale, plus several of his other short films.
Also being feted are German extreme horror filmmaker Jörg Buttgereit, who will attend screenings of his classic Nekromantik,...
Every year, the fest feels like 5 or 6 festivals crammed into one. There’s the fest that pays homage to the history of experimental filmmaking, there are the retrospectives of several cult festivals, a feature film competition section, a short film competition section and more.
Three filmmakers are especially getting major retrospective love this year. First, there’s legendary Canadian experimental filmmaker Michael Snow who will be in attendance at screenings of his classic films Wavelength, <–> and La région centrale, plus several of his other short films.
Also being feted are German extreme horror filmmaker Jörg Buttgereit, who will attend screenings of his classic Nekromantik,...
- 10/18/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Flamethrower Magazine conducted an impressive and extensive interview with underground film raconteur Mike Z about his hoax filmmaking career and his Charles Manson inspired stage show, The Strip Cult, which may become a major musical. The Chicago Underground Film Festival is this week and Hollywood Chicago passionately recommended seeing the opening night film, The Wild Hunt. Chicago Journal ran an overview of the fest. Chicago Tribune’s Michael Phillips — whom I thoroughly enjoy on At the Movies — wrote a brief preview focusing on Jonas Mekas. Newcity Film liked the Chicago-produced documentary Scrappers. True/Slant also raved about Scrappers. Also in Chicago, the Reader named The Nightingale as the 2010 Best Alternative Film Venue in the city. On Cinema Scope, Michael Sicinski profiles and interviews British experimental filmmaker Ben Rivers, which prompts Making Light of It to offer its own assessment of Rivers’ work. Blake Williams looks at the evolution of the long,...
- 6/27/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
First the history, then the list:
In 1969, Jerome Hill, P. Adams Sitney, Peter Kubelka, Stan Brakhage, and Jonas Mekas decided to open the world’s first museum devoted to film. Of course, a typical museum hangs its collections of artwork on the wall for visitors to walk up to and study. However, a film museum needs special considerations on how — and what, of course — to present its collection to the public.
Thus, for this film museum, first a film selection committee was formed that included James Broughton, Ken Kelman, Peter Kubelka, Jonas Mekas and P. Adams Sitney, plus, for a time, Stan Brakhage. This committee met over the course of several months to decide exactly what films would be collected and how they would be shown. The final selection of films would come to be called the The Essential Cinema Repertory.
The Essential Cinema Collection that the committee came up with consisted of about 330 films.
In 1969, Jerome Hill, P. Adams Sitney, Peter Kubelka, Stan Brakhage, and Jonas Mekas decided to open the world’s first museum devoted to film. Of course, a typical museum hangs its collections of artwork on the wall for visitors to walk up to and study. However, a film museum needs special considerations on how — and what, of course — to present its collection to the public.
Thus, for this film museum, first a film selection committee was formed that included James Broughton, Ken Kelman, Peter Kubelka, Jonas Mekas and P. Adams Sitney, plus, for a time, Stan Brakhage. This committee met over the course of several months to decide exactly what films would be collected and how they would be shown. The final selection of films would come to be called the The Essential Cinema Repertory.
The Essential Cinema Collection that the committee came up with consisted of about 330 films.
- 5/3/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Call them "cult classics." "Guilty pleasures." "Comfort movies." We all have a mental rolodex of flicks that may not be terribly popular but, for one reason or another, they resonate in a very special way. Maybe you saw it at the right moment. Maybe you just see gold where everyone else sees feces. Whatever the case, these are the special favorites that you keep stashed away for sick days. Here are some of ours.
April 20, known among the pot-smoking nation (and among people who write the date numerically) as 4/20, is the unofficial holiday celebrating the usage of marijuana. And while MTV does not in any way endorse breaking the law, we certainly acknowledge that a sizable population of people are out there who simply disregard that law. And since you're out there, I figured I'd take a moment to run through some of my favorite flicks to zone out to.
April 20, known among the pot-smoking nation (and among people who write the date numerically) as 4/20, is the unofficial holiday celebrating the usage of marijuana. And while MTV does not in any way endorse breaking the law, we certainly acknowledge that a sizable population of people are out there who simply disregard that law. And since you're out there, I figured I'd take a moment to run through some of my favorite flicks to zone out to.
- 4/20/2010
- by Adam Rosenberg
- MTV Movies Blog
Embedded above is the 1980 short film Parataxis by Rochester, NY-based animator Skip Battaglia. This structuralist film reimagines the same scenario — a man checking out a cute chick in a department store — with different reshufflings of the order of the exact memory of the event. As Skip notes, Parataxis is considered the first xerographically animated film produced on a Xerox 6500 Color Copier on paper. While it’s a fascinating technique executed imaginatively, I want to discuss something else:
Skip was one of my film professors at the Rochester Institute of Technology (1988 – 1992) and had a phenomenally huge impact on my life. While my life and career didn’t go in the direction of creating films, Skip really instilled and inspired in me new ways of looking at the world differently. He had a way of looking at your footage and, while seeing and appreciating it for what it was and what you...
Skip was one of my film professors at the Rochester Institute of Technology (1988 – 1992) and had a phenomenally huge impact on my life. While my life and career didn’t go in the direction of creating films, Skip really instilled and inspired in me new ways of looking at the world differently. He had a way of looking at your footage and, while seeing and appreciating it for what it was and what you...
- 4/13/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
When young Belgian director Chantal Akerman arrived in New York in the early ’70s, the city’s experimental scene was alive with an influx of structural films from giants like Michael Snow, whose 1967 classic Wavelength set the standard for rigorous, long-take, intensely alienating explorations of physical space. Over the course of the decade, Akerman did the seemingly impossible: She reconciled the extreme minimalism and formal discipline of structural filmmaking with semi-conventional narrative storytelling. These two worlds wouldn’t seem to coalesce easily, but Akerman, drawing on her own feelings of stranger-in-a-strange-land disconnect, used the confinements of space and dull ...
- 1/20/2010
- avclub.com
The film side of Canadian Artists ’68—an open competition that started with 120 entries and ended with 20 finalists and four prizewinners dividing $6,000— leaves strong impressions, stronger say than those of Secret Ceremony or the latest film featuring acting by a one-movie nymphet whose playing of a little girl parasite (Zita, Joanna, or Cenci) is being memorialized at this moment in Sunday supplements by Rex Reed or Guy Flatley.
Some of these impressions would obviously include (1) an austere “Loft To Let” space overlooking Canal Street in Manhattan, which is examined for 45 minutes in Michael Snow’s Wavelength as no room ever has been, outside of Vermeer paintings, (2) the nasty blankness of a prefab room in Clarke Mackey’s On Nothing Days and the poignantly dispirited way the lacklustre teenager walks to the window and stares at a scene of children jumping rope—as though he were going through a tunnel that stretched across seventeen cheerless years,...
Some of these impressions would obviously include (1) an austere “Loft To Let” space overlooking Canal Street in Manhattan, which is examined for 45 minutes in Michael Snow’s Wavelength as no room ever has been, outside of Vermeer paintings, (2) the nasty blankness of a prefab room in Clarke Mackey’s On Nothing Days and the poignantly dispirited way the lacklustre teenager walks to the window and stares at a scene of children jumping rope—as though he were going through a tunnel that stretched across seventeen cheerless years,...
- 12/7/2009
- MUBI
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