In Our Day.In the cinema, as elsewhere, the notion of “late style” has become a critical commonplace—shorthand for dealing with an artist’s “mature” work, particularly when said artists are dismissed or misunderstood after a period of acclaim. The problem with shorthand, of course, is that not everyone can read it, the result being that appeals to “late style” can come across as abdications of critical responsibility, promissory notes that have yet to be fulfilled. Such debts are in many cases eventually paid, obscure references to “late style” giving way to fuller, more perspicuous accounts of an artist’s achievement. Few would now dispute the considered analyses of how Howard Hawks, pivoting on the success of Rio Bravo (1959), made a deliberate move into the late-career languor of Hatari! (1962), Man’s Favorite Sport? (1964), and Red Line 7000 (1965). In the case of Hong Sang-soo, however, this critical due has yet to...
- 5/20/2024
- MUBI
It’s always fascinating when a movie with a top star, and directed by another star, goes as far under the radar as Steve Buscemi‘s “The Listener,” starring Tessa Thompson, has.
But in the case of this particularly gentle movie — available on VOD now for $6.99 — maybe that’s part of its DNA. Like the mental health helpline operator Thompson plays, this is a movie that’s there if you need it: Quiet, thoughtful, and totally shunning the kind of splashiness that most movies are thought to require these days to stand out.
“The Listener” premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2022, where it was the closing night film of the Venice Days sidebar. On April 13, it was the closing night film of the Sarasota Film Festival, out of competition — in this over 18-month festival journey, it’s also made stops at the festivals in Vienna, Thessaloniki, Stockholm, The Hague,...
But in the case of this particularly gentle movie — available on VOD now for $6.99 — maybe that’s part of its DNA. Like the mental health helpline operator Thompson plays, this is a movie that’s there if you need it: Quiet, thoughtful, and totally shunning the kind of splashiness that most movies are thought to require these days to stand out.
“The Listener” premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2022, where it was the closing night film of the Venice Days sidebar. On April 13, it was the closing night film of the Sarasota Film Festival, out of competition — in this over 18-month festival journey, it’s also made stops at the festivals in Vienna, Thessaloniki, Stockholm, The Hague,...
- 4/20/2024
- by Christian Blauvelt
- Indiewire
David Bordwell, an influential film scholar and longtime professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, died Feb. 29 after battling a “long illness,” according to the university. He was 76.
Uw-Madison described Bordwell as a prolific researcher, dedicated teacher and passionate cinephile — a man who helped guide “countless colleagues, students, and film lovers to heightened awareness of the medium’s artistic possibilities.”
For more than two decades, Bordwell penned commentaries, produced visual and written essays and interviews for films in the Criterion Collection and was seen and heard on 50 episodes of “Observations on Film Art” on the Criterion Channel, who described him as a “tireless champion of cinema,” in a statement.
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He taught at Uw-Madison from 1973 until his retirement in 2004 and was the university’s Jacques Ledoux Professor Emeritus of Film Studies at the time of his death.
Damien Chazelle, Oscar-winning...
Uw-Madison described Bordwell as a prolific researcher, dedicated teacher and passionate cinephile — a man who helped guide “countless colleagues, students, and film lovers to heightened awareness of the medium’s artistic possibilities.”
For more than two decades, Bordwell penned commentaries, produced visual and written essays and interviews for films in the Criterion Collection and was seen and heard on 50 episodes of “Observations on Film Art” on the Criterion Channel, who described him as a “tireless champion of cinema,” in a statement.
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Criterion Collection (@criterioncollection)
He taught at Uw-Madison from 1973 until his retirement in 2004 and was the university’s Jacques Ledoux Professor Emeritus of Film Studies at the time of his death.
Damien Chazelle, Oscar-winning...
- 3/2/2024
- by Diego Ramos Bechara
- Variety Film + TV
David Bordwell, the noted film scholar, teacher, author and researcher known for sharing his knowledge and enthusiasm of cinema with movie lovers everywhere, has died. He was 76.
Bordwell died Thursday after a long illness, the University of Wisconsin-Madison announced. He taught at the school from 1973 until his retirement in 2004 and was its Jacques Ledoux Professor Emeritus of Film Studies at the time of his death.
For more than two decades, Bordwell supplied commentaries, visual and written essays and interviews for films in the Criterion Collection and was seen and heard on 50 insightful episodes of Observations on Film Art on the Criterion Channel.
In a statement, Criterion called him “a great, longtime friend and a tireless champion of cinema who spent decades imparting his wisdom and passion onto film lovers around the world.”
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Bordwell wrote his essential textbooks Film Art: An Introduction,...
Bordwell died Thursday after a long illness, the University of Wisconsin-Madison announced. He taught at the school from 1973 until his retirement in 2004 and was its Jacques Ledoux Professor Emeritus of Film Studies at the time of his death.
For more than two decades, Bordwell supplied commentaries, visual and written essays and interviews for films in the Criterion Collection and was seen and heard on 50 insightful episodes of Observations on Film Art on the Criterion Channel.
