Christophe Honoré's Winter Boy is now showing exclusively on Mubi starting April 28, 2023, in many countries in the series Luminaries.When Antoine Doinel first dons his checkered jacket and roams the streets of Paris in François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (1959), the city air is so cold that his breath clouds the frame. Truffaut’s wintry film is a tale of isolation and frustration in the life of the young Doinel, a misbehaving schoolboy bored by la dictée and the stifling teachings of his professor. Out in the frostbitten night, he sleeps in a printing press and steals a typewriter, evoking his search for his own liberation and words to live by. To everyone else, he appears a troubled youth in need of institutionalization. To Truffaut, he is his younger self looking for his identity and the means to express it, a memory committed to film. When a filmmaker sets...
- 5/2/2023
- MUBI
Brooke Shields became a star and attracted mild controversy in this show, director Louis Malle’s first American production. Co-writer & producer Polly Platt and cinematographer Sven Nykvist collaborated on Malle’s fascinating look at life in a New Orleans brothel early in the 20th century. Prostitute Susan Sarandon raises two children in the upscale bawdy house, and art photographer Keith Carradine becomes an artist in residence. It’s a non-moralizing portrait of a bygone lifestyle. The handsome remastered release co-stars Diana Scarwid and Barbara Steele — and comes with a new interview with Brooke Shields.
Pretty Baby
Blu-ray
Viavision [Imprint] 174
1978 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 109 min. / Street Date November 4, 2022 / Available from / £
Starring: Susan Sarandon, Keith Carradine, Brooke Shields, Frances Faye, Antonio Fargas, Gerrit Graham, Matthew Anton, Mae Mercer, Diana Scarwid, Barbara Steele.
Cinematography: Sven Nykvist
Production Designer: Trevor Williams
Costume Supervisor: Mina Mittelman
Film Editor: Suzanne Fenn, supervisor Suzanne Baron
Music adapted by Jerry Wexler,...
Pretty Baby
Blu-ray
Viavision [Imprint] 174
1978 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 109 min. / Street Date November 4, 2022 / Available from / £
Starring: Susan Sarandon, Keith Carradine, Brooke Shields, Frances Faye, Antonio Fargas, Gerrit Graham, Matthew Anton, Mae Mercer, Diana Scarwid, Barbara Steele.
Cinematography: Sven Nykvist
Production Designer: Trevor Williams
Costume Supervisor: Mina Mittelman
Film Editor: Suzanne Fenn, supervisor Suzanne Baron
Music adapted by Jerry Wexler,...
- 1/24/2023
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Tár writer/director Todd Field discusses a few of his favorite movies with Josh Olson and Joe Dante.
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
You Only Live Twice (1967) – Dana Gould’s trailer commentary
Tár (2022)
Man With A Movie Camera (1929)
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Koyaanisqatsi (1982)
The Big Parade (1925)
Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)
The Crowd (1928)
Star Wars (1977)
The Servant (1963)
Parasite (2019) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review, Dennis Cozzalio’s review
The Three Musketeers (1973) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary
Figures In A Landscape (1970)
M (1931)
M (1951)
I Am Cuba (1964)
The Cranes Are Flying (1957) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review
Letter Never Sent (1960)
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965)
Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969)
The Towering Inferno (1974) – George Hickenlooper’s trailer commentary
The Great Waldo Pepper (1975)
The Sting (1973)
The World of Henry Orient (1964) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary
Thelma And Louise (1991)
Murmur Of The Heart (1971)
The Silent World (1956)
Opening Night (1977)
The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie (1976) – Larry Karaszewski’s...
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
You Only Live Twice (1967) – Dana Gould’s trailer commentary
Tár (2022)
Man With A Movie Camera (1929)
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Koyaanisqatsi (1982)
The Big Parade (1925)
Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)
The Crowd (1928)
Star Wars (1977)
The Servant (1963)
Parasite (2019) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review, Dennis Cozzalio’s review
The Three Musketeers (1973) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary
Figures In A Landscape (1970)
M (1931)
M (1951)
I Am Cuba (1964)
The Cranes Are Flying (1957) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review
Letter Never Sent (1960)
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965)
Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969)
The Towering Inferno (1974) – George Hickenlooper’s trailer commentary
The Great Waldo Pepper (1975)
The Sting (1973)
The World of Henry Orient (1964) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary
Thelma And Louise (1991)
Murmur Of The Heart (1971)
The Silent World (1956)
Opening Night (1977)
The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie (1976) – Larry Karaszewski’s...
- 1/10/2023
- by Kris Millsap
- Trailers from Hell
NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings. On the subject of Metrograph’s “It Happens to Us,” we also encourage donations to local abortion funds, while the theater will be donating 50 of all proceeds from ticket sales towards Naral Pro-Choice America and additional U.S. reproductive rights orgs.
