Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky is built around a peculiar and extraordinary character, the 30-year-old school teacher Poppy (Sally Hawkins), a woman who is forcefully, unbelievably enthused about life and, seemingly, everything in it. In the opening minutes
My latest conversation with Jason Bellamy has now been posted at the House Next Door. With the release of director Darren Aronofsky's fifth feature, Black Swan, due in early December, we have taken the opportunity to discuss Aronofsky's first four films:
I don't even know where to start. "N-Secure" is so awful that you find yourself getting angry with everybody and everything that had anything to do with this "hot, period-panty mess" (c. nOvaslim). Have you ever felt yourself getting pissed off that
Olivier Assayas is a director with a real sense for how the massed forces — social, religious, political, economic — surrounding an individual can direct and shape that person's life. It's thus not surprising that Les destinées, a period piece that spans
Jason Bellamy and I have a busy month lined up for our Conversations series, and following quickly on the heels of our concert film discussion, we've posted our second piece this month, a consideration of Yasujiro Ozu's final film, An Autumn Afternoon.
In this new semi-regular series, I write about tracks that particularly move and impress me. Take a listen and join the conversation!On his 2003 album Blemish, one-time Japan vocalist David Sylvian collaborated with experimental musicians Derek Bailey
OK. So saw Tyler Perry's "For Colored Girls" over the week-end. I purposely didn't read any reviews before seeing it (though I really wanted to) as I wanted to view it from my own perspective. I thought about writing this review the same day as seeing
Ramin Bahrani's Plastic Bag is a deceptively simple short film that achieves an emotionally cathartic and poetically beautiful effect through a story that might, on its surface, seem like little more than a gimmick. The film charts the "life" of a plastic
What can I say? No freaking comment."Big Momma 3"<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&from=customplayer_en-us_movies_movietrailershub&fg=MsnEntertainment_MoviesTrailersGP2_a&vid=4f679ef3-bd8e-4bda-8af2-70a90d52be2b"
Jason Bellamy and I have completed another of our dialogues about films, this one focusing on the aesthetics of the rock n' roll concert film. We chose five concert films that we thought reflected the breadth of this genre: Woodstock, Gimme Shelter (the
