I V Y Paris (Free subscription) | yesterday
David Britain writing for VINGT Paris, photo courtesy of Forum des images. Although its location inside the Forum des Halles is not the most desirable, the Forum des Images is the gem of this underground maze. Nowhere else will you...
Film Experience Blog (Free subscription) | yesterday
Jose here bringing you the Monday Monologue. From the moment Erin Brockovich was released, in March of 2000, everyone knew that Julia Roberts would win an Oscar for it. There was nary a review that did not point out how fantastic she was, how she carried the burdens of a dramatic role so well (after practically creating the entire rom-com movement throughout the 90's) and how big her boobs looked....
Not Coming to a Theater Near You (Free subscription) | yesterday
Fifty years ago this month, Jean-Luc Godard was putting the finishing touches on his first feature film: “the story of a young American woman and a Frenchman. Things can’t work out between them because he thinks about death and she doesn’t.” Deriving from a script treatment by Godard’s friend François Truffaut, and released in Paris in March 1960, Breathless was...
MovingPictureBlog (Free subscription) | 11/09/2009
I have nothing but best wishes and hearty encouragement for the folks organizing the inaugural Cinema Arts Festival Houston , which got some nice coverage today in the Houston Chronicle . But talk about bad timing: The H-Town event takes place directly opposite the Starz Denver Film Festival -- where I'll be doing an on-stage Q&A with (and presenting an Excellence in Acting award to) Hal Holbrook...
Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn (Free subscription) | 11/06/2009
CLASSICAL MUSIC FOR KIDS: Chocolate Chip Chamber Music at Old First Dutch Reformed Church (Seventh Avenue at Carroll in Park Slope). Performances on Saturday morning at 10 and 11:30 AM, and Sunday afternoon at 4. Also at the Brooklyn Public Library (Grand Army Plaza) at 1 PM in the Stevan Dweck auditorium. COMICS: Comic Book Convention with big name artists and fans gather at the first King Con at...
Popdose (Free subscription) | 11/04/2009
Featuring Richard Dreyfuss, a massive spacecraft, and five of the most iconic notes in movie-music history, Close Encounters of the Third Kind is one of Jeff Johnson's all-time favorites.
TakePart Social Action Network™ (Free subscription) | 11/03/2009
I’ve mentioned a few times on this site how much I adore François Truffaut and his films. In his 52 years with us (he died quite young) Truffaut worked hard to explore what cinema was/is and how it could be better and how it could be something for everyone. He once said “Is cinema more important than life?” and while most people probably don’t think it is, I relate to...
Cinematical (Free subscription) | 11/01/2009
This week I caught up with Anges Varda's The Beaches of Agnes (2 screens), which -- if nothing else -- is a strong contender for the year's best documentary. Of course, it helps if you know who Agnes Varda is, or at least have a passing interest in her work. She was associated with the French New Wave, and made her movie directing debut, La pointe-courte (1954), years before Francois Truffaut or Jean-Luc...
Flavorpill San Francisco Events (Free subscription) | 10/29/2009
Oct 29 – Nov 4 Daily @ Landmark Clay Theatre The French invented the art of the moving image over a century ago, and they haven't stopped innovating onscreen since. The San Francisco Film Society's French Cinema Now proves as much with its slate of contemporary Gallic films. The mini-fest kicks off on a light note with The French Kissers , Riad Sattouf's sharp take on that very American genre:...
Paul Levinson's Infinite Regress (Free subscription) | 10/26/2009
Back with clockwork weekly reviews of Dexter Season 4. Episode 5 was on tonight, the first new episode since my sneak preview non-spoiler review of the first four episodes last month. What I couldn't tell you in that non-spoiler review was that Lundy and Debra would be shot at the end of episode 4 - it was one of the best shockers in all the seasons of Dexter. Alfred Hitchcock correctly told Francois...
Christian Science Monitor (Free subscription) | 10/23/2009
Gem of a documentary tracks the hard life of salt workers on a bleak Venezuelan peninsula in the late 1950s.
A Boat Against the Current (Free subscription) | 10/21/2009
“When humor can be made to alternate with melancholy, one has a success, but when the same things are funny and melancholic at the same time, it's just wonderful.”—French director Francois Truffaut (1932-1984), Jan. 15, 1980, published in Letters (1989), edited by Gilles Jacob and Claude De Givray On this date 25 years ago, the film world grew a little darker, as Francois Truffaut...
The Ministry Of Truth (Free subscription) | 10/18/2009
There is a commonly held assumption that the Nouvelle Vague (New Wave) movement was a left-wing, politically-charged attempt to destroy the film-making establishment and re-write the rules of Cinema for a new generation – a sort of cinematic punk rock, if you like. It is easy to deduce, from the protagonists’ involvement in the [...]
battle royale with cheese (Free subscription) | 10/16/2009
When Quentin Tarantino was writing his debut feature Reservoir Dogs , the video store clerk sought inspiration by watching some of the classics of the crime genre, including The Taking of Pelham 123, The Killing and Jules Dassin’s 1955 heist thriller Rififi. Just as Tarantino’s film went on to inspire a generation of filmmakers and spawn a host of imitations, Dassin’s Rififi set the...
Mashuptown.com (Free subscription) | 10/16/2009
South Central is for me, one of the best Electro Band in ze UK cos’ each time they play even as DJs they put the audience on fire. That’s maybe why I Mashed them up with Arthur Brown’s Immortal song....
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