Metrograph
Emma Myers has curated “It Happens to Us,” a look at stories of abortion on film that begins with work by von Sternberg and William Wyler. With the release of Lux Æterna, Gaspar Noé has curated a series of witches onscreen, while if you’ve ever wanted to see Bulletproof Monk on 35mm we recommend “Hong Kong Goes International“; films by John Waters play in a series on Cookie Mueller.
Film at Lincoln Center
The Hong Sangsoo double-feature series continues.
Anthology Film Archives
Essential Cinema has two of Ozu’s best, There Was a Father and I Was Born,...
Metrograph
Emma Myers has curated “It Happens to Us,” a look at stories of abortion on film that begins with work by von Sternberg and William Wyler. With the release of Lux Æterna, Gaspar Noé has curated a series of witches onscreen, while if you’ve ever wanted to see Bulletproof Monk on 35mm we recommend “Hong Kong Goes International“; films by John Waters play in a series on Cookie Mueller.
Film at Lincoln Center
The Hong Sangsoo double-feature series continues.
Anthology Film Archives
Essential Cinema has two of Ozu’s best, There Was a Father and I Was Born,...
- 5/6/2022
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Above: Poster by Frank Stella for the 9th New York Film Festival.Compared to the 32 films in the main slate of this year’s New York Film Festival, not to mention the seemingly hundreds of others playing in sidebars, the 1971 edition of the NYFF, half a century ago, was a lean affair. With only 18 films, down from 78 just four years earlier, the ninth edition of the NYFF was, according to its director Richard Roud, a “belt-tightening festival, a year of consolidation.” In fact, the financially strapped festival almost didn’t take place that year. A New York Times article published midway through the event mentions that “outside the 984-seat Vivian Beaumont Theater, there is only one poster announcing the festival [one assumes it was the beautiful Frank Stella poster above] that is quietly and modestly taking place inside.” A far cry from the glorious phalanx of digital billboards currently beaming outside Alice Tully Hall and the Elinor Bunin Center.The...
- 10/6/2021
- MUBI
The director of Palmer helps us kick off our new season by walking us through some of his favorite movies.
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Bloodhounds Of Broadway (1989)
Salvador (1986)
True Believer (1989)
Palmer (2021)
Wonder Wheel (2017)
A Face In The Crowd (1957)
On The Waterfront (1954)
No Time For Sergeants (1958)
The Confidence Man (2018)
Lolita (1962)
Dr. Strangelove (1964)
The Ghost Of Peter Sellers (2018)
The Marrying Man (1991)
The Ruling Class (1972)
The Krays (1990)
Let Him Have It (1991)
The Changeling (1980)
On The Border (1998)
Murder By Decree (1979)
Bigger Than Life (1956)
The Night of the Iguana (1964)
Fat City (1972)
Angel (1984)
Animal House (1978)
My Science Project (1985)
Lucía (1968)
Paper Moon (1973)
Sullivan’s Travels (1941)
The Great McGinty (1940)
I Married A Witch (1942)
Do The Right Thing (1989)
Raging Bull (1980)
Once Upon A Time In America (1984)
The Rider (2017)
The Mustang (2019)
Nomadland (2020)
Murmur of the Heart (1971)
Sweet Smell Of Success (1957)
Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (1939)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
The Conversation (1974)
The Godfather (1972)
The Godfather Part III (1990)
The Magnificent Ambersons...
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Bloodhounds Of Broadway (1989)
Salvador (1986)
True Believer (1989)
Palmer (2021)
Wonder Wheel (2017)
A Face In The Crowd (1957)
On The Waterfront (1954)
No Time For Sergeants (1958)
The Confidence Man (2018)
Lolita (1962)
Dr. Strangelove (1964)
The Ghost Of Peter Sellers (2018)
The Marrying Man (1991)
The Ruling Class (1972)
The Krays (1990)
Let Him Have It (1991)
The Changeling (1980)
On The Border (1998)
Murder By Decree (1979)
Bigger Than Life (1956)
The Night of the Iguana (1964)
Fat City (1972)
Angel (1984)
Animal House (1978)
My Science Project (1985)
Lucía (1968)
Paper Moon (1973)
Sullivan’s Travels (1941)
The Great McGinty (1940)
I Married A Witch (1942)
Do The Right Thing (1989)
Raging Bull (1980)
Once Upon A Time In America (1984)
The Rider (2017)
The Mustang (2019)
Nomadland (2020)
Murmur of the Heart (1971)
Sweet Smell Of Success (1957)
Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (1939)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
The Conversation (1974)
The Godfather (1972)
The Godfather Part III (1990)
The Magnificent Ambersons...
