The latest installment of The Conversations has now been posted at The House Next Door. This time around, Jason Bellamy and I discuss the Coen brothers' new adaptation of Charles Portis' True Grit, and compare their take on the material to Henry Hathaway's
I know I haven't posted much in the past year (and I have been chastised repeatedly for it), and though I keep promising to come back for real, I really haven't.I always think of things I want to post, almost daily, but I just haven't seemed to be able
Ben Affleck really likes Michael Mann's Heat. Like, really, really loves it. Like, it's his favorite movie ever. How do I know this? Because Affleck's second directorial feature, The Town, follows the template of Heat so closely, is so deeply indebted
Stan Brakhage's prolific and esoteric career as an avant-garde filmmaker is so packed with masterful works of art that it's difficult to pick a single film to represent him. The six-minute Cat's Cradle is only one of his great shorts, but it is perhaps
OK, after months of speculation, the Oscar nominees have arrived. How many of you were satisfied with the lists?I, for one, have stopped taking the Oscars seriously years ago; it is such an elitist and "inside" group, and we all should know by now that
Wind From the East is a product of Jean-Luc Godard's involvement, during the late 60s and early 70s, with a collective filmmaking experiment known as the Dziga Vertov Group. The film is, typically of the films he made during this period, about ideas
I, An Actress is a short film made as a kind of screen test for one of filmmaker George Kuchar's acting students during a filmmaking workshop. The student, Barbara Lapsley, is given a page from a ludicrously melodramatic script, set opposite a dummy
Andrzej Zulawski's Diabel (The Devil) is a messy, baroque, jagged film, all sloppily chopped up and ragged, dripping in blood and grime. It is unrepentantly, unceasingly ugly and vile, wallowing in the filth and degradation of a world in which morality
Apichatpong Weerasethakul's latest feature, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, is a ghost story told with the calm and patience of a prosaic tale of country living. The film concerns the final days of the titular protagonist, Boonmee (Thanapat
Following up on my list celebrating my film-viewing in 2010, here is my music list for the year. Unlike with the film list, I actually did listen to enough new music this year that I feel I can provide a list of my favorites from among the 2010 releases