In a statement, Criterion called him “a great, longtime friend and a tireless champion of cinema who spent decades imparting his wisdom and passion onto film lovers around the world.”
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by Criterion Collection (@criterioncollection)
Bordwell wrote his essential textbooks Film Art: An Introduction,...
- 3/2/2024
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Remembering David Bordwell: A Film Scholar Who Did More Than Anyone to Advance Academic Film Studies
He simply may have watched more movies than anyone else alive. That’s the kind of legendary detail that followed film scholar David Bordwell, dead at 76 after a long struggle with a degenerative lung disease.
Was that true? Impossible to determine, and Bordwell’s cinephilia was never about bragging or the accumulation of knowledge to score points — but instead, to share with others and enrich our collective understanding of cinema. If you studied film on any level in academia, you almost certainly have heard his name.
For several generations of film students, you read Bordwell’s “Film Art: An Introduction” in your fall freshman Film 101 class. That was me in 2004, and I believe that book was already on its seventh edition by that point — it had first been published in 1979. If you went deeper into your studies, you’d undoubtedly encounter his “Film History” textbook as well. Both of these...
Was that true? Impossible to determine, and Bordwell’s cinephilia was never about bragging or the accumulation of knowledge to score points — but instead, to share with others and enrich our collective understanding of cinema. If you studied film on any level in academia, you almost certainly have heard his name.
For several generations of film students, you read Bordwell’s “Film Art: An Introduction” in your fall freshman Film 101 class. That was me in 2004, and I believe that book was already on its seventh edition by that point — it had first been published in 1979. If you went deeper into your studies, you’d undoubtedly encounter his “Film History” textbook as well. Both of these...
- 3/1/2024
- by Christian Blauvelt
- Indiewire
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.NEWSLandscape Suicide, included on Benning's Sight & Sound ballot.Sight & Sound has made individual ballots available for their Greatest Films of All Time poll. You can browse the full, alphabetical list of critics and filmmakers here, along with voters’ comments and accompanying essays. Some favorites of ours so far: James Benning on self-referentiality, Genevieve Yue on the wind.Eight years after The Intern, Nancy Meyers has a new romantic comedy in the works at Netflix, reportedly budgeted at $130 million. Scarlett Johansson, Penélope Cruz, Owen Wilson, and Michael Fassbender are all in early talks, according to The Hollywood Reporter.Author and curator Barbara Wurm has been appointed the new head of the Berlinale Forum program, succeeding Cristina Nord.Recommended VIEWINGIf it's too bad to be true,...
- 3/8/2023
- MUBI
Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 film "Dial M for Murder" is one of the filmmakers' delightfully nasty little thrillers wherein the audience is asked to sympathize — and ultimately kind of care for -- a horrendous villain. Ray Milland plays Tony, a retired tennis player who has learned that his wife Margot (Grace Kelly) has been having an affair with an American named Mark (Robert Cummings). Rather than merely divorce, Tony elects to have Margot murdered. He colludes with an old criminal buddy named Charles (Anthony Dawson) to commit the murder for him. Charles, being blackmailed, agrees.
What follows is a hotbox procedural tracing Tony's plan for the murder, the elements that go right, and the elements that go horribly, horribly wrong. Most notably: When Charles attacks Margot, she fights back and kills him with a pair of scissors. Oops.
"Dial M for Murder" was filmed in 3D, and it's difficult to understand why.
What follows is a hotbox procedural tracing Tony's plan for the murder, the elements that go right, and the elements that go horribly, horribly wrong. Most notably: When Charles attacks Margot, she fights back and kills him with a pair of scissors. Oops.
"Dial M for Murder" was filmed in 3D, and it's difficult to understand why.
- 8/19/2022
- by Witney Seibold
- Slash Film
Summer is a time for light reading. Well, in theory. If you are a hardcore film lover it’s also a time for deep dives into complicated classics like Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me and Zodiac, laser-eyed explorations of the early works of David Cronenberg, and loving odes to the insanity of Cannon Films.
Our latest column has all these and more, starting with the most eagerly awaited cineamtic novel of the year. And for other essential cinema reads, visit David Bordwell’s website, which now offers a collection of books written by him and Kristin Thompson for free. Take advantage of these, my friends. And while it is not available for purchase, I urge you to do some digging to find Neon’s Petite Maman: A Story by Céline Sciamma, a 32-page illustrated children’s book of Sciamma’s film lovingly illustrated by Desi Moore (with design by...
Our latest column has all these and more, starting with the most eagerly awaited cineamtic novel of the year. And for other essential cinema reads, visit David Bordwell’s website, which now offers a collection of books written by him and Kristin Thompson for free. Take advantage of these, my friends. And while it is not available for purchase, I urge you to do some digging to find Neon’s Petite Maman: A Story by Céline Sciamma, a 32-page illustrated children’s book of Sciamma’s film lovingly illustrated by Desi Moore (with design by...