- 2/2/2021
- by Kris Millsap
- Trailers from Hell
Michael Lonsdale, the actor who played an iconic villain in 1979’s James Bond movie “Moonraker” and starred in 1973’s “The Day of the Jackal,” has died. The British-French actor was 89 at the time of his passing.
“I must unfortunately confirm the passing of Michael Lonsdale, our dear talent for so many years,” Lonsdale’s agent, Olivier Loiseau, said in a statement to TheWrap Monday.
In “Moonraker,” which starred Roger Moore as 007, Lonsdale had the role of bad guy Hugo Drax, an industrialist with plans to poison all of humanity and then repopulate Earth from his space station.
For “Day of the Jackal,” the British-French political thriller directed by Fred Zinnemann, Lonsdale played Deputy Commissioner Claude Lebel, starring opposite Edward Fox as “the Jackal.” Lonsdale’s performance in the film earned him a supporting actor BAFTA nomination.
Though “Moonraker” and “The Day of the Jackal” are the parts American audiences probably best remember Lonsdale for,...
“I must unfortunately confirm the passing of Michael Lonsdale, our dear talent for so many years,” Lonsdale’s agent, Olivier Loiseau, said in a statement to TheWrap Monday.
In “Moonraker,” which starred Roger Moore as 007, Lonsdale had the role of bad guy Hugo Drax, an industrialist with plans to poison all of humanity and then repopulate Earth from his space station.
For “Day of the Jackal,” the British-French political thriller directed by Fred Zinnemann, Lonsdale played Deputy Commissioner Claude Lebel, starring opposite Edward Fox as “the Jackal.” Lonsdale’s performance in the film earned him a supporting actor BAFTA nomination.
Though “Moonraker” and “The Day of the Jackal” are the parts American audiences probably best remember Lonsdale for,...
- 9/21/2020
- by Jennifer Maas
- The Wrap
The Colossus of Rhodes
Blu ray
Warner Archive
1961 / 2:35 / Street Date June 26, 2018
Starring Rory Calhoun, Lea Massari, Georges Marchal
Cinematography by Antonio Ballesteros
Directed by Sergio Leone
Fred Astaire once said of an undulating Cyd Charisse, “She came at me in sections.” So does the star of Sergio Leone’s The Colossus of Rhodes, a 300 foot titan whose sky-scraping vertical stance is at extreme odds with Leone’s widescreen frame. Save for some long shots, one of The Seven Wonders of the World is reduced to a slide show of disconnected body parts. Such are the giant-sized headaches of epic movie-making.
Even before an earthquake would wreak havoc on the community and topple the Colossus in 226 BC, Rhodes was a city in turmoil. Darios, a Brylcreemed military hero and would-be romeo has just dropped anchor but in lieu of a warrior’s welcome, he’s immediately ensnared in a two-pronged...
Blu ray
Warner Archive
1961 / 2:35 / Street Date June 26, 2018
Starring Rory Calhoun, Lea Massari, Georges Marchal
Cinematography by Antonio Ballesteros
Directed by Sergio Leone
Fred Astaire once said of an undulating Cyd Charisse, “She came at me in sections.” So does the star of Sergio Leone’s The Colossus of Rhodes, a 300 foot titan whose sky-scraping vertical stance is at extreme odds with Leone’s widescreen frame. Save for some long shots, one of The Seven Wonders of the World is reduced to a slide show of disconnected body parts. Such are the giant-sized headaches of epic movie-making.
Even before an earthquake would wreak havoc on the community and topple the Colossus in 226 BC, Rhodes was a city in turmoil. Darios, a Brylcreemed military hero and would-be romeo has just dropped anchor but in lieu of a warrior’s welcome, he’s immediately ensnared in a two-pronged...
- 6/16/2018
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
As a singer, actress, writer, and director, Sylvia Chang has been at the forefront of Asian culture since the 1970s. She has worked with directors like King Hu, Tsui Hark, Johnnie To and Jia Zhangke, and directed several of her own features. Chang is the subject of a 15-movie retrospective at the Metrograph running May 18–27. Along with films she directed, including Murmur of the Heart and 20 30 40, the series includes Shanghai Blues; That Day, on the Beach; Mountains May Depart, and Office, a musical based on her stage play Design for Living. Chang spoke with Filmmaker Magazine after the New York […]...
- 5/23/2018
- by Daniel Eagan
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
As a singer, actress, writer, and director, Sylvia Chang has been at the forefront of Asian culture since the 1970s. She has worked with directors like King Hu, Tsui Hark, Johnnie To and Jia Zhangke, and directed several of her own features. Chang is the subject of a 15-movie retrospective at the Metrograph running May 18–27. Along with films she directed, including Murmur of the Heart and 20 30 40, the series includes Shanghai Blues; That Day, on the Beach; Mountains May Depart, and Office, a musical based on her stage play Design for Living. Chang spoke with Filmmaker Magazine after the New York […]...
