Girish (Free subscription) | 11/26/2009
Just as they did ten years ago , James Quandt and TIFF Cinematheque ( née Cinematheque Ontario) have conducted a worldwide poll of film curators, archivists, historians and programmers for best ("most important") films of the decade (scroll down for the compiled list). It's a heady and wonderful list that militates unashamedly and polemically for film as art . There are 54 films on...
The One-Line Review Presents (Free subscription) | 11/14/2009
Céline and Julie Go Boating (1974) .. Jacques Rivette Chimes at Midnight (1965) .. Orson Welles Gertrud (1964) .. Carl Theodor Dreyer Early Summer (1951) .. Yasujiro Ozu Sans Soleil (1983) .. Chris Marker Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) .. Bela Tarr The Green Ray (1986) .. Eric Rohmer Ivan the Terrible, Part Two (1946) .. Sergei M. Eisenstein The Mother and the Whore (1973) .. Jean Eustache The...
Blogcritics: Books (Free subscription) | 11/03/2009
The complete critical writings of film critic Manny Farber collected in one volume. Film criticism - Manny Farber - Arts - movie - Literature
Vinyl Is Heavy (Free subscription) | 11/02/2009
by Ryland Walker Knight This second week back in the Bay has been awfully full of commitments that have kept me from the movies. I've spent most of the week looking at Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles [Chantal Akerman, 1975] # in preparation for an overdue image-essay that will hit The Auteurs shortly. Once again I'm reminded of how amazing the film is, but, also, how little passion...
TACTICAL MUSEUM. Tokyo (Free subscription) | 11/01/2009
The International Festival for Arts and Media Yokohama 2009, titled CREAM and directed by AIT colleague Fumihiko Sumitomo opened last week and is now on across several venues in Yokohama. With a focus on reproduced images, spanning film, video, digital,...
Vinyl Is Heavy (Free subscription) | 10/23/2009
by Ryland Walker Knight Back to widget time. Really. Just want to sell some books, even if this internet thing is part of the reason why lovable stores like Black Oak (and Cody's, of course) are long gone. So, here's some stuff you should read, and probably own, if you haven't/don't already, along with some quick plugs for some DVDs (released and yet to be released) that I'll be bringing up and blogging...
Blogcritics: Video (Free subscription) | 10/21/2009
A masterwork of mood and environment.
Fin de Cinema (Free subscription) | 10/16/2009
January always poses an exciting month for Criterion releases, as it (hopefully) kick-starts the year with a bang, especially after their typically slow month of December. And with the January 2010 titles, Criterion crossed the 500 threshold, with Robert Rossellini's War Trilogy box set marking spine number 500, the trilogy being Rome, Open City [ Roma, città aperta ], Paisan [ Paisà...
The IFC Blog (Free subscription) | 10/07/2009
As a commenter elegantly added after Scott Tobias's review of "Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles" at the AV Club, "Thanks a lot, jerk. I would have appreciated a spoiler alert before describing the potato scene." Really, few other films are as spoiler-proof as Chantal Akerman's 1975 housewife saga, the complete plot of which could be described in two sentences....
The New Yorker - Arts and Culture (Free subscription) | 09/21/2009
paragraph class="noindent"> The Belgian director Chantal Akerman’s 1975 melodrama, “Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles” (Criterion), which runs more than three hours, is still shockingly original in its style, politics, and tone. But, now that its methods have become a cornerstone of art . . .
ReverseBlog (Free subscription) | 09/16/2009
With White Material making its impressive bow at Toronto (soon to be in the New York Film Festival) and 35 Shots of Rum officially opening today in New York (go see it!) and our latest
Cinematical (Free subscription) | 09/16/2009
Do you love cooking shows or consider yourself a Julie Powell-esque culinary wunderkind? Do you also have a video camera and a strong appreciation for Euro-feminist art films? Then hurry up and submit your entry to the Jeanne Dielman Cooking Video Contest to win prizes (and more importantly, bragging rights) from the Criterion-hosted competition for your homage to Chantal Akerman 's celebrated 1975...
Serious Eats (Free subscription) | 09/08/2009
The 1975 film Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles by Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman follows the rote daily routine of single mother Jeanne Dielman over three days, with a focus on housework. Naturally, that includes a significant amount of food preparation. Not having seen the movie, I'm taking the New York Times movie critic Vincent Canby's word for it: It's also not a movie to...
Pearlblossom Highway (Free subscription) | 09/04/2009
Time Out of Joint Originally uploaded by Michael_Kelleher Dick, Philip K. Time Out of Joint Purchased at Talking Leaves...Books. I am now reading the second volume of Dick's final trilogy, The Divine Invasion . Last night, while lying in bed reading, I noticed that a sticker on the front cover had printed on it the purchase date of the book -- February, 2004. I hadn't thought five years had already...
Popdose (Free subscription) | 09/03/2009
A 201-minute Belgian film described as a “domestic 2001” could inspire reams of pretentious criticism, but I found Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) pretty easy to relate to. Dielman, a widow, lives a narrow, routine-dominated existence, given over entirely to domestic tasks and responsibilities, which over the course of three days [...]
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