The show must go on. At least the Venice Film Festival must go on. Even a pandemic can’t stop the oldest international film festival from taking place Sept. 2 through Sept. 12 in the picturesque of grand canals. Of course, safety is first with masks, social distancing etc. are all in place as critics get a first glance at possible award-winners.
Over the past seven years, the festival has held world premieres of such Oscar-winners as 2013’s “Gravity”; 2014’s “Birdman”; 2015’s “Spotlight”; 2016’s “La La Land”; 2017’s “The Shape of Water”; 2018’s “Roma”; and 2019’s “Joker.” Only two films that won the festival’s top prize have gone on to win Best Picture at the Oscars: 1948’s “Hamlet” and 2017’s “The Shape of Water.”
The festival began in 1932 as part of the Venice Biennale, the city’s legendary exhibition of the arts under the guidance of President of the Biennale, Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata,...
Over the past seven years, the festival has held world premieres of such Oscar-winners as 2013’s “Gravity”; 2014’s “Birdman”; 2015’s “Spotlight”; 2016’s “La La Land”; 2017’s “The Shape of Water”; 2018’s “Roma”; and 2019’s “Joker.” Only two films that won the festival’s top prize have gone on to win Best Picture at the Oscars: 1948’s “Hamlet” and 2017’s “The Shape of Water.”
The festival began in 1932 as part of the Venice Biennale, the city’s legendary exhibition of the arts under the guidance of President of the Biennale, Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata,...
- 9/2/2020
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’re highlighting the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and an archive of past round-ups here.
Arabian Nights (Miguel Gomes)
In lauding Miguel Gomes’ three-part, six-and-a-half hour behemoth, it’s perhaps important to consider his background as a critic. Not just in terms of the trilogy’s cinephilic engagement with Rossellini, Alonso, Oliveira, etc.; also in its defiant nature. While it’s easy to assign the trilogy certain humanist and satirical labels from the get-go and just praise these films for following through on them, Gomes continually seeks to mutate and complicate his of age-of-austerity saga. Far from perfect, and so much more exciting for that very reason. – Ethan V.
Where to Stream: Mubi (free for 30 days)
Bait (Mark Jenkin)
For his debut feature,...
Arabian Nights (Miguel Gomes)
In lauding Miguel Gomes’ three-part, six-and-a-half hour behemoth, it’s perhaps important to consider his background as a critic. Not just in terms of the trilogy’s cinephilic engagement with Rossellini, Alonso, Oliveira, etc.; also in its defiant nature. While it’s easy to assign the trilogy certain humanist and satirical labels from the get-go and just praise these films for following through on them, Gomes continually seeks to mutate and complicate his of age-of-austerity saga. Far from perfect, and so much more exciting for that very reason. – Ethan V.
Where to Stream: Mubi (free for 30 days)
Bait (Mark Jenkin)
For his debut feature,...
- 4/12/2019
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Spike Lee, Bi Gan, Steven Spielberg, Kelly Reichardt, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Mia Hansen-Løve, Terence Davies, Jia Zhangke, Pedro Almodóvar, Lynne Ramsay, Tsai Ming-liang, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Guillermo del Toro, Lee Chang-dong, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, and Christopher Nolan. Those are just a few of the filmmakers who brought their early work to New Directors/New Films. Now in its 48th edition, the New York City-based film festival continues to spotlight emerging directors representing the future of filmmaking and this year’s edition is particularly eclectic.
We’ve covered all twenty-four of the features playing at the festival, taking place March 27 through April 7 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art. Along with gems hailing from Berlinale, Cannes, Locarno, Rotterdam, Tiff, Sundance, and beyond, the festival also features one world premiere (End of the Century) as well as two shorts programs.
Check out our comprehensive coverage below along with links to full reviews.
We’ve covered all twenty-four of the features playing at the festival, taking place March 27 through April 7 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art. Along with gems hailing from Berlinale, Cannes, Locarno, Rotterdam, Tiff, Sundance, and beyond, the festival also features one world premiere (End of the Century) as well as two shorts programs.
Check out our comprehensive coverage below along with links to full reviews.