- 5/23/2018
- by Daniel Eagan
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
If Greta Gerwig being shut out of the best director race at the Golden Globes wasn’t already frustrating enough, it’s with great sadness IndieWire reports that “Lady Bird’s” perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes is no more. After remaining at 100% through 196 reviews and setting the record for best-reviewed film on Rotten Tomatoes, “Lady Bird” has been brought down to 99% thanks to a rotten tomato from film critic Cole Smithey.
Read More:Golden Globes Slammed For Shutting Out Women and Minorities in Best Director Race
Smithey posted the movie’s first bad review on Rotten Tomatoes on December 10, noting “Lady Bird” is “far from a perfect film” and giving it a backhanded compliment by writing, “It’s not the mumblecore disaster you’d expect from Greta Gerwig – one of the mumblecore movement’s prime progenitors.” Smithey runs his own film website, whose tagline refers to Smithey as “the smartest film critic in the world.
Read More:Golden Globes Slammed For Shutting Out Women and Minorities in Best Director Race
Smithey posted the movie’s first bad review on Rotten Tomatoes on December 10, noting “Lady Bird” is “far from a perfect film” and giving it a backhanded compliment by writing, “It’s not the mumblecore disaster you’d expect from Greta Gerwig – one of the mumblecore movement’s prime progenitors.” Smithey runs his own film website, whose tagline refers to Smithey as “the smartest film critic in the world.
- 12/11/2017
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Andrzej Żuławski's The Most Important Thing: Love (1975) is showing November 22 - December 22, 2017 in the United States.The DevilKiedy wszedłeś między wrony, musisz krakać jak i one.
(‘When among the crows, caw as they do.’)—Polish sayingAndrzej Żuławski’s That Most Important Thing: Love (1975) is unlike any film he ever made, and was certainly a departure in his visual sensibility relative to the feature films he had made previously in his native Poland: The Third Part of the Night (1971) and The Devil (1972). Narratively and visually, the film is at once an oddity and a turning point in Żuławski’s oeuvre, and in viewing it, it would benefit the viewer to understand the director’s experience with the French cinematic tradition and its effect on his own cinema.Żuławski was born into a well-known family of artists that spanned several generations in Poland,...
(‘When among the crows, caw as they do.’)—Polish sayingAndrzej Żuławski’s That Most Important Thing: Love (1975) is unlike any film he ever made, and was certainly a departure in his visual sensibility relative to the feature films he had made previously in his native Poland: The Third Part of the Night (1971) and The Devil (1972). Narratively and visually, the film is at once an oddity and a turning point in Żuławski’s oeuvre, and in viewing it, it would benefit the viewer to understand the director’s experience with the French cinematic tradition and its effect on his own cinema.Żuławski was born into a well-known family of artists that spanned several generations in Poland,...
- 12/1/2017
- MUBI
‘Toni Erdmann’ (Courtesy: Tiff)
By: Carson Blackwelder
Managing Editor
It’s not too often that foreign-language films get recognized for anything at the Oscars beyond the best foreign-language film category — but it does happen. And, believe it or not, it happens more for best original screenplay and best adapted screenplay than many other categories. A prime example of that is Toni Erdmann, Germany’s submission this year that is proving to be a cross-category threat, which could score a nomination — or a win — for its writing.
The story of Toni Erdmann — which has a solid Rotten Tomatoes score of 91% — follows a father who is trying to reconnect with his adult daughter after the death of his dog. It sounds simple enough but, of course, the two couldn’t be more unalike. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016 and where it won the Fipresci Prize. Since then, it...
By: Carson Blackwelder
Managing Editor
It’s not too often that foreign-language films get recognized for anything at the Oscars beyond the best foreign-language film category — but it does happen. And, believe it or not, it happens more for best original screenplay and best adapted screenplay than many other categories. A prime example of that is Toni Erdmann, Germany’s submission this year that is proving to be a cross-category threat, which could score a nomination — or a win — for its writing.
The story of Toni Erdmann — which has a solid Rotten Tomatoes score of 91% — follows a father who is trying to reconnect with his adult daughter after the death of his dog. It sounds simple enough but, of course, the two couldn’t be more unalike. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016 and where it won the Fipresci Prize. Since then, it...
