Monthly Archives: July 2012 »
Short Film Corner: Interview with Andrew Renzi (The Fort)
This month’s Short Film Corner we feature The Fort, the dozen minute short that premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival (more recently BamCinemafest) and is slowly making its way onto the U.S. and
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Senna | Blu-ray Review
Fans of motorsports generally get a bad rap, but not all racing is epitomized by the generic dim-witted redneck NASCAR fan, blasting country music and pounding cases of Bud Light. Formula One (F1), the
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2012 Vanguard Section: Peaches, Jesper Ganslandt, Soi Cheang and Peter Strickland Make the Cut
Easily the section that this journalist feels the most at home with, this year’s Vanguard section (programmed by such folk, among others Scandi-discoverer Steve Gravestock, Asian fare specialist Giovanni Fulvi and Latin Europe/American know
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2012 Midnight Madness section The ABCs of Death, Hellbenders and Seven Psychopaths
Midnight Madness programmer Colin Geddes might have just topped himself as 2012 edition already looks to be a legendary year with 9 world preems, one lone non-world preem status item in the Sundance preemed
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2012 TIFF Docs: Ken Burns, Julien Temple, Marina Zenovich and Alex Gibney Load Up Doc Section
In terms of documentary film servings in the fall (pre IDFA in November), in the hands of Thom Powers, TIFF’s former Real to Reel section now simply known as TIFF Docs is the equivalent
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Burning Man | Review
Tinker Troubled Trashed Tom: Teplitzky’s Unconventional Debut Rises to the Occasions Like its shattered protagonist, Burning Man‘s narrative arrives in a series of vibrant and intense flourishes trying recklessly to place the images into
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Book Review: Mike Goodridge’s FilmCraft: Directing
As the fifth volume of Focal Press’s exceedingly readable and loving exploratory series of the filmmaking process, Mike Goodridge’s FilmCraft: Directing follows the success of its predecessors with expectedly enjoyable results. Featuring discussions with
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Interview: TIFF’s Cameron Bailey
Yesterday’s press conference was not unlike a Christmas morning where the presents under the tree come unwrapped. A good two hours before Piers Handling and Cameron Bailey were set to unveil the identity of
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Nuit #1 | Review
Fear and Loathing: Emotional Entitlement Reigns in Emond’s debut In this day and age, it’s debatable whether the human species are better off as solitary mammals, or more apt for sparing and sharing. The
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Planet of Snail | Review
Communication Studies: Seung-Jun Offers Space Tourism of a Different Kind We take our senses for granted. Trapped in the silent darkness of his own existence, deaf-blind Korean poet Young-Chan experiences the world mostly through
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The Last of England | Blu-ray Review
Looking back at Derek Jarman’s 1987 experimental manifestation of the loss of traditional English culture, The Last of England, his creation remains an incredibly unconventional, but highly personal semi-narrative that cuts through a scorched
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Footnote | Blu-ray Review
Garnering nearly universal acclaim and major award noms from the Academy, Independent Spirit, and Cannes last year, American born and Jerusalem raised director Joseph Cedar’s Footnote is worthy of props for its amusingly clever
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2012 TIFF to Open with Looper, Malick, Cianfrance and Bahrani to Double Dip in Venice and Toronto
Couple of hours before TIFF is set to announce their 60 plus title announcement (loads of Cannes items), Variety breaks the news that some of our most highly anticipated titles such as Terrence Malick’s
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Jiro Dreams of Sushi | Blu-ray Review
Anyone who is a fan of The Food Network will attest to their curious attraction to watching the preparation of food. It is part of human nature. Knowing we will not be able to
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Klown | Review
A Buffoon Buffet: Danish Comedy Brazen, Ballsy, Adult Fun Witness the most surprising, and hands down, funniest film to be released in American theaters this year with Klown, the feature debut of Mikkel Nørgaard,
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Cassavetes’ Kiss of the Damned Closes Venice Film Festival’s Critics’ Week
Xan Cassavetes (Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession) will be premiering her feature film debut on the Lido this year in Venice’s answer to Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight section. Venice Film Festival’s Critics’ Week has unveiled
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Searching for Sugarman | Review
Bendjelloul Gives Us “Where Are They Now” Fierceness On Forgotten Artist First time filmmaker Malik Bendjelloul spins on salivating subject matter, documenting the long forgotten (in the US) and rumored to be dead folk
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Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox in the Midst of Majestic French Cinema Retrospective
Who knew that some septuagenarian films in a non-English language about class conflicts, prisoners of war, and cancan dancing could still be the hottest tickets in town? The TIFF Cinematheque did, evidently, as they’ve
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Killer Joe | Review
Friedkin Back with A Vengeance: A delicious, glossy throwback to the daring exploitative themes of the 1970s. Incest, murderous rednecks, and a bucket of chicken you’re not apt to forget, are all part of
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2012 Sundance Institute Creative Prod Labs: “Bright As Day”, “Hellion”, “Joy of Living” and “Life Partners”
While not all films mentioned below are necessarily guaranteed future place among the Sundance Film Festival elite, it’s certainly a step in the right direction for the filmmakers and more importantly the producers backing
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Sweet Sixteen: Fantasia Becoming the Cannes of Genre Film Fests
An adolescent’s sixteenth birthday marks a turning point in life when maturation occurs at a much more rapid pace and the teenager begins to be faced with difficult and important decisions that will shape
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The Well Digger’s Daughter | Review
Shallow Trench: Auteuil’s Debut a Bland Mush Certainly one of the most prolific performers to come out of France over the past few decades, Daniel Auteuil’s laboriously banal directorial debut, The Well Digger’s Daughter,
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Criterion Collection: Metropolitan Blu-ray Review
With this past Spring’s release of Damsels In Distress, his first new title in thirteen years, the Criterion Collection has refurbished two Whit Stillman titles this month, including his impressive independent darling from 1990,
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The Turin Horse | Blu-ray Review
Operating somewhere between Bergman and Tarkovsky, Béla Tarr has been a wholly original inspiration for remodernist filmmakers for his spiritually exploratory form of cinema that revels in extremely long takes and the dire desolation
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Dirty Pretty Things | Blu-ray Review
Stephen Frears has had a very successful career, dabbling in all corners of fictional cinema with cult hits such as High Fidelity, major main stream period success in The Queen, and even noir revival
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