- 3/26/2019
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
For his debut feature, writer-director-cinematographer Mark Jenkin takes a parable about a contemporary fishing community under threat from wealthy outsiders and presents it in a style reminiscent of documentaries of the early 20th century, namely Robert J. Flaherty’s 1934 film Man of Aran. The result is titled Bait, a punky, pastoral little movie that draws from the mysticism and iconography of documentaries like Flaherty’s but with a narrative and ironic wit that is inescapably of the here and now. Put it this way: the director may have had those films in mind when he chose to shoot Bait on 16mm and have it processed by hand–for purposes of wear and tear–but perhaps less so when he wrote the scene in which a man on a stag party boards a boat dressed in a large penis costume.
It is that kind of anachronistic counterpoint that makes so much of Bait such a blast.
It is that kind of anachronistic counterpoint that makes so much of Bait such a blast.
- 2/28/2019
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Robert Flaherty's Moana with Sound (1926 / 1980) is playing August 30 - September 29, 2017 on Mubi in most countries around the world.Slowly, slowly, the tufunga taps his comb of bone needles into the young man’s lower back. His movements are practiced and precise, each tap marking the young man for the rest of his days. The young man winces in agony, sweat pouring down his face as his relatives wipe away the blood and excess ink with tapa cloth. A witch-woman stokes a fire and burns candlenut stalks to make more soot for the tufunga’s ink. The infernal tapping continues, now on his upper back, now on his flanks, now on his knees—the most painful part of the ceremony. Outside the hut, a crowd of men dance and sing. “Courage to Moana,” they cry, “Courage to Moana!
- 8/30/2017
- MUBI
Here's a brief look – to be expanded – at Turner Classic Movies' June 2017 European Vacation Movie Series this evening, June 23. Tonight's destination of choice is Italy. Starring Suzanne Pleshette and Troy Donahue as the opposite of Ugly Americans who find romance and heartbreak in the Italian capital, Delmer Daves' Rome Adventure (1962) was one of the key romantic movies of the 1960s. Angie Dickinson and Rossano Brazzi co-star. In all, Rome Adventure is the sort of movie that should please fans of Daves' Technicolor melodramas like A Summer Place, Parrish, and Susan Slade. Fans of his poetic Westerns – e.g., 3:10 to Yuma, The Hanging Tree – may (or may not) be disappointed with this particular Daves effort. As an aside, Rome Adventure was, for whatever reason, a sizable hit in … Brazil. Who knows, maybe that's why Rome Adventure co-star Brazzi would find himself playing a Brazilian – a macho, traditionalist coffee plantation owner,...
- 6/24/2017
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Lupita Tovar, the 1930s film actress who starred in the acclaimed Spanish-language version of Dracula and the first Mexican talkie, Santa, has died. She was 106.
Born the oldest of nine in a poor and very religious household in a small town in the southernmost part of Mexico, Tovar moved with her family to Mexico City in the later years of the Mexican Revolution. It was there, as a teenager studying dance and gymnastics, that she was discovered by Robert Flaherty, the docu-fiction film pioneer who directed Nanook Of The North and Man Of Aran. At the time, Flaherty was preparing his collaboration with F.W. Murnau, Tabu: A Story of the South Seas, and he wanted Tovar for the lead role. However, after coming to Hollywood, she ended up signing a contract with Fox; Tovar would later claim that this was an attempt by the studio to get back ...
Born the oldest of nine in a poor and very religious household in a small town in the southernmost part of Mexico, Tovar moved with her family to Mexico City in the later years of the Mexican Revolution. It was there, as a teenager studying dance and gymnastics, that she was discovered by Robert Flaherty, the docu-fiction film pioneer who directed Nanook Of The North and Man Of Aran. At the time, Flaherty was preparing his collaboration with F.W. Murnau, Tabu: A Story of the South Seas, and he wanted Tovar for the lead role. However, after coming to Hollywood, she ended up signing a contract with Fox; Tovar would later claim that this was an attempt by the studio to get back ...
- 11/14/2016
- by Ignatiy Vishnevetsky
- avclub.com
The Great FortuneNot many festivals grant you the privilege of being personally welcomed by its director with a bottle of home-brewed liquor, not very many set that as their standard of hospitality: Beldocs, the Belgrade International Documentary Film Festival, is one of them. The composite beauty and disinterested generosity of the city and its people are the ideal environment for a festival genuinely close to its etymological roots, that of festivity, of an uplifting moment of reciprocal discovery and exchange. Big enough to explore, small enough to elaborate, Beldocs is what a festival is meant to be: a place where films are not only consumed but also convivially dissected. The size and schedule of the festival, but most crucially its comradery dimension, allow for the kind of space cinema needs in order to be cultivated, not only watched. The constitutive elements of the seventh art in Beldocs coexist organically side by side,...