- 1/4/2017
- by Carson Blackwelder
- Scott Feinberg
David’s Quick Take for the Tl;Dr Media Consumer:
The resume is solid and the references check out: Federico Fellini, Louis Malle, Roger Vadim each shouldering a directorial third of the project, with talented crews working at their behest to create visually elegant environments to support the stories they tell. Top shelf recruits from leading “beautiful people” actors of their generation: Brigitte Bardot. Alain Delon. Jane Fonda. Peter Fonda. And then there’s Terence Stamp, probably less renowned than the preceding quartet, is roguishly seductive as a disheveled blond wastrel with a suicidal bent. Source material drawn and freely adapted from short stories by Edgar Allan Poe. Ray Charles contributes to the soundtrack. A goosebump inducing first person Pov midnight dash through the streets and alleyways of Rome in a vintage 1964 Ferrari Lmb Fantuzzi just adds extra sprinkles on top. Though the overall impact of the film makes it...
The resume is solid and the references check out: Federico Fellini, Louis Malle, Roger Vadim each shouldering a directorial third of the project, with talented crews working at their behest to create visually elegant environments to support the stories they tell. Top shelf recruits from leading “beautiful people” actors of their generation: Brigitte Bardot. Alain Delon. Jane Fonda. Peter Fonda. And then there’s Terence Stamp, probably less renowned than the preceding quartet, is roguishly seductive as a disheveled blond wastrel with a suicidal bent. Source material drawn and freely adapted from short stories by Edgar Allan Poe. Ray Charles contributes to the soundtrack. A goosebump inducing first person Pov midnight dash through the streets and alleyways of Rome in a vintage 1964 Ferrari Lmb Fantuzzi just adds extra sprinkles on top. Though the overall impact of the film makes it...
- 12/4/2016
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
One of the best double features you could treat yourself to this year would be a back-to-back viewing of two Agnes Varda films starring Jane Birkin, rescued from obscurity in 2015 thanks to Cinelicious Pics. Both released originally in 1988, the imaginary bio-pic Jane B. Par Agnes V. and the provocative fictional narrative Kung-Fu Master! are available on a lovingly restored disc set (as the playful Venn diagram cover art implies, the titles are more inextricably connected than initially seems apparent). Both titles received a theatrical release at New York’s Lincoln Center, followed by a VOD release.
Jane B. Par Agnes V.
A playful exploration of the multi-faceted actress, singer, and icon Jane Birkin as she balances career choices and motherhood long after the initial scandals that brought her international attention. Filmed in tandem with their other collaboration, the fictional narrative Kung Fu Master!, both titles were released theatrically in 1988 when...
Jane B. Par Agnes V.
A playful exploration of the multi-faceted actress, singer, and icon Jane Birkin as she balances career choices and motherhood long after the initial scandals that brought her international attention. Filmed in tandem with their other collaboration, the fictional narrative Kung Fu Master!, both titles were released theatrically in 1988 when...
- 3/8/2016
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Fellipe Barbosa Moves Out of Casa Grande
By Alex Simon
Brazilian cinema has traditionally been a mix of fantasies about the bourgeois class (Dona Flor and her Two Husbands) or dark tales of life in its slums, the flavelas (Pixote). Fellipe Barbosa delivers a debut feature that takes a serio-comic look at the changing face of the upper class in his country, with Casa Grande, winner of the Rio De Janiero International Film Festival’s Best Film prize, which opens November 15 at Cinema Village in New York and debuts online simultaneously via Fandor.
Casa Grande tells the story of a posh Rio family whose carefully-manicured façade is slowly crumbling as father Hugo (Marcello Novaes) runs out of money after a series of bad investments go south. Meanwhile, his teenage son Jean (Thales Cavalanti) attends a fancy prep school and is thinking about college, until finding love with a girl from...
By Alex Simon
Brazilian cinema has traditionally been a mix of fantasies about the bourgeois class (Dona Flor and her Two Husbands) or dark tales of life in its slums, the flavelas (Pixote). Fellipe Barbosa delivers a debut feature that takes a serio-comic look at the changing face of the upper class in his country, with Casa Grande, winner of the Rio De Janiero International Film Festival’s Best Film prize, which opens November 15 at Cinema Village in New York and debuts online simultaneously via Fandor.
Casa Grande tells the story of a posh Rio family whose carefully-manicured façade is slowly crumbling as father Hugo (Marcello Novaes) runs out of money after a series of bad investments go south. Meanwhile, his teenage son Jean (Thales Cavalanti) attends a fancy prep school and is thinking about college, until finding love with a girl from...
- 11/14/2015
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
Oedipus at the Arcade: Varda’s Empathetic Exploration of Taboo
Invariably, most conversations concerning Agnes Varda, the sole female auteur amongst the prized clutch of men whose names project like immortal pillars from the fog of the Nouvelle Vague, reference her two most renowned titles, Cleo From 5 to 7 (1962) and Vagabond (1985). But in-between and after these two iconic moments from her filmography lies a sea of titles waiting to be re-discovered (a recent disc-set from Criterion’s Eclipse series several weeks ago was a first step in exploring her more obscure works).
