Monthly Archives: August 2012 »
Chicken With Plums | Review
A La Cart: Satrapi’s Latest a Visual, Fairy Tale Buffet Directors Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud prove they are as visually adept with live action cinema as they are with animation, unveiling Chicken With
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For a Good Time, Call… | Review
Hold, Please: Travis’ Debut an Anachronistic, Hilarious Laugh Penned by Katie Ann Naylon and star Lauren Miller, For a Good Time, Call… is a surprisingly adept and wantonly gleeful female buddy comedy, and the
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A Separation | Blu-ray Review
Writer and director Asghar Farhadi had a couple award winning films to his name prior to 2011, but nothing of the notoriety that came with the release of his critically lauded examination of marital
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True Wolf | Review
Poorly Domesticating The Wild For Koani, a wolf picked from birth to be domestically raised for the purpose of a film (not this one), living unnaturally among humans was her poorly-thought-out fate. Bruce Weide
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The Tall Man | Review
Head In the Clouds: Laugier’s English Speaking Horror Feature Poorly Manufactured After his infamously violent 2008 horror flick Martyrs landed him on the top of the New Wave French Horror directors, Pascal Laugier finally
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Little Birds | Review
Teenage Wasteland: Elgin James Gives Us Teen Angst for Debut A Sundance Lab creation, Elgin James’ debut, Little Birds is a strong first effort, one borne primarily from an interesting mutation of the professed
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Little White Lies | Review
The Big Chilly Summer Vacation: Canet’s Latest an Exemplary Drama For his third outing as director, actor/screenwriter Guillaume Canet looks to have been heavily influenced by Lawrence Kasdan’s American classic, The Big Chill (1983)
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Interview: Mike Birbiglia (Sleepwalk With Me)
Behind that semi-stoned appearance you’ve probably come to know from his stand-up performances or his frequent appearances on This American Life, comedian/writer/director Mike Birbiglia is a hard working guy who’s creative output is a
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Sleepwalk With Me | Review
Standup comedian Mike Birbiglia has taken his personal tale of failed relationships, comedic development, and serious sleep disorders to the stage, the page, and finally to the big screen with Sleepwalk With Me. The
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Red Hook Summer | Review
Summer Bummer: Lee Offers Strong Ending for the Devoted With his first fictional film since 2008’s Miracle at St. Anna, the ever divisive Spike Lee returns with a film he himself personally financed, Red
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Neighboring Sounds | Review
People Talking Without Speaking: Mendonca Filho’s Ensemble a Pleasant Din There’s something extremely engrossing about Kleber Mendonca Filho’s episodic feature debut, Neighboring Sounds, a film that uses the lives of a group of people
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Samsara | Review
Fever Dreams of a Tangential Wheel: Fricke’s Latest a Visual Feat, Contextual Blunder A veritable poem of moving pictures, Ron Fricke’s latest visual analysis of omniscient transcendence, Samsara, is exactly the kind of stunning
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Teddy Bear | Review
You’ll Like My Mother: Matthiesen’s Debut a Gentle Giant Director Mads Matthiesen developed his 2007 short film Dennis into his feature debut, Teddy Bear, a quiet character study about a shy professional body builder
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Interview: Ron Nyswaner, Phil Dorling and Melissa Leo (Why Stop Now)
Originally titled Predisposed after the short it was based on, Why Stop Now made a splash at this years Sundance where it caught the attention of IFC Films at the film’s world premier. Riding
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Side By Side | Review
Film vs. digital doc obscures message with overt Hollywood deference From the opening Oscar broadcast-style montage of iconic movie clips (apparently it is only Hollywood, and not international cinema, that was able to “inspire
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Cosmopolis | Review
Consuming Dystopia: Cronenberg’s Latest a Morose Microcosm of Greedy Consumption David Cronenberg returns to a familiar formula, that of creating a uniquely original film from notoriously “unfilmable” source material, this being the first adaptation
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TIFF 2012: The New Wavelengths Section Includes: Tsangari, Carlos Reygadas, Wang Bing and Blake Williams
By merging the former Visions into the Wavelengths section, Cameron Bailey has essentially made a new incontournable programme. Headed by Andréa Picard, the section which at a time was populated by medium to short
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TIFF 2012: World Preems from Abrahamson, Jacir, Sion Sono Plus Loznitsa’s Masterwork “In The Fog” Make up the CWC
The globe-trotting section of this year’s Contemporary World Cinema programme has your Sundance (in a pair of excellent titles in Ava DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere and James Ponsoldt’s Smashed) and has select items from several
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Chained | Review
A Jennifer Lynch film never fails to polarize audiences. 1993′s Boxing Helena was widely panned by critics and avoided by filmgoers, but a small cult audience – including a few cinema scholars – found
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TIFF Books World Preems for Song for Marion, Greetings from Tim Buckley, Yellow; Adds PTA, Korine, De Palma from Venice
TIFF announced their last batch of titles for their primo Gala and Special Presentation events and it comes as no surprise that we’ve got ourselves several future Venice (Bad 25, Love is All You Need, Spring
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Criterion Collection: La Promesse | Blu-ray Review
La Promesse, newly released on Blu-ray by Criterion, introduced the world to the filmmaking team of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, and their patented brand of realism on steroids. Produced during the booming economy of
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Criterion Collection: Rosetta | Blu-ray Review
While there have been many coming of age films about teenage girls, it’s safe to say none have been quite like Rosetta, Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne’s Palme d’Or winner from 1999. Finally getting its
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Jaws | Blu-ray Review
Jaws. The first summer blockbuster. The first film to reap the benefits of a massive 400 theater opening weekend release. The first film to really set television into action as a home invading movie
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The Tempest | Blu-ray Review
Shot entirely on location in the incredible Stoneleigh Abbey in Warwickshire, England, director Derek Jarman’s re-imagining of The Tempest is a bizarro Shakespearian fever dream that actually does stick to much of the original
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Short Film Corner: Isaac Cravit (Writer/Director) & Chris Bennett (Producer)
This month’s Short Film Corner we feature Good Boy, a five minute item which premiered at 2011′s Toronto Int. Film Festival and was one of the better short films to be include at the
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"Ron and I wanted to make a film that looked at what it means to be an outsider and we wanted to explore what it takes to reach out to someone whose life is very removed from your own."