- 8/8/2022
- by Christopher Schobert
- The Film Stage
If you’re looking to take a summer film analysis course for free, David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson have graciously offered that opportunity. The invaluable film theorists, who previously hosted a selection of their digital books on PayPal, have now made them available at no cost in protest of Peter Thiel’s campaign contributions to J. D. Vance and other Maga cretins. “[We]e see no reason to add to PayPal’s revenues, not even the few cents it receives from a purchase here,” notes Bordwell on his site.
Freely available books include On the History of Film Style, in which Bordwell “scrutinizes the theories of style launched by André Bazin, Noël Burch, and other film historians” and looks at a wide-ranging span of cinema; Planet Hong Kong, an essential text featuring analysis on works from Wong Kar-wai, King Hu, Stephen Chow, Johnnie To; and many more. There are also books...
Freely available books include On the History of Film Style, in which Bordwell “scrutinizes the theories of style launched by André Bazin, Noël Burch, and other film historians” and looks at a wide-ranging span of cinema; Planet Hong Kong, an essential text featuring analysis on works from Wong Kar-wai, King Hu, Stephen Chow, Johnnie To; and many more. There are also books...
- 5/18/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
“This was just the trailer. The real picture starts now.” Thus quips supercop protagonist Chulbul Pandey partway through the opening fight in Dabangg (2010), his eyes just a few degrees removed from looking straight into the camera. His remark requires a slight revision: the rest of the scene, too, feels like a trailer, displaying a hyper-kinetic, collage-like aesthetic that embodies what cultural theorist Steven Shaviro termed “post-continuity,” or a contemporary visual style that deprioritizes clear screen geography in favor of formal play and sensory hyper-stimulation. In this scene, rapid-fire cutting abounds but often seems to serve contradictory purposes. At points, it compresses and streamlines the space and time of an action, such as cutting from a shot of Chulbul unwinding a fire hose to a shot of his leg kicking back to a close-up of his foot unlatching the valve that will release the soon-to-be-weaponized high-pressure stream; evoked here is the...
- 5/13/2022
- MUBI
The terrific survivalist buddy actioner Shoot To Kill (1988), a.k.a. Deadly Pursuit, stands tall as one of the great under-appreciated genre flicks of its day. This riveting, rollicking ride, starring Sidney Poitier, Tom Berenger, Kirstie Alley and a cadre of capable character actors, will get its time in the sun right now. Buckle up.
At the start of Shoot To Kill, 22-year veteran FBI agent Warren Stantin (Poitier) is brought in to investigate a San Francisco diamond merchant smuggling out his own diamonds in the middle of the night. Stantin quickly intuits that the jeweler has done so under duress, and soon the beleaguered gentleman informs him that his wife is being held hostage by a mad gunman and he had been instructed to supply his own jewels for ransom collateral. The family dog has already bitten the bullet, so the jeweler knows the gunman means business.
Director Roger Spottiswoode and writers Harv Zimmel,...
At the start of Shoot To Kill, 22-year veteran FBI agent Warren Stantin (Poitier) is brought in to investigate a San Francisco diamond merchant smuggling out his own diamonds in the middle of the night. Stantin quickly intuits that the jeweler has done so under duress, and soon the beleaguered gentleman informs him that his wife is being held hostage by a mad gunman and he had been instructed to supply his own jewels for ransom collateral. The family dog has already bitten the bullet, so the jeweler knows the gunman means business.
Director Roger Spottiswoode and writers Harv Zimmel,...
- 1/24/2022
- by Alex Kirschenbaum
- Trailers from Hell
We were a film couple. David Chute was writing film reviews for the Boston Phoenix when I met him in New York. He’d come down for a George Romero party, where we talked for hours. He had written two pieces for Film Comment, where I was the new Associate Editor. And even though I had landed my dream job, when he moved to Los Angeles to join Peter Rainer at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, he convinced me to ditch my Upper West Side rent-controlled apartment and move in with him in Koreatown. I had never been to California and had to learn how to drive. We were married in October 1983, and six years later, Nora arrived.
Sadly, we both said goodbye to David last week; he died at age 71 on November 8 of esophageal cancer. He had just moved back after eight years taking care of his father in Poland,...
Sadly, we both said goodbye to David last week; he died at age 71 on November 8 of esophageal cancer. He had just moved back after eight years taking care of his father in Poland,...
- 11/20/2021
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
We were a film couple. David Chute was writing film reviews for the Boston Phoenix when I met him in New York. He’d come down for a George Romero party, where we talked for hours. He had written two pieces for Film Comment, where I was the new Associate Editor. And even though I had landed my dream job, when he moved to Los Angeles to join Peter Rainer at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, he convinced me to ditch my Upper West Side rent-controlled apartment and move in with him in Koreatown. I had never been to California and had to learn how to drive. We were married in October 1983, and six years later, Nora arrived.
Sadly, we both said goodbye to David last week; he died at age 71 on November 8 of esophageal cancer. He had just moved back after eight years taking care of his father in Poland,...
Sadly, we both said goodbye to David last week; he died at age 71 on November 8 of esophageal cancer. He had just moved back after eight years taking care of his father in Poland,...
