What did you think of Visual Acoustics? For a film that is about photography of form I thought the framing was so-so and the one set piece was kind of shoehorned in. Shulman was a character.
― have a nice blood (mh), Friday, 14 March 2014 15:06 (ten years ago) link
Schulman was so engaging, and the photographs were so great, that the filmmaking became secondary for me (I invariably go easier on documentaries in that department if the subject interests me enough--as long as the filmmaking's not noticeably bad, that is, which it wasn't here.) By set-piece you mean that brief history of modernist architecture, right? Yeah, that didn't fit the rest of the film. I think it'd make a great double-bill with L.A. Plays Itself. My favourite line: "93 helping 92."
― clemenza, Friday, 14 March 2014 15:19 (ten years ago) link
also the bit with a cinematographer (?) shooting a house
― have a nice blood (mh), Friday, 14 March 2014 15:20 (ten years ago) link
particle fever is surprisingly good; very compulsive and engaging narrative on a topic that's hard to even begin to understand
― We hugged with no names exchanged (forksclovetofu)
Quite liked it. The science was simplified (dumbed down, if you will) just enough for me. The five principals--Jerry Garcia #1 and #2, the two women, and the old guy--were very engaging. I loved things like the one woman, lost in thought about colliding particles, is oblivious to the cars zipping by as she crosses the street. The one time I thought they overstepped was "Ode to Joy"--not necessary, the moment was strong enough. Peter Higgs tearing up was great, though. I thought of young Woody Allen in Annie Hall towards the end: "He won't do his homework!" "But the Higgs boson particle created us, and now it might be the end of us--what's the point?"
― clemenza, Monday, 17 March 2014 02:00 (ten years ago) link
The documentary festival here is getting ridiculously expensive--six tickets cost me $111.
― clemenza, Saturday, 22 March 2014 20:42 (ten years ago) link
has anyone besides Eric seen The Missing Picture? Looks like today ends the NY premiere run, and it might be a leveler of sorts after my biopsy. :/
http://www.filmforum.org/movies/more/the_missing_picture
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 1 April 2014 15:46 (ten years ago) link
I'll be in NYC for this:
http://www.filmlinc.com/films/series/art-of-the-real
― Kornblud (admrl), Tuesday, 1 April 2014 15:51 (ten years ago) link
I have in fact seen neither of those T Andersen films. I saw Jarman's Blue at the NYFF in '93 w/ dying DJ in attendance.
"Alex Ross Perry as a grandiose filmmaker" = chuckle
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 1 April 2014 16:12 (ten years ago) link
he seems p interesting i think but i feel you
― mustread guy (schlump), Tuesday, 1 April 2014 16:27 (ten years ago) link
Saw "Jodorowsky's Dune" over the weekend and it hit every single one of my nerd buttons. Nicely made and produced and very fun.
― That elusive North American wood-ape (Capitaine Jay Vee), Tuesday, 1 April 2014 16:52 (ten years ago) link
with A.R.P., I think it's different if you remember him as "typical Kim's Video clerk"
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 1 April 2014 17:17 (ten years ago) link
oh lol
― mustread guy (schlump), Tuesday, 1 April 2014 17:22 (ten years ago) link
fwiw i liked color wheel pretty okay, thought its blurriness was sorta redeemed by its denouement, but felt sort of modified by listening to this, afterward, which revealed structural dimensions to it i hadn't felt conscious of. just sorta curious where he goes with it. seeing him in his proto comic book store guy phase is a powerful origin story though.
― mustread guy (schlump), Tuesday, 1 April 2014 17:23 (ten years ago) link
The festival started here Thursday. So far I've seen Slums: Cities of Tomorrow and Concerning Violence, a sort-of essay about Frantz Fanon's work from Göran Olsson, the guy who made The Black Power Mixtape. I felt remiss in not having ever read The Wretched of the Earth. Olsson digs up amazing footage. The woman with no arm feeding her baby with no leg was one of the most numbing things I've ever looked at in a film. Lauryn Hill does the narration. Something I hate: there's an early-'70s interview with a white Rhodesian at one point, saying the kind of hateful things that someone completely losing grip on a situation might say. You could hear scattered laughter in the theatre. There really wasn't anything funny about what he was saying at all.
― clemenza, Monday, 28 April 2014 00:29 (ten years ago) link
Excellent title, even if carried over from the book: Love and Terror on the Howling Plains of Nowhere. (Reminds me of an old Chuck Eddy Voice piece, "Howls from the Heartland.") The filmmaker concedes the heavy influence of both Lynch and Errol Morris--it all felt pretty familiar--but if it comes your way, worth seeing. The story is almost identical to something that happened here within the past few months: teacher disappears without a trace one day, is found dead a few weeks later, no explanation, just theories. (It was a high school teacher here.) That's the main story, anyway, but it breaks off in two or three different and/or parallel directions.
― clemenza, Wednesday, 30 April 2014 03:09 (ten years ago) link
I realize these lists are just filler, but it's amazing that this one would omit Wiseman's Hospital and Near Death (unless the thinking was that they're more about the patients than the doctors).
http://www.villagevoice.com/slideshow/doc-docs-8-powerful-medical-documentaries-41343880/
― clemenza, Friday, 11 July 2014 01:16 (nine years ago) link
Saw trailers for The Dog and Rich Hill yesterday--looking forward to both, although John Wojtowicz looks like he might be a little much.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjinPRE0bxw
― clemenza, Sunday, 27 July 2014 18:44 (nine years ago) link
Definitely wanna see The Dog
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqE90Y2q88w
― You know something? He *did* say "well, yeah" a lot. (cryptosicko), Thursday, 31 July 2014 02:23 (nine years ago) link
RIP William Greaves
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5noJA3xDCF4
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 27 August 2014 14:13 (nine years ago) link
^this is awesome btw, just saw for the first time.