- 7/14/2016
- MUBI
Don't let your boss see this movie, it'll give them ideas. Writer-director Kaneto Shindo reduces the human drama to its basics, as an isolated family endures a backbreaking existence of dawn 'til dusk toil to eke out a living. It's a beautiful but humbling ode to adaptability and human resolve. And the show has no conventional dialogue. The Naked Island Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 811 1960 / B&W / 2:35 widescreen / 94 min. / Hadaka no shima / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date May 17, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Nobuko Otowa, Taiji Tonoyama, Shinji Tanaka, Masanori Horimoto. Cinematography Kiyomi Kuroda Film Editor Toshio Enoki Original Music Hikaru Hayashi Produced by Eisaku Matsuura, Kaneto Shindo Written and Directed by Kaneto Shindo
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Writer-director Kaneto Shindo started his own production company in the 1950s earning critical attention but not great success with pictures on topical themes -- the legacy of Hiroshima, the story of the fishing trawler irradiated by a hydrogen blast.
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Writer-director Kaneto Shindo started his own production company in the 1950s earning critical attention but not great success with pictures on topical themes -- the legacy of Hiroshima, the story of the fishing trawler irradiated by a hydrogen blast.
- 5/10/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Part I.
In 1963, Film Quarterly published an essay entitled “Circles and Squares.” It addressed the French auteur theory, introduced to America by The Village Voice’s Andrew Sarris. Auteurism holds that a film’s primary creator is its director; Sarris’s “Notes on the Auteur Theory” further distinguished auteurs as filmmakers with distinct, recurring styles. Challenging him was a California-based writer named Pauline Kael.
Kael attacked Sarris’s obsession with trivial links between filmmaker’s movies, whether repeated shots or thematic preoccupations. This led critics to overpraise directors’ lesser films, as when Jacques Rivette declared Howard Hawks’ Monkey Business a masterpiece. “It is an insult to an artist to praise his bad work along with his good; it indicates that you are incapable of judging either,” Kael wrote.
She criticized auteurist preoccupation with Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock, claiming critics “work embarrassingly hard trying to give some semblance of intellectual respectability to mindless,...
In 1963, Film Quarterly published an essay entitled “Circles and Squares.” It addressed the French auteur theory, introduced to America by The Village Voice’s Andrew Sarris. Auteurism holds that a film’s primary creator is its director; Sarris’s “Notes on the Auteur Theory” further distinguished auteurs as filmmakers with distinct, recurring styles. Challenging him was a California-based writer named Pauline Kael.
Kael attacked Sarris’s obsession with trivial links between filmmaker’s movies, whether repeated shots or thematic preoccupations. This led critics to overpraise directors’ lesser films, as when Jacques Rivette declared Howard Hawks’ Monkey Business a masterpiece. “It is an insult to an artist to praise his bad work along with his good; it indicates that you are incapable of judging either,” Kael wrote.
She criticized auteurist preoccupation with Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock, claiming critics “work embarrassingly hard trying to give some semblance of intellectual respectability to mindless,...
- 5/10/2015
- by Christopher Saunders
- SoundOnSight
Celebrating opening night, Daniel Radcliffe walked the red carpet at the Cort Theatre in New York City on Sunday night (April 20).
The “Harry Potter” actor kept it casual before suiting up in his costume for “The Cripple of Inishmaan,” in which he stars alongside Pat Shortt and Gillian Hanna.
The play is a dark comedy by Martin McDonagh who links the story to the real life filming of the documentary Man of Aran and is set in Ireland.
McDonagh discussed his work and said, "I hope someday they’ll be regarded as true Irish stories; I don’t think they are at this minute. It will take a long time for the baggage of me being a Londoner to be in the past.”...
The “Harry Potter” actor kept it casual before suiting up in his costume for “The Cripple of Inishmaan,” in which he stars alongside Pat Shortt and Gillian Hanna.