- 11/20/2021
- by Anne Thompson
- Thompson on Hollywood
David Chute, a longtime film critic and writer who tirelessly championed Hong Kong films in the U.S., died Nov. 8 in Los Angeles.
His daughter, Nora Chute, confirmed that he died of esophageal cancer.
Chute wrote for publications including the Boston Phoenix, Film Comment, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Vanity Fair, the Los Angeles Times and Variety, often advocating for genre films and international filmmakers to get the recognition they deserved.
Chute grew up in Maine with his father, Robert, a poet and biology professor at Bates College, his mother, Vicki, a novelist. He launched his career in the 70s as a film critic at the Kennebec Journal and The Maine Times, where he discovered Stephen King, who he also profiled for Take One. In 1979, King inscribed a copy of “The Shining” to David Chute, “the best film critic in America.”
In 1978, Chute joined the staff of The Boston Phoenix,...
His daughter, Nora Chute, confirmed that he died of esophageal cancer.
Chute wrote for publications including the Boston Phoenix, Film Comment, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Vanity Fair, the Los Angeles Times and Variety, often advocating for genre films and international filmmakers to get the recognition they deserved.
Chute grew up in Maine with his father, Robert, a poet and biology professor at Bates College, his mother, Vicki, a novelist. He launched his career in the 70s as a film critic at the Kennebec Journal and The Maine Times, where he discovered Stephen King, who he also profiled for Take One. In 1979, King inscribed a copy of “The Shining” to David Chute, “the best film critic in America.”
In 1978, Chute joined the staff of The Boston Phoenix,...
- 11/19/2021
- by Pat Saperstein
- Variety Film + TV
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The glamour of Old Hollywood is timeless, but the holiday season is a great time to purchase one of these classic film-themed gifts. In addition to curating broadcast lineups of the greatest films of all time (from one of the largest film libraries in the world), Turner Classic Movies has also curated a wide variety of gifts for the classic film fan in your life — or yourself, if that’s you. And if you subscribe to Hulu Live or Sling TV, you can stream all the TCM movies your heart desires. If you’re not subscribed, Hulu Live costs just $64.99 a month after a free seven-day trial. That means you can officially cut...
The glamour of Old Hollywood is timeless, but the holiday season is a great time to purchase one of these classic film-themed gifts. In addition to curating broadcast lineups of the greatest films of all time (from one of the largest film libraries in the world), Turner Classic Movies has also curated a wide variety of gifts for the classic film fan in your life — or yourself, if that’s you. And if you subscribe to Hulu Live or Sling TV, you can stream all the TCM movies your heart desires. If you’re not subscribed, Hulu Live costs just $64.99 a month after a free seven-day trial. That means you can officially cut...
- 11/2/2021
- by Jean Bentley and Latifah Muhammad
- Indiewire
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Joan Micklin Silver on the set of Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979). Trailblazing filmmaker Joan Micklin Silver, best known for films Hester Street (1975) and Crossing Delancey (1988), has died. In an interview with Film Comment in 2017, Silver described the will she possessed as a woman filmmaker who wished to spotlight stories about female relationships and women's labor: "I didn’t want to feel like the woman director. I wanted to feel like one of many women directors."The 71st edition of the Berlin Film Festival will be replacing this year's physical event with a virtual European Film Market in March, and a "mini-festival with a series of onsite world premieres" in June.The International Film Festival Rotterdam has also announced the lineup for this year's hybrid multi-part 50th edition, to be presented between February 1-...
- 1/6/2021
- MUBI
Yoshihige Yoshida was 22 years old when he joined Shochiku film studios as an assistant director. At that time, around 1955, Yasujiro Ozu was a nemesis for many young filmmakers at the facility. Ozu resembled commerce and conservatism, a person that does not care for the sociopolitical uproar of the postwar youth and probably the least role model for the yet to be founded “Shochiku New Wave”. Nonetheless, Yoshida, as a part of this new generation of directors, was deeply touched by Ozu’s words and tried to comprehend the meaning of his views on the world and cinema. 30 years after the passing of Yasujiro Ozu, he began to develop a theory about his films. It took five years to finish and is titled “Ozu’s Anti-Cinema”. The book is based on personal encounters with the director leading from Yoshida’s beginnings at Shochiku to the last visit at Ozu’s deathbed.
- 12/13/2020
- by Alexander Knoth
- AsianMoviePulse
Olaf Möller is a film programmer and critic, as well as a Professor in the Department of Film, Television and Scenographyat Aalto University in Finland. He regularly collaborates with prestigious film magazines such as Sight & Sound, Cinema Scope, Mubi Notebook, Eye for Film and Film Comment, among others. He is considered one of the most authoritative voices of film history and criticism, along with Jonathan Rosenbaum, Laura Mulvey or David Bordwell. He has curated cycles and retrospectives for festivals such as Rotterdam, the Viennale or Locarno, and was a member of the Selection Committee of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen. Möller is the author of numerous publications, including Fragmentos de búsqueda (2013), focusing on the cinema of Thomas Heisse, Romuald Karmakar (2013), about the German filmmaker, or Geliebt und Verdrängt: Das Kino der jungen Bundesrepublik Deutschland von 1949 bis 1963/ Loved and repressed: the cinema of the young Federal Republic of Germany from...