Boutique distributor Cinelicious Pics continues in this vein with two digital restorations of Varda’s from 1988, both inextricably linked via star Jane Birkin (after a theatrical bow in New York, both titles will move on to Los Angeles). The more textually subversive of these is Kung Fu Master!, a sympathetic tale of doomed love between a 40-year-old...
Invariably, most conversations concerning Agnes Varda, the sole female auteur amongst the prized clutch of men whose names project like immortal pillars from the fog of the Nouvelle Vague, reference her two most renowned titles, Cleo From 5 to 7 (1962) and Vagabond (1985). But in-between and after these two iconic moments from her filmography lies a sea of titles waiting to be re-discovered (a recent disc-set from Criterion’s Eclipse series several weeks ago was a first step in exploring her more obscure works).
Boutique distributor Cinelicious Pics continues in this vein with two digital restorations of Varda’s from 1988, both inextricably linked via star Jane Birkin (after a theatrical bow in New York, both titles will move on to Los Angeles). The more textually subversive of these is Kung Fu Master!, a sympathetic tale of doomed love between a 40-year-old...
- 10/15/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
“Even If It’s a Bad Movie, You Get a Good Running Commentary”: Slavoj Zizek at the Criterion Offices
Philosopher and critic Slavoj Zizek stopped by the Criterion offices the other day, resulting in this video in which he talks his way through some of the titles in the stockroom. In just five minutes he tosses off tons of quips and instant analyses about films like Louis Malle’s Murmur of the Heart (“It’s one of those nice, gentle French movies, where you have incest”), Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo (“a pretentious fake” but with a good commentary track), and Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock, which he compares to Tarkovsky’s Stalker.
- 9/29/2014
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
“Even If It’s a Bad Movie, You Get a Good Running Commentary”: Slavoj Zizek at the Criterion Offices
Philosopher and critic Slavoj Zizek stopped by the Criterion offices the other day, resulting in this video in which he talks his way through some of the titles in the stockroom. In just five minutes he tosses off tons of quips and instant analyses about films like Louis Malle’s Murmur of the Heart (“It’s one of those nice, gentle French movies, where you have incest”), Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo (“a pretentious fake” but with a good commentary track), and Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock, which he compares to Tarkovsky’s Stalker.
- 9/29/2014
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Ioncinema.com’s Ioncinephile of the Month feature focuses on an emerging filmmaker from the world of cinema. This August, we get to once again profile an American Independent filmmaker who had the wind blowing in his sails moments before he launched his micro-budgeted I Am Not a Hipster at Sundance in 2012. Before unleashing his sophomore film, the character-rich, emotionally textured Short Term 12 in March, Destin Daniel Cretton had won over the Sundance jury with the short film going by the same name (2009 Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking). Winner of the 2013 SXSW Film Festival Grand Jury Award (worth mentioning, of which I was a proud member of) and an Audience Award at a handful of fests since SXSW, its the folks at Cinedigm who’ll be launching the film in select theaters on August 23rd. Here is our profile on Destin Daniel Cretton and we’re lucky enough that...
- 8/15/2013
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
Ioncinema.com’s Ioncinephile of the Month feature focuses on an emerging filmmaker from the world of cinema. This month’s featured docu filmmaker needs little introduction – her debut (2006) Deliver Us from Evil was nominated for Best Documentary Oscar and her sophomore film, the Sundance and Tiff selected doc West of Memphis (four star review here) was released via Sony Pictures Classics on December 25th in NY and Los Angeles). Before Amy Berg pursues further docu projects (Untitled Women’s Boxing Documentary and This Is America) and moves into narrative debut (Every Secret Thing or Mystery White Boy) we found out more how she landed and more importantly, how she went about the project. Amy didn’t submit her top ten, but here’s a sampling of the films that are among her first film loves.
Eric Lavallee: During your childhood… what films were important to you?
Amy Berg:...
Eric Lavallee: During your childhood… what films were important to you?
Amy Berg:...
- 12/28/2012
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
I spoke briefly with Alex Ross Perry, director of The Color Wheel (Indiewire’s “best undistributed film of 2011) to talk about siblings and film versus digital formats.
Neal Dhand: The relationship between Colin and Jr is very interesting. How was it conceived? Is it improvised?
Alex Ross Perry: The relationship isn’t necessarily anything that has to do with siblings per se. It’s more just the best way that I could think of to represent something that had to be about characters who had grown apart. Obviously it didn’t need to be a sibling-related story. You could do that story about other people who have grown apart – old roommates, or college friends, or what have you. But I’ve seen that film many times and it was more interesting to me to try to tell that same story about people growing apart from one-another and watching...
Neal Dhand: The relationship between Colin and Jr is very interesting. How was it conceived? Is it improvised?