The play is a dark comedy by Martin McDonagh who links the story to the real life filming of the documentary Man of Aran and is set in Ireland.
McDonagh discussed his work and said, "I hope someday they’ll be regarded as true Irish stories; I don’t think they are at this minute. It will take a long time for the baggage of me being a Londoner to be in the past.”...
- 4/21/2014
- GossipCenter
New York – Jaded film students will get a huge kick out of Slippy Helen, one of the virulently opinionated characters in The Cripple of Inishmaan, sharing her unappreciative views on Robert Flaherty's milestone 1934 documentary, Man of Aran. "What’s to fecking see anyways but more wet fellas with awful jumpers on them?" she complains in shrill tones, in between torturing her brother and taunting an old woman about her enfeebled mind. Helen's terse assessment at the end of the church-hall screening on a stained bed sheet is even more blunt: "Oh thank Christ the fecker's over. A pile
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- 4/20/2014
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
After making a bold Broadway debut in the powerful equine drama Equus and following up with a singing, dancing stint in the glossy 1960s musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, the always astonishing Daniel Radcliffe is back for round three on the Broadway stage — in something completely, totally different.
Radcliffe willreprise his role as Billy in playwright Martin McDonagh’s 1996 black comedy The Cripple of Inishmaan, which follows a handicapped Irish boy (Radcliffe) who dreams of appearing in a documentary being filmed by a Hollywood crew on a nearby island (the real-life 1934 film Man of Aran). The...
Radcliffe willreprise his role as Billy in playwright Martin McDonagh’s 1996 black comedy The Cripple of Inishmaan, which follows a handicapped Irish boy (Radcliffe) who dreams of appearing in a documentary being filmed by a Hollywood crew on a nearby island (the real-life 1934 film Man of Aran). The...
- 3/11/2014
- by Marc Snetiker
- EW.com - PopWatch
The erstwhile bespectacled boy wizard is serious about his stage credentials. Marking his third stint on Broadway, Daniel Radcliffe will return to New York this spring in the hit London production of Martin McDonagh's The Cripple of Inishmaan, directed by Michael Grandage. The dark comedy is set on the remote island off the west coast of Ireland in the 1930s, when the small community is abuzz over the arrival of an American film crew to shoot Robert J. Flaherty's fictionalized documentary, Man of Aran. Story: 'Frozen' Musical Is Headed to Broadway Part of the inaugural season of the newly formed Michael Grandage Company,
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- 1/16/2014
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Noel Coward, London
Imagine a dramatic hero who stands no chance of being kissed "unless it was by a blind girl" and of whom it is said, by an adoptive aunt, "you'd see nicer eyes on a goat". Daniel Radcliffe is not the first name that would leap to mind in the casting of such a role. But he is the undoubted star of Michael Grandage's revival of Martin McDonagh's 1997 play and proves, as he did in Equus, that he is a fine stage actor with a gift for playing social outsiders.
Radcliffe is the eponymous hero, a disabled 17-year-old orphan named Billy Claven, of McDonagh's ingenious play. Dejected and generally derided, the bookish Billy is brought up by his "aunties" on the isle of Inishmaan. But the dullness of daily life is suddenly relieved when in 1934 Hollywood film-maker Robert Flaherty descends on a neighbouring isle to make...
Imagine a dramatic hero who stands no chance of being kissed "unless it was by a blind girl" and of whom it is said, by an adoptive aunt, "you'd see nicer eyes on a goat". Daniel Radcliffe is not the first name that would leap to mind in the casting of such a role. But he is the undoubted star of Michael Grandage's revival of Martin McDonagh's 1997 play and proves, as he did in Equus, that he is a fine stage actor with a gift for playing social outsiders.
Radcliffe is the eponymous hero, a disabled 17-year-old orphan named Billy Claven, of McDonagh's ingenious play. Dejected and generally derided, the bookish Billy is brought up by his "aunties" on the isle of Inishmaan. But the dullness of daily life is suddenly relieved when in 1934 Hollywood film-maker Robert Flaherty descends on a neighbouring isle to make...
- 6/19/2013
- by Michael Billington
- The Guardian - Film News
As he returns to the stage, the actor sets out his approach to work, tattoos, and the terror of playing Allen Ginsberg
Your latest role is in Martin McDonagh's play The Cripple of Inishmaan. What made you want to play Billy, the "cripple" of the title?