- 11/3/2020
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
The coronavirus pandemic is still going on, and shutdowns are being lifted oh so gently. That generally means two things: go outside with a mask on while strafing away from passersby on the sidewalk, or stay in and watch stuff. Luckily, The Criterion Channel has announced its June 2020 lineup, which is full of things old and new.
June sees the streaming premiere of Bertrand Bonello’s fantasy-horror, Zombi Child, which originally premiered in the Director’s Fortnight section of the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. The month also brings us the Channel’s addition of Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho, which comes with deleted scenes, a making-of documentary, and more. Meanwhile, they will also flesh out the service’s Chantal Akerman selection, adding features such as One Day Pina Asked…, Golden Eighties, and her penultimate feature, Almayer’s Folly. On the other side of the coin comes Jamie Babbit...
June sees the streaming premiere of Bertrand Bonello’s fantasy-horror, Zombi Child, which originally premiered in the Director’s Fortnight section of the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. The month also brings us the Channel’s addition of Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho, which comes with deleted scenes, a making-of documentary, and more. Meanwhile, they will also flesh out the service’s Chantal Akerman selection, adding features such as One Day Pina Asked…, Golden Eighties, and her penultimate feature, Almayer’s Folly. On the other side of the coin comes Jamie Babbit...
- 5/20/2020
- by Matt Cipolla
- The Film Stage
Wes Anderson’s beloved 2014 Oscar winner “The Grand Budapest Hotel” arrived on The Criterion Collection this week with 25 minutes of animated storyboards narrated by the filmmaker himself. Polygon exclusively debuted the first of six animated storyboard sequences: “Introduction,” “Washer Woman,” “Killing of Kovacs,” “Prison Escape,” “Gabelmeister’s Peak,” and “Hotel Show-Down.” The clip below brings the beginning of “The Grand Budapest Hotel” to life through Anderson’s hand-drawn graphics and provides an early look at how the filmmaker envisioned the various shots and camera movements that would kick off his period comedy-drama. The result is a barebones, black-and-white animated version of a Wes Anderson movie.
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” was released in March 2014 by Searchlight Pictures and became his highest grossing movie worldwide with $172.9 million. The movie went on to earn nine Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. “Grand Budapest” won the Oscars for Best Original Score,...
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” was released in March 2014 by Searchlight Pictures and became his highest grossing movie worldwide with $172.9 million. The movie went on to earn nine Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. “Grand Budapest” won the Oscars for Best Original Score,...
- 5/1/2020
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
Ranking near the top of our list of the 50 best films of 2019, Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite has taken the world by storm. Nearing the $22 million mark in the U.S. alone (and $126 million worldwide), his social thriller/comedy/horror/drama is one of the great success stories to close out the 2010s, and now the decade is ringing in with a new way to experience the film.
Following in the footsteps of Mad Max: Fury Road, Logan, and The Mist, a black-and-white version of the film will be premiering at International Film Festival Rotterdam, which begins January 22. While there are no details yet on precisely why Bong Joon Ho wants to present a black-and-white version of the film, if one goes back a few years, a few hints are revealed as it pertains to another project.
Back in 2013, around the time of Snowpiercer, a black-and-white version of his 2009 film...
Following in the footsteps of Mad Max: Fury Road, Logan, and The Mist, a black-and-white version of the film will be premiering at International Film Festival Rotterdam, which begins January 22. While there are no details yet on precisely why Bong Joon Ho wants to present a black-and-white version of the film, if one goes back a few years, a few hints are revealed as it pertains to another project.
Back in 2013, around the time of Snowpiercer, a black-and-white version of his 2009 film...
- 12/28/2019
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
In classical Hollywood cinema, most movies rush forward, like a river or roller coaster, along a steady course toward a certain objective. Not so Trey Edward Shults’ brilliant, audacious third feature, “Waves,” whose enigmatic title suggests how its visionary young writer-director sets out to challenge our ideas of how and why things happen in life.
Set in South Florida — not so far from the microcosm Barry Jenkins illuminated in “Moonlight,” though a world apart in terms of social class and opportunity — “Waves” bends and surprises, radiates and engulfs, in a dizzying and ecstatic attempt to capture the love and pain and pressure visited upon a contemporary American family — an African American family, to be precise. For Shults, who is white, doing justice to that experience means projecting beyond himself to capture all that is universal and unique about his four central characters, each of whom feels fully dimensional by the end of this intimate epic.
Set in South Florida — not so far from the microcosm Barry Jenkins illuminated in “Moonlight,” though a world apart in terms of social class and opportunity — “Waves” bends and surprises, radiates and engulfs, in a dizzying and ecstatic attempt to capture the love and pain and pressure visited upon a contemporary American family — an African American family, to be precise. For Shults, who is white, doing justice to that experience means projecting beyond himself to capture all that is universal and unique about his four central characters, each of whom feels fully dimensional by the end of this intimate epic.