Alex Ross Perry: The relationship isn’t necessarily anything that has to do with siblings per se. It’s more just the best way that I could think of to represent something that had to be about characters who had grown apart. Obviously it didn’t need to be a sibling-related story. You could do that story about other people who have grown apart – old roommates, or college friends, or what have you. But I’ve seen that film many times and it was more interesting to me to try to tell that same story about people growing apart from one-another and watching...
- 12/5/2012
- by Neal Dhand
- SoundOnSight
The Innocents communion: possessed Martin Stephens, Christian Deborah Kerr Deborah Kerr Pt.3: Socially Dubious Desires Later on, in the television miniseries A Woman of Substance (1984) and its follow-up, the TV movie Follow the Dream (1986), Deborah Kerr played a former kitchen maid-turned-businesswoman who didn’t reach the top by being all chaste and poised along the way. (Jenny Seagrove played the character as a young woman.) And once at the top, Kerr’s tycoon does whatever she feels necessary to remain there. Admittedly, Deborah Kerr didn’t create any of those characters all by herself. She did, however, bring them to life in ways that most performers, regardless of gender, would be either unwilling or unable to do. And even though Kerr once complained of her early "goody goody" roles, she surely knew what was going on inside those deceptively prim and proper women she played prior to From Here to Eternity.
- 5/22/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
What is childhood if not an island cut off from the grown-up world around it, and what is first love if not a secret cove known only to the two parties caught in its spell? While no less twee than Wes Anderson’s earlier pictures, “Moonrise Kingdom” supplies a poignant metaphor for adolescence itself, in which a universally appealing tale of teenage romance cuts through the smug eccentricity and heightened artificiality with which Anderson has allowed himself to be pigeonholed. A prestigious opening-night slot at Cannes lends luster to Focus’ May 25 release, but not enough to grow his audience.
While Anderson is essentially a miniaturist, making dollhouse movies about meticulously appareled characters in perfectly appointed environments, each successive film finds him working on a more ambitious scale. Co-written by Roman Coppola, “Moonrise Kingdom” may not be set anywhere so exotic as a Mediterranean boat (“The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou...
While Anderson is essentially a miniaturist, making dollhouse movies about meticulously appareled characters in perfectly appointed environments, each successive film finds him working on a more ambitious scale. Co-written by Roman Coppola, “Moonrise Kingdom” may not be set anywhere so exotic as a Mediterranean boat (“The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou...
- 5/16/2012
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Mon Oncle Antoine
Directed by Claude Jutra
Canada, 1971
Mon Oncle Antoine could easily have been directed by Louis Malle. Its bittersweet tone, its curious, naïve protagonist, its meandering semi-narrative structure all find cousins in such films as Murmur of the Heart (released the same year, 1971), Lacombe Lucien, and Au Revoir Les Enfants.
For that matter, Mon Oncle Antoine could easily have been directed by Bill Forsyth. Its rejection of traditional narrative principles, its look at a small, tightly-knit community, its balancing act of comedy and coming-of-age all find cousins in such films as That Sinking Feeling, Gregory’s Girl, and Gregory’s Two Girls.
While Malle, Forsyth, and Claude Jutra might form some distinct directorial triumvirate, Mon Oncle Antoine is still uniquely Jutra.
The plotting is simple. Adolescent Benoit (a magnificent Jacques Gagnon) lives in foster care with his uncle Antoine (Jean Duceppe) and aunt Cecile (Olivette Thibault). Also in...
Directed by Claude Jutra
Canada, 1971
Mon Oncle Antoine could easily have been directed by Louis Malle. Its bittersweet tone, its curious, naïve protagonist, its meandering semi-narrative structure all find cousins in such films as Murmur of the Heart (released the same year, 1971), Lacombe Lucien, and Au Revoir Les Enfants.
For that matter, Mon Oncle Antoine could easily have been directed by Bill Forsyth. Its rejection of traditional narrative principles, its look at a small, tightly-knit community, its balancing act of comedy and coming-of-age all find cousins in such films as That Sinking Feeling, Gregory’s Girl, and Gregory’s Two Girls.
While Malle, Forsyth, and Claude Jutra might form some distinct directorial triumvirate, Mon Oncle Antoine is still uniquely Jutra.
The plotting is simple. Adolescent Benoit (a magnificent Jacques Gagnon) lives in foster care with his uncle Antoine (Jean Duceppe) and aunt Cecile (Olivette Thibault). Also in...