Michael Grandage, the director, presented me with three or four plays, and as soon as I read Cripple there was no contest. I'm very much the tragic relief of this play: Billy has a few funny lines but a lot of the comedy comes out of people being incredibly cruel to my character. Which I'm very, very happy with. I've learned that I really enjoy stage violence. I was lucky enough to spend a lot of my lunchtimes as a child choreographing fight scenes on Potter. So I'm quite good at it: the stunt department always said that I bounce.
Billy dreams of...
Your latest role is in Martin McDonagh's play The Cripple of Inishmaan. What made you want to play Billy, the "cripple" of the title?
Michael Grandage, the director, presented me with three or four plays, and as soon as I read Cripple there was no contest. I'm very much the tragic relief of this play: Billy has a few funny lines but a lot of the comedy comes out of people being incredibly cruel to my character. Which I'm very, very happy with. I've learned that I really enjoy stage violence. I was lucky enough to spend a lot of my lunchtimes as a child choreographing fight scenes on Potter. So I'm quite good at it: the stunt department always said that I bounce.
Billy dreams of...
- 6/2/2013
- by Tim Lewis
- The Guardian - Film News
Sundance London returns with a keen momentum to the O2 Arena from the 25th to the 28th of April and this year the festival’s twin strands of music and film are even more intertwined with some must-see headline events.
Below we’ve picked three of the events we’ll be looking out for in our coverage and we’ll be in attendance bringing you reviews of the festival’s films and events. If the events spark your interest we’ve included further information and booking details for each of our selection and for the list of features playing in this year’s festival get busy clicking here.
Our interview with John Cooper, Director of the Sundance Film Festival and Trevor Groth, Director of Programming for the Sundance Film Festival can be found here and you can see all of our coverage for Sundance here, and, importantly, here’s the...
Below we’ve picked three of the events we’ll be looking out for in our coverage and we’ll be in attendance bringing you reviews of the festival’s films and events. If the events spark your interest we’ve included further information and booking details for each of our selection and for the list of features playing in this year’s festival get busy clicking here.
Our interview with John Cooper, Director of the Sundance Film Festival and Trevor Groth, Director of Programming for the Sundance Film Festival can be found here and you can see all of our coverage for Sundance here, and, importantly, here’s the...
- 4/9/2013
- by Jon Lyus
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
A million miles away from the romance of Twilight, director Chris Weitz reveals how his own family inspired his new film about illegal immigrants
I was sitting in a square in Montepulciano, a hillside town in Tuscany. It had a pristine, red-brick-tiled, symmetrical main square that offered a lovely setting for my heroine, Bella, to run to her vampire swain, Edward, through a crowd of red-robed celebrants. But the set of The Twilight Saga: New Moon was perhaps the least likely place to get the go-ahead on A Better Life, a story about an illegal immigrant and his son in East Los Angeles. But that's where Patrick Wachsberger, co-chairman of Summit and guardian of the Twilight franchise coffers, told me he wanted to make it. I think I said something like: "Are you sure, patron?" And, whether it was the wine, the sun, or Montelpulciano, he nodded yes.
It would...
I was sitting in a square in Montepulciano, a hillside town in Tuscany. It had a pristine, red-brick-tiled, symmetrical main square that offered a lovely setting for my heroine, Bella, to run to her vampire swain, Edward, through a crowd of red-robed celebrants. But the set of The Twilight Saga: New Moon was perhaps the least likely place to get the go-ahead on A Better Life, a story about an illegal immigrant and his son in East Los Angeles. But that's where Patrick Wachsberger, co-chairman of Summit and guardian of the Twilight franchise coffers, told me he wanted to make it. I think I said something like: "Are you sure, patron?" And, whether it was the wine, the sun, or Montelpulciano, he nodded yes.
It would...
- 7/28/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
[Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life won the Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival 2011]
If I were to state that the most interesting filmmaker alive and making films today is an American named Terrence Malick, the statement is likely to be met with stares, dead silence, or some incredulous query like “What, not Steven Spielberg?”