- 8/31/2019
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Francois Ozon’s By The Grace Of God will close the festival, which runs March 18-April 1.
Renny Harlin’s Chinese-language crime thriller Bodies At Rest will open this year’s Hong Kong International Film Festival (Hkiff), while Francois Ozon’s By The Grace Of God will close the 15-day event (March 18-April 1).
Starring Nick Cheung and Richie Jen, Bodies At Restis co-produced by Hong Kong’s Media Asia and Beijing-based Wanda Pictures and is scheduled for release in April. Ozon’s By The Grace Of Godrecently won the Grand Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival.
Hkiff also announced that...
Renny Harlin’s Chinese-language crime thriller Bodies At Rest will open this year’s Hong Kong International Film Festival (Hkiff), while Francois Ozon’s By The Grace Of God will close the 15-day event (March 18-April 1).
Starring Nick Cheung and Richie Jen, Bodies At Restis co-produced by Hong Kong’s Media Asia and Beijing-based Wanda Pictures and is scheduled for release in April. Ozon’s By The Grace Of Godrecently won the Grand Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival.
Hkiff also announced that...
- 2/26/2019
- by Liz Shackleton
- ScreenDaily
“Bodies at Rest,” a Chinese-language crime thriller directed by Beijing-resident Renny Harlin (“Die Hard 2”) has been set as the opening title of the Hong Kong International Film Festival. The festival will close with Francois Ozon’s “By the Grace of God,” which recently claimed the grand prize in Berlin.
Between the two events, the festival will unspool 230 titles from 63 countries and regions, of which 64 are world, international and Asian premieres. The festival, under the new leadership of Albert Lee, will run March 18-April 1.
Other highlights include gala screenings of: “Synonyms,” the winner of the Berlinale’s Golden Bear for best film, by Israeli director Nadav Lapid; Peter Jackson’s restored footage Wwi documentary “They Shall Not Grow Old”; and “First Night Nerves,” by Hong Kong director Stanley Kwan.
Chinese director Lou Ye’s “The Shadow Play” will receive a special screening after Lou, Jiang Wen, Tony Leung Ka-fai, actress...
Between the two events, the festival will unspool 230 titles from 63 countries and regions, of which 64 are world, international and Asian premieres. The festival, under the new leadership of Albert Lee, will run March 18-April 1.
Other highlights include gala screenings of: “Synonyms,” the winner of the Berlinale’s Golden Bear for best film, by Israeli director Nadav Lapid; Peter Jackson’s restored footage Wwi documentary “They Shall Not Grow Old”; and “First Night Nerves,” by Hong Kong director Stanley Kwan.
Chinese director Lou Ye’s “The Shadow Play” will receive a special screening after Lou, Jiang Wen, Tony Leung Ka-fai, actress...
- 2/26/2019
- by Patrick Frater
- Variety Film + TV
WarnerMedia has announced FilmStruck, the streaming service for foreign cinema and classic film, is ceasing operations November 29, 2018. Turner and Warner Bros. Digital Networks issued a joint statement today announcing the end of FilmStruck. The service launched October 19, 2016.
“We’re incredibly proud of the creativity and innovations produced by the talented and dedicated teams who worked on FilmStruck over the past two years,” the statement reads. “While FilmStruck has a very loyal fanbase, it remains largely a niche service. We plan to take key learnings from FilmStruck to help shape future business decisions in the direct-to-consumer space and redirect this investment back into our collective portfolios.”
FilmStruck is best known as the exclusive streaming home for The Criterion Collection, which was previously available to stream on Hulu. In addition to streaming films, FilmStruck also produced original content featuring director’s commentary and series such as film historian David Bordwell’s “Observations on Film Art.
“We’re incredibly proud of the creativity and innovations produced by the talented and dedicated teams who worked on FilmStruck over the past two years,” the statement reads. “While FilmStruck has a very loyal fanbase, it remains largely a niche service. We plan to take key learnings from FilmStruck to help shape future business decisions in the direct-to-consumer space and redirect this investment back into our collective portfolios.”
FilmStruck is best known as the exclusive streaming home for The Criterion Collection, which was previously available to stream on Hulu. In addition to streaming films, FilmStruck also produced original content featuring director’s commentary and series such as film historian David Bordwell’s “Observations on Film Art.
- 10/26/2018
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSWe are deeply saddened by the news that Village Voice, home to an abundance of film criticism over the past six decades, "is suspending all editorial content and will lay off half its staff effective immediately." For the Criterion Collection, David Hudson has provided a spotlight of the Voice's foremost critical voices, including Bilge Ebiri, whose last review for the publication is on the "communal consciousness" of Robert Greene's Bisbee '17. Recommended Viewinga gorgeous trailer for photographer RaMell Ross's directorial debut Hale County This Morning, This Evening, the tale of "two young African American men from rural Hale County, Alabama, over the course of five years."The official trailer for Yorgos Lanthimos's The Favourite, currently in competition at the 75th Venice International Film Festival, provides a closer look into its evidently wicked sense of humor,...