- 7/14/2011
- by Neal Dhand
- SoundOnSight
Chicago – The Criterion Collection recently inducted two of beloved French filmmaker Louis Malle’s most surreal works, a great double feature given their thematic commonalities and the chance to view how a notorious director changed and challenged himself at two distinctly different points in his career. Neither are among Malle’s best work, but both films feature something most modern directors for hire don’t have the chance to do — playing with the limits of the form and their own ability. Both “Zazie Dans Le Metro” and “Black Moon” are now available on Criterion Blu-ray and DVD.
“Zazie Dans Le Metro” (1960)
Blu-Ray Rating: 4.0/5.0
Synopsis: “A brash and precocious eleven-year-old (Catherine Demongeot) comes to Paris for a whirlwind weekend with her rakish uncle (Philippe Noiret); he and the viewer get more than they bargained for in this anarchic comedy from Louis Malle, which treats the City of Light as though it...
“Zazie Dans Le Metro” (1960)
Blu-Ray Rating: 4.0/5.0
Synopsis: “A brash and precocious eleven-year-old (Catherine Demongeot) comes to Paris for a whirlwind weekend with her rakish uncle (Philippe Noiret); he and the viewer get more than they bargained for in this anarchic comedy from Louis Malle, which treats the City of Light as though it...
- 7/12/2011
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Driven by a fierce intellectual curiosity that would find the filmmaker hungrily roving from subject to subject, both in the narrative sense and the journalistic one (he shot around ten documentaries in his career), French filmmaker Louis Malle was a cinematic explorer who turned over various and many stones. And in his long and venerable career, he aspired to do it all: elegant mystery-noir pictures ("Elevator To The Gallows"), humanist dramas (many centered around childhood; rites of passage and traumas like “Murmur Of The Heart" and “Au Revoir Les Enfants"), documentaries of all kinds (including one with Jacques Cousteau, “The…...
- 6/29/2011
- The Playlist
Murmur of the Heart (Le souffle au coeur)
Directed by Louis Malle
France, 1971
Louis Malle’s first narrative feature-film was 1958′s Elevator to the Gallows. A jazzy, contribution to the late-noir period it placed Malle conveniently between the too-cool gangster pictures of Jean-Pierre Melville and the too-cool New Wave pictures of Jean-Luc Godard. Instead of continuing on this predetermined track, Malle took a left turn, and then another one. His refusal to be categorized is reminiscent of the varied work of an earlier auteur, the great John Huston.
After adding comedies, documentaries, and stark dramas to his repertoire, Malle turned to the film that, alongside 1974′s Lacombe, Lucien and 1987′s Au Revoir Les Enfants, would establish his reputation as a personal filmmaker, Murmur of the Heart.
Similar to Francois Truffaut’s Antoine Doinel films, Malle takes a look back at his childhood in a coming-of-age film that manages to be gentle,...
Directed by Louis Malle
France, 1971
Louis Malle’s first narrative feature-film was 1958′s Elevator to the Gallows. A jazzy, contribution to the late-noir period it placed Malle conveniently between the too-cool gangster pictures of Jean-Pierre Melville and the too-cool New Wave pictures of Jean-Luc Godard. Instead of continuing on this predetermined track, Malle took a left turn, and then another one. His refusal to be categorized is reminiscent of the varied work of an earlier auteur, the great John Huston.
After adding comedies, documentaries, and stark dramas to his repertoire, Malle turned to the film that, alongside 1974′s Lacombe, Lucien and 1987′s Au Revoir Les Enfants, would establish his reputation as a personal filmmaker, Murmur of the Heart.
Similar to Francois Truffaut’s Antoine Doinel films, Malle takes a look back at his childhood in a coming-of-age film that manages to be gentle,...
- 4/3/2011
- by Neal Dhand
- SoundOnSight
Chicago – It’s difficult to find a thematic trilogy with a conclusion as triumphant and potent as “Au Revoir Les Enfants.” The 1987 fact-based drama emerged as one of the great masterpieces in the career of Louis Malle, a giant of the French New Wave perhaps best known for his intimate two-character piece, 1981’s “My Dinner With Andre.” His films possess a purity and authenticity unmatched by many of his peers.
After a few critical and financial disappointments in America, Malle decided to get back in touch with his roots as a documentarian in the mid-80s (he won the Palme d’Or at age 24 for co-directing Jacques Cousteau’s “Le monde du silence”). Soon afterward, he returned to France and finally tackled the project he had promised to make once he was ready to do it justice. The plot of “Enfants” was directly inspired by an indelible memory from the director’s childhood.
After a few critical and financial disappointments in America, Malle decided to get back in touch with his roots as a documentarian in the mid-80s (he won the Palme d’Or at age 24 for co-directing Jacques Cousteau’s “Le monde du silence”). Soon afterward, he returned to France and finally tackled the project he had promised to make once he was ready to do it justice. The plot of “Enfants” was directly inspired by an indelible memory from the director’s childhood.
- 3/23/2011
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
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