Who is this Malick? Unlike his American peer Spielberg, who has made over 30 well-received movies, Malick has only made four. By the number game, Malik is a loser. Unlike Spielberg, whose bearded face and personal details are splashed all over countless newspapers and magazines, even the resourceful Time magazine had trouble locating a recent photograph of Malick, notorious for eluding journalists and for including “no personal publicity clauses” incorporated in his contracts with movie studios. And unlike Spielberg who dropped out of his Long Beach University course, Malick has attended Harvard and Oxford Universities, is a Rhodes Scholar and has even taught philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology...
If I were to state that the most interesting filmmaker alive and making films today is an American named Terrence Malick, the statement is likely to be met with stares, dead silence, or some incredulous query like “What, not Steven Spielberg?”
Who is this Malick? Unlike his American peer Spielberg, who has made over 30 well-received movies, Malick has only made four. By the number game, Malik is a loser. Unlike Spielberg, whose bearded face and personal details are splashed all over countless newspapers and magazines, even the resourceful Time magazine had trouble locating a recent photograph of Malick, notorious for eluding journalists and for including “no personal publicity clauses” incorporated in his contracts with movie studios. And unlike Spielberg who dropped out of his Long Beach University course, Malick has attended Harvard and Oxford Universities, is a Rhodes Scholar and has even taught philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology...
- 5/23/2011
- by Jugu Abraham
- DearCinema.com
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
We love this holiday — afterall, we’re green every day of the year! But today, Disc Dish is going Irish with five great movie picks from our friend and fellow movie lover Irish-American Janine McGoldrick.
So, pour yourself a pint of Guinness and pick one of the films below to watch this St. Paddy’s Day.
Take it away, Janine…
5. Man of Aran (1934)
Man of Aran, 1934
At the suggestion of my brother, my family sat down for a viewing of Man of Aran before our first trip to Ireland. A documentary-style fiction from groundbreaking American filmmaker Robert Flaherty (Nanook of the North), the film depicts the simple-yet-grueling life on the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland in the early 20th century. You won’t find the typical rolling green pastures filled with fluffy white sheep in this movie. The land is harsh and barren,...
We love this holiday — afterall, we’re green every day of the year! But today, Disc Dish is going Irish with five great movie picks from our friend and fellow movie lover Irish-American Janine McGoldrick.
So, pour yourself a pint of Guinness and pick one of the films below to watch this St. Paddy’s Day.
Take it away, Janine…
5. Man of Aran (1934)
Man of Aran, 1934
At the suggestion of my brother, my family sat down for a viewing of Man of Aran before our first trip to Ireland. A documentary-style fiction from groundbreaking American filmmaker Robert Flaherty (Nanook of the North), the film depicts the simple-yet-grueling life on the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland in the early 20th century. You won’t find the typical rolling green pastures filled with fluffy white sheep in this movie. The land is harsh and barren,...
- 3/17/2011
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
Takings for alien action flick won't dent its hefty budget, but they are enough to take it to the UK top spot ahead of Rango
The winner
For the second week in a row, a new release tops the chart with a gross that won't exactly have the multiplex chain HQs popping champagne corks. Sony's pricey Battle: Los Angeles debuted with a so-so £1.79m. A pretty underwhelming figure given that recent alien-invasion flick Skyline kicked off last November with £1.21m, despite having a no-name cast and a production budget a fraction of Battle: La's reported $100m. Furthermore, Cloverfield launched in 2008 with a much heftier £3.49m. Battle: La has also underperformed in the UK relative to its Us opening of $36m, a figure that indicates a UK number of about £3.6m – double the achieved result.
The flops
While the Farrelly brothers' Hall Pass debuted with an unremarkable £901,000, that number looks absolutely...
The winner
For the second week in a row, a new release tops the chart with a gross that won't exactly have the multiplex chain HQs popping champagne corks. Sony's pricey Battle: Los Angeles debuted with a so-so £1.79m. A pretty underwhelming figure given that recent alien-invasion flick Skyline kicked off last November with £1.21m, despite having a no-name cast and a production budget a fraction of Battle: La's reported $100m. Furthermore, Cloverfield launched in 2008 with a much heftier £3.49m. Battle: La has also underperformed in the UK relative to its Us opening of $36m, a figure that indicates a UK number of about £3.6m – double the achieved result.
The flops
While the Farrelly brothers' Hall Pass debuted with an unremarkable £901,000, that number looks absolutely...