- 9/6/2018
- MUBI
As classical Hollywood cinema scholars David Bordwell and Kristen Johnson pointed out, the traditional American film plot is driven by a “goal-oriented protagonist.” That’s not necessarily the case with European art cinema, which may explain why U.S. audiences have such a hard time connecting to movies where it’s not clear what the hero wants. They won’t have that problem with “Domestique,” an obsessive-compulsive Czech-Slovak body-horror film — easily the most uncomfortable first-date movie Central Europe has produced since “Wetlands” — that centers on two characters who’re as goal-oriented as they come: hard-core Roman (Jiří Konvalinka) is a training maniac, working overtime to recover from a cycling injury, while his health-nut wife Charlotte (Tereza Hofová) wants a child, keeping meticulous track of her fertility calendar.
An audaciously alienating anti-romance from first-time director Adam Sedlák, “Domestique” hardly ever leaves the sterile modern apartment where this high-strung couple co-exists. Otherwise...
An audaciously alienating anti-romance from first-time director Adam Sedlák, “Domestique” hardly ever leaves the sterile modern apartment where this high-strung couple co-exists. Otherwise...
- 7/9/2018
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSThe great post-war Italian auteur Ermanno Olmi had died at the age of 86. Winner of the Palme d'Or in 1978 for The Tree of the Wooden Clogs, Olmi was making great cinema up until the end. Sam Roberts of the The New York Times remembers.And another mourning that also hits us personally: Pierre Rissient, the ultimate cinephile (and filmmaker in his own right!), has left us. Scott Foundas has penned a most thorough remembrance for IndieWire.Recommended VIEWINGWe're covering the Cannes Film Festival this week and next, and are ever-more excited for the latest film from South Korean director Lee Chang-dong (Poetry), which so happens to be his first film in 8 (!) years.Two of the minds behind the brilliant television series Atlanta, Donald Glover (in his musical alias Childish Gambino) and director Hiro Murai,...
- 5/9/2018
- MUBI
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSActor Dorothy Malone, a true original of Hollywood's golden age and beyond, has died. David Hudson is collecting tributes at Criterion.In case you missed it, the 90th Academy Awards have announced their nominations. Find them on the Notebook here.Recommended VIEWINGWe love Czech animator & filmmaker Jan Švankmajer, so naturally we're very excited for his long awaited new feature Insect, which premieres at the International Film Festival Rotterdam this week. Here's the beautiful and disgusting first trailer: Also at this years Iffr is Austrian experimental filmmaker Johann Lurf's "★". His cinema consistently challenges and surprises with its investigations of form and time, so we can't wait to see this structuralist space epic. Trailer:recommended READINGThe BFI has compiled a comprehensive (and crushing) list of all the film talents who died in 2017, complete with stunning visual tributes.
- 1/24/2018
- MUBI
A prominent commercial filmmaker in Hong Kong since the mid-80s, the career path and status of Johnnie To is distinctive from contemporaries such as John Woo, Tsui Hark, and Wong Kar-wai. Solely committed to his national cinema, he made a point of never venturing to Hollywood and even formed his own production company, Milkyway Image, in 1996. Only in the mid-2000s when films like Breaking News (2005) and Election (2006) premiered at the Cannes Film Festival was Johnnie To given auteur consideration by Western critics and audiences. Even then, it was only his crime and action genre work, characterized by their elegant style and directorial control, that found critical success and was seen as commercially viable for international markets. With over 50 features under his belt, Johnnie To has a massive oeuvre not bound to any single mode and while he is one of contemporary cinema’s greatest formalist filmmakers, his fluency in visual storytelling transcends genre.
- 10/28/2017
- MUBI
Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Arthur Riplye's The Chase (1946) is playing from September 30 - October 30, 2017 in the United States.“It’s happened again.” This almost throwaway admission by the protagonist of The Chase, Arthur Ripley’s way-out 1946 noir, comes just after the film’s jolting third act twist. It sets the viewer up for the unexpected, but is delivered with such exasperation that, at least for the beleaguered hero of the picture, the situation may perhaps be all too familiar, a possibility that in itself makes the occurrence that much more significant. Prior to this point, The Chase had been a solid, atmospheric thriller, with sufficient quirkiness to keep it in thoroughly fresh territory. But with this derailing revelation, there is really no preparing for how The Chase plays out, and what that, in turn, means for the preceding story. On its surface set-up,...
- 10/16/2017
- MUBI
Billy Wilder always more or less disowned his one real musical, which leaves the enthusiast with a choice: keep re-watching the classic Wilder films, of which there are many, or probe into the obscure, disreputable corners of the great man's oeuvre?The year was 1948. Wilder had been involved with the war effort. Lost Weekend had belatedly come out in 1945 and won an Oscar for Ray Milland. And while the rest of Hollywood was churning out movies that developed the film noir genre Wilder had helped launch with Double Indemnity, he made a Bing Crosby musical set in Austria. He claimed it was offered to him, but the script is credited to Wilder and Charles Brackett, so he can't distance himself that easily."On a December night, some forty-odd years ago, His Majesty Franz Joseph the First, Emperor of Austria, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia,...
