Log Out When you think of cinema, Turin may not be the first city that comes to mind. While Paris, a city famed for its cinephilia, has its cinemathèque at Bercy, somewhat off the beaten path for tourists, Turin makes sure almost every visitor experiences cinema history: its Museo Nazionale del Cinema in situated right [...]
As a freelance film critic looking to get involved with film festivals, I feared that talks at the International Film Festival Summit might be too specialised for me. True, I was one of only two film critics in a room of about 40 people, many of whom had vast experience in founding, financing, organising and [...]
Given the recent surge of 1980s popular culture nostalgia, discussions of that decade’s iconic films unfailingly revert to the unique 1980s teen comedy genre, always dominated by the catalog of John Hughes. But sadly, some outstanding films from that era are overlooked or even forgotten, and all teen movies from this period seem to be [...]
After the last two weeks’ blogs on highlights of Toulouse’s Cinélatino film festival, this week will conclude with a selection of films which, in my opinion, should be avoided at all costs. First of all, Alejo Franzetti’s The Destruction of the Ruling Order (La Destrucción del orden vigente), which wanted to be a thriller/murder mystery. [...]
Like A Secret World (reviewed last week), Southwest (Sudoeste, 2012, dir. Eduardo Nunes) was a flawed film. But audiences are more likely to be forgiving of A Secret World’s flaws because the director was wise enough to keep it short. Audiences might be prepared to be mildly bored for an hour and a half, but [...]
Who are the great American film directors? More to the point, who do we think are the great American film directors? Well, there’s Ford, of course, the Zeus of the American pantheon, by turns comic, epic, maudlin and humane. Then there’s Welles, the ill-fated genius, abused by producers but beloved of critics. Spielberg, even in [...]
Slow, meditative films that were thin on plot dominated the awards at the16th Sofia International Film Festival. Grand Prix winner Stories Which Only Exist When Remembered (dir. Julia Murat) centred on a young photographer’s stay amongst the elderly of a small village, while Jaffe Zinn’s Magic Valley traced the discovery of a crime in a [...]
More free stuff! All right, here’s the deal. The Moving Arts has teamed up with Focus Features again, this time to offer you the chance to win a prize pack in advance of the upcoming release of “Being Flynn,” starring Robert De Niro and Paul Dano. All you have to do to enter the contest [...]
Ben Stiller’s 2001 male modeling comedy “Zoolander” was released just a few weeks after 9/11. It didn’t do well. The consensus was that a contemplative America wasn’t interested in such aggressive silliness. At its core, “The Descendants” seems equally at odds with the current national sentiment, yet it’s been widely celebrated. Much of the praise [...]
I feel sorry for M. Night Shyamalan. After “The Last Airbender” debacle and the graceless marketing scheme for “The Happening” as his first rated-R film, M. Night needs an overhaul, and maybe some kind-hearted praise for what he’s done right in his films. There is a divisiveness evident in nearly all of his films—you either [...]
DIFF 2012 Reviews: ‘Cinema Six,’ ‘Compliance,’ ‘Faith, Love and Whiskey’
Things I Don’t Understand (2011)
Jiří Trnka: Animation RetrospectiveLowlights of CinélatinoBrevity Pays Off
‘A Secret World’ at Cinélatino‘Future Lasts Forever’ at Sofia
Two Treatments of Italy’s Fascist Past
‘The Leopard’: novel, opera, but above all, film
We’ll always have ‘Casablanca’