- 3/15/2011
- by Charles Gant
- The Guardian - Film News
Robert J. Flaherty was a pioneering documentary filmmaker who wasn’t above fabricating scenarios in his films. The director actively pursued such things believing, in a philosophical sort of way, that he’d find the true spirit of his subject matter. He wasn’t above being a showman, either.
The most famous film he ever made is probably Nanook of the North but his 1934 effort, Man of Aran, is an exceptional, if problematic, look at life on the edge of 20th century modernity and society.
Man of Aran won a major prize for Best Foreign Film at the Venice film festival in 1934 and almost eighty years on it is an impressive feature. Flaherty set off for the barren rocky crops most famous for a type of sweater with the intention of documenting the lives of those living in extreme conditions. The Aran islands, of which there are three, sit close...
The most famous film he ever made is probably Nanook of the North but his 1934 effort, Man of Aran, is an exceptional, if problematic, look at life on the edge of 20th century modernity and society.
Man of Aran won a major prize for Best Foreign Film at the Venice film festival in 1934 and almost eighty years on it is an impressive feature. Flaherty set off for the barren rocky crops most famous for a type of sweater with the intention of documenting the lives of those living in extreme conditions. The Aran islands, of which there are three, sit close...
- 3/13/2011
- by Martyn Conterio
- FilmShaft.com
British Sea Power have announced the title of their upcoming studio album. The follow-up to last year's Man Of Aran soundtrack is titled Valhalla Dancehall and will be released in 2011. Last month, the group issued the seven-track Zeus Ep. In a video clip posted on the band's website, they explained: "It's a mythical place, really, Valhalla Dancehall. It's where you'd imagine Lee 'Scratch' (more)...
- 10/14/2010
- by By Mayer Nissim
- Digital Spy
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
I don't think I'm alone in agreeing with whoever said, "I love work. I could watch it all day"
After watching the almost pristine print of Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1926) at the Berlinale a few weeks ago, it occurred to me that the lion's share of the time spent by the vast majority of the population of the world is seldom portrayed on screen. Namely, manual labourers and their work.
Why this neglect? After all, the very first film shown commercially was Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory (1895). The simplistic answer is that most audiences demand escapism and that the depiction of work is as tedious as the act. But I don't think I'm alone in agreeing with whoever said, "I love work. I could watch it all day."
Metropolis is set in a futuristic city where the downtrodden factory workers, all dressed in black, walk gloomily in lines towards a...
After watching the almost pristine print of Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1926) at the Berlinale a few weeks ago, it occurred to me that the lion's share of the time spent by the vast majority of the population of the world is seldom portrayed on screen. Namely, manual labourers and their work.
Why this neglect? After all, the very first film shown commercially was Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory (1895). The simplistic answer is that most audiences demand escapism and that the depiction of work is as tedious as the act. But I don't think I'm alone in agreeing with whoever said, "I love work. I could watch it all day."
Metropolis is set in a futuristic city where the downtrodden factory workers, all dressed in black, walk gloomily in lines towards a...
- 3/2/2010
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Ramin Bahrani speaks clearly and assertively. He knows what he wants; even more admirably, he seems to know exactly why he wants it. He can easily go on at length about a subject, but never lapses into rambling.
It's late January, and Bahrani is speaking to me by phone from his home in Brooklyn. The 2000s have recently ended, and there aren't many American directors whose work better encapsulates the shifts, as much aesthetic as cultural, that occurred during that decade than Bahrani. It should also be said that there aren't many people who are better to talk about a director's "working life" with than Bahrani, as all of his films have been set at the point where life and work intersect, whether it's Ahmad's everyday humiliations as a cart vendor in Man Push Cart (and the ghost of the music career he abandoned), Ale's junkyard home in Chop Shop,...
It's late January, and Bahrani is speaking to me by phone from his home in Brooklyn. The 2000s have recently ended, and there aren't many American directors whose work better encapsulates the shifts, as much aesthetic as cultural, that occurred during that decade than Bahrani. It should also be said that there aren't many people who are better to talk about a director's "working life" with than Bahrani, as all of his films have been set at the point where life and work intersect, whether it's Ahmad's everyday humiliations as a cart vendor in Man Push Cart (and the ghost of the music career he abandoned), Ale's junkyard home in Chop Shop,...
- 2/18/2010
- MUBI
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