One of the things we’re focusing on is actually returning to our three month seasons. So we’re in the process of confirming most of the titles we’ll show from October to December. I always liked programming a season. There’s a different feeling when you can see a lineup for three months. Like the ebb and flow of the ocean tide. You can see series come and go and how they comment, interact, dialogue with each other.
Read MoreI was listening to a movie review podcast and they were mentioning some recent independent films that they hadn’t had time to see yet, one being Neptune Frost, described as a sci-fi musical. I was immediately intrigued. Later that day I was looking to see if anything interesting was playing at the American Cinematheque, and there it was, Neptune Frost, that very night at 10p! Clearly, it was kismet.
Read MoreThere are, of course, literally hundreds of music documentaries out there with their own well-worn cliches and WATFS is no outlier there. It ticks all the boxes: the band forms, loses members, gains members, finds it’s sound, lots of rock and roll hero stories, missed opportunities, breakthrough, and eventual success. The story is told through interviews with people in and around the band accompanied by a wealth of archival performance footage and photographs. In other words, it’s not breaking acres of new ground here. It simply tells an interesting and entertaining tale over two hours and fifteen minutes.
Read MoreOne of the problems a film programmer runs into again and again these days (though thankfully not as often as you would think) is how to handle problematic films and filmmakers…
Read MoreWhen I saw the poster for Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, I immediately knew that this was a film I wanted to see. It turns out I was completely right, and I rather wish I hadn’t seen the trailer, which gives away too much. On the other hand, it’s not exactly the kind of film where you don’t know right from the start whether the cleaning woman who wants a Dior gown is going to end up with a Dior gown, so it’s hard to spoil, but there are a few twists, and one nice moment I would rather not have known in advance.
Read MoreOn the surface, Her Smell bears many of the same rock biography hallmarks that I railed against in last week’s introductory screed but there are significant variations in this film to elevate it above the irritatingly predictable “biopic” template. The most glaringly obvious of these qualities – and one that I think bears mentioning before going on any further – is that it’s a work of fiction…
Read MoreOne of the fathers of film history, director Jean Renoir once remarked, “The saving grace of the cinema is that with patience and a little love we may arrive at that wonderfully complex creature which is called man.” One of the prime examples of this in his career is his 1932 comedy Boudu Saved from Drowning, where he doesn’t hold judgement on any of his characters, no matter what walk of life or class they come from.
Read MoreAll of this is to paradoxically say, I MISS THESE KINDS OF INTERVIEWS AND FILM WRITING. I miss them because they basically emphasize in their form and content that cinema is exciting, worthwhile, and important. And I feel that even more strongly today than I did as a teenager in the throes of discovering incredible movies.
Read MoreI’m sure there are a lot of people who will look at the title of this documentary and go, “Oh my God I’m so sick of that everlasting song,” and I’ve got to tell you, I don’t blame them, but they will be missing out on the story of an extraordinary life.
Read MoreNico, 1988 takes a different approach to the traditional rock bio. Aside from one brief, non-narrative flashback sequence made up of actual archival footage from the late 1960s, this film only shows the icon well after the peak of her fame. Limited to the last few years of her life, she’s a middle-aged functioning addict touring Eastern Bloc countries with an assembled band of randos.
Read MoreLast week, we finally got to screen Japanese Anime Master Satoshi Kon’s 2004 13 episode television marvel Paranoia Agent. For all its messiness and occasional sense of slapdashness, this 5 1/2 hour meditation on self-delusion in the guise of a kaleidoscopic police procedural mystery is a revelation of what an artist can do when they’re really plugged into the possibilities of their medium. Much in the same way David Lynch’s Twin Peaks had done before, Paranoia Agent really develops its story around a theme that only becomes apparent as the show goes on.
Read MoreThis movie is utterly delightful, not only because it is cute and funny, but because it has a lot of deep things to say about family, and connections, and making friends. It frankly could have been kind of twee, but Marcel can be a little acerbic, and that squeeze of lemon just balances the whole story.
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