Posts Tagged ‘movie’

For the past couple of nights, I’ve been this close to burning straight through the midnight oil while catching up a series of long vidclips at London-based production company Living Spirit’s Vimeo Channel. If you’re drawing a blank right about now on Living Spirit, it’s because you’re not making the mental connection between it and standout British indie sensation Chris Jones, director of the award-winning short Gone Fishing.

Over the next couple of days, I plan on doing even more full-court blogging about the independent film movement, in general, along with a generous slathering of commentary about several of the streaming materials I find while trawling around sites like Chris’ and others’ in search of well-done, well-assembled films.

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Chloe’s set to be a good one. Star-studded cast. Savvy director. All the pieces in one box.

I recently tracked down a copy of Lisa Cholodenko’s latest The Kids Are All Right (c/o Script Shadow – thanks Carson Reeves!) penned with script partner Stuart Blumberg, a screenplay I blew through within half an hour. Practically leaping off the paper, Kids appeared to be yet another remarkable story which practically all viewers could relate to and another signature Cholodenko ensemble picture

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Source: US Navy: Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Justin Stumberg

It’s been more than three weeks since the Port-Au-Prince quake, and the extraordinary immediate response by the international community has been remarkable to read about.

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Sure, I know, it took me too long enough, but I finally got around to seeing Jia’s The World last night and I’m still ruminating on how I should feel about it. I need a few more days.

In any event, today is a great opportunity to scribble a bit more about modern Mainland Chinese filmmaking styles, and why the art form is slow to make a decisive breakthrough into Western film-going markets.

Jia Zhang-ke/贾樟柯’s back story is an interesting one. His reputation as an indie Chinese filmmaker based in the PRC was fully cemented during his badboy days of shooting films outside of the State-approved film sector. Read the rest of this entry »

If you haven’t seen Ben-Hur yet, you’ve likely checked out of society for a spell or harbor a deep-seated resentment for epic period dramas of the 1950s, which, if you ask me, are some of the best pictures Hollywood has ever produced. The Golden Age of the Studio System, or so the legend goes.

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I sat jaw-agape through Eastern Promises last night, another star-studded meticulously intricate Steven Knight screenplay about the rise of the Vor v Zakone (Thief-In-Law) Russian mob substrata on the lightning-quick rise in the UK. In keeping with the M. Butterfly auteur’s signature style of turning the looking-glass towards society’s substrata of subcultures, Promises didn’t fail to deliver on this score once more, with the probe going places in the mob scene where no director has gone before. Read the rest of this entry »

For those of you tuning in for the first time, I’ve been woodshedding these first several weeks of the New Year, catching up on books, for the most part, and bolstered by dozens of films which escaped my notice during the years 2005 and 2006. It’s been an intense month with a gruelling sleep and viewing schedule, and as happens each and every January, I’ve been spinning out a ton of content.

Stephen Frears’s The Queen arrived the other day in the mail and like the promised Oscar hype of the time, I wasn’t to be disappointed. Read the rest of this entry »

I’d been almost entirely out of the movie loop during the years 2006 and 2007, so for this woodshedding month of January 2010 I’ve been madly catching up on films from then. I’m on a tear these past couple of weeks, as I review the following four flicks from this past weekend for your reading pleasure while I deliberately hack my way through the couple hundred or so titles which remain must-sees.

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