Hey, no one told me Godfrey Cheshire was reviewing regularly at the Ebert site! Here he is on one of my fave docs so far this year:
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/fifi-howls-from-happiness-2014
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Friday, 5 September 2014 02:57 (nine years ago) link
i don't know cheshire, or do without having noticed his byline, but he pops up on a couple of episodes of a breezy iranian cinema podcast i just started listening to: http://www.hello-cinema.net/?category=Podcast
curious about the fifi doc. i always feel like five waves behind with iranian cinema. the mania akbari & shahram mokri films all sound really neat.
― schlump, Friday, 5 September 2014 03:11 (nine years ago) link
GC was chief film critic of the NY Press in its '90s heyday, and in fact his review of Close-Up when it opened in NYC slayed me.
http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/2010/29/godfrey-cheshire-on-closeup-abbas-kiarostami-1990
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Friday, 5 September 2014 03:16 (nine years ago) link
this review is excellent & i'm stopping halfway through as it gallops toward synopsising; i haven't seen close-up in forever & barely remember it beyond its most basic premise. i think i'm as fresh for a rewatch as he thought new viewers were for an epiphany. ty for the intro, anyhow.
― schlump, Friday, 5 September 2014 03:48 (nine years ago) link
discussion of it probably doesn't necessarily belong here - it could as easily be discussed in political, parenting or pbs threads - but: did anybody catch american promise?
― schlump, Monday, 29 September 2014 04:29 (nine years ago) link
didn't
DOC NYC in November:
http://www.docnyc.net/films-events/
― this horrible, rotten slog to rigor mortis (Dr Morbius), Friday, 17 October 2014 15:24 (nine years ago) link
Given that it will probably be hard to find in a week, prob will see The Overnighters this evening.
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-overnighters-2014
― this horrible, rotten slog to rigor mortis (Dr Morbius), Monday, 20 October 2014 14:37 (nine years ago) link
The work week caught up to me about 30 minutes into a late screening of Last Days in Vietnam, after which I drifted for most of the rest. Stupid--what I saw was quite good. It'll be playing again in April on PBS. Mark Samels, who oversees some of the American Experience series (and executive produced Last Days) was there for a Q&A afterwards. Great story about about one of the American servicemen sharing a stage at Sundance with one of the South Vietnamese men left behind in the evacuation.
― clemenza, Friday, 7 November 2014 00:13 (nine years ago) link
not exactly a new film, but as anyone seen Chicago Loop by James Benning (1974)? it's playing at my local documentary festival.
― Van Horn Street, Saturday, 8 November 2014 23:14 (nine years ago) link
I'm reviewing loads of docs at my blog, from CPHDOX.
centrifugue.blogspot.com
The Postman's White Nights, The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On, The Reunion, Visitors.
― Frederik B, Sunday, 9 November 2014 00:48 (nine years ago) link
Bad link. This should be better: http://centrifugue.blogspot.dk/
― Frederik B, Sunday, 9 November 2014 00:49 (nine years ago) link
chicago loop's great, vhsit's part of a bill with something longer, right? american dreams? CL is beautiful
also go see the kazuo hara shit if this is RIDM
― schlump, Sunday, 9 November 2014 01:10 (nine years ago) link
Do not miss "The Color of Noise", the amphetamine reptile doc if it shows up near you. Distribution at this point is completely up in the air, and it is awesome.
― Ass Tchotchke! (jjjusten), Sunday, 9 November 2014 03:30 (nine years ago) link
Open Secret, on Hollywood child/youth abuse incl the Singer case, has its first DOCNYC press screening cancelled -- future in doubt?
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-sex-abuse-doc-an-745907
― things lose meaning over time (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 12 November 2014 22:37 (nine years ago) link
'last days in vietnam' was pretty good. probably could have used slightly more background for younger viewers, but no big complaints otherwise. didn't realize until i googled it afterward that it was directed by RFK's youngest daughter.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Sunday, 16 November 2014 01:46 (nine years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulryEZ5Iprg
― Junior Dadaismus (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 16 November 2014 02:56 (nine years ago) link
Not entirely sure this works everywhere, but Iron Ministry, brilliant Harvard SEL related doc on Chinese trains, is freely streamable at least from where I am.
http://dafilms.com/download/key/njciTzpjKb
― Frederik B, Monday, 17 November 2014 00:31 (nine years ago) link
ten films against the crisis (#1 and 4 I'm particularly fond of)
https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/top-10-docs
― things lose meaning over time (Dr Morbius), Monday, 17 November 2014 18:59 (nine years ago) link
dafilms.com is actually kind of awesome. They have a retrospective of Loznitsa docs up now. The Letter was a fine art-short, Maidan is one of the best films of 2014, so I'll def check out as much as I can. Of course, everyone should watch My Joy, and to-a-lesser-extent-but-still In the Fog.
― Frederik B, Tuesday, 2 December 2014 16:14 (nine years ago) link
Oh, and the link, right: http://dafilms.com/event/191-retrospective_sergei_loznitsa/
Knew I'd forgotten something.
― Frederik B, Tuesday, 2 December 2014 16:15 (nine years ago) link
now available for viewing in your home
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6YNQWzVgpc
― things lose meaning over time (Dr Morbius), Friday, 5 December 2014 06:35 (nine years ago) link