- 9/27/2017
- MUBI
Aaron is joined by Jeff Smith, Film Professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Lady P, host of Flixwise. Dr. Smith has a focus on music within film, and co-hosts FilmStruck’s Observations on Film Art with David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson. As fate has it, Lady P is in the process of beginning a graduate film studies program at University of Wisconsin-Madison. We had an enjoyable discussion about academic living, from both the faculty and student perspective. We also discuss Criterion’s November 2017 announcements, debate Jimmy Stewart versus Cary Grant, and we talk about FilmStruck’s offerings for the week.
Episode Links FilmStruck – Observations on Film Art Film Art – 11th Edition Flixwise 63 – Sunset Blvd Upcoming Arrow Academy Blu-Ray Releases Episode Credits Aaron West: Twitter | Website | Letterboxd Pauline Lampert: Twitter | Facebook | Website Jeff Smith: Bio Criterion Now: Facebook Group Criterion Cast: Facebook | Twitter
Music for the show is from Fatboy Roberts’ Geek Remixed project.
Episode Links FilmStruck – Observations on Film Art Film Art – 11th Edition Flixwise 63 – Sunset Blvd Upcoming Arrow Academy Blu-Ray Releases Episode Credits Aaron West: Twitter | Website | Letterboxd Pauline Lampert: Twitter | Facebook | Website Jeff Smith: Bio Criterion Now: Facebook Group Criterion Cast: Facebook | Twitter
Music for the show is from Fatboy Roberts’ Geek Remixed project.
- 8/23/2017
- by Aaron West
- CriterionCast
Each month, the fine folks at FilmStruck and the Criterion Collection spend countless hours crafting their channels to highlight the many different types of films that they have in their streaming library. This August will feature an exciting assortment of films, as noted below.
To sign up for a free two-week trial here.
Tuesday, August 1
Tuesday’s Short + Feature: These Boots and Mystery Train
Music is at the heart of this program, which pairs a zany music video by Finnish master Aki Kaurismäki with a tune-filled career highlight from American independent-film pioneer Jim Jarmusch. In the 1993 These Boots, Kaurismäki’s band of pompadoured “Finnish Elvis” rockers, the Leningrad Cowboys, cover a Nancy Sinatra classic in their signature deadpan style. It’s the perfect prelude to Jarmusch’s 1989 Mystery Train, a homage to the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll and the musical legacy of Memphis, featuring appearances by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and Joe Strummer.
To sign up for a free two-week trial here.
Tuesday, August 1
Tuesday’s Short + Feature: These Boots and Mystery Train
Music is at the heart of this program, which pairs a zany music video by Finnish master Aki Kaurismäki with a tune-filled career highlight from American independent-film pioneer Jim Jarmusch. In the 1993 These Boots, Kaurismäki’s band of pompadoured “Finnish Elvis” rockers, the Leningrad Cowboys, cover a Nancy Sinatra classic in their signature deadpan style. It’s the perfect prelude to Jarmusch’s 1989 Mystery Train, a homage to the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll and the musical legacy of Memphis, featuring appearances by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and Joe Strummer.
- 7/24/2017
- by Ryan Gallagher
- CriterionCast
Okja is not the only new (or new-ish) Bong Joon-ho project you can stream today, and maybe not even the best. Grasshopper Film are hosting the U.S. premiere of Influenza, which Bong composed for South Korea’s Jeonju International Film Festival in 2004, and it turns out this super-rare 30-minute short is among his most startling works. Praised by David Bordwell for walking “the border between commercial fiction and avant-garde experimentation” and shot entirely from the fixed perspective of closed-circuit camera systems, it charts a man’s financial and moral downfall to a degree that’s both characteristic of Bong in its violent incidents and a deviation in just how little humor alleviates these scenarios. (Some harmony is found in a laugh-out-loud-funny bit involving a car door.) By film’s end I didn’t exactly know what to make of the transpired events, but I was greatly affected all the same.
- 6/28/2017
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Each month, the fine folks at FilmStruck and the Criterion Collection spend countless hours crafting their channels to highlight the many different types of films that they have in their streaming library. This July will feature an exciting assortment of films, as noted below.
To sign up for a free two-week trial here.
Saturday, July 1 Changing Faces
What does a face tell us even when it’s disguised or disfigured? And what does it conceal? Guest curator Imogen Sara Smith, a critic and author of the book In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City, assembles a series of films that revolve around enigmatic faces transformed by masks, scars, and surgery, including Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face (1960) and Hiroshi Teshigahara’s The Face of Another (1966).
Tuesday, July 4 Tuesday’s Short + Feature: Premature* and Ten*
Come hitch a ride with Norwegian director Gunhild Enger and the late Iranian master...
To sign up for a free two-week trial here.
Saturday, July 1 Changing Faces
What does a face tell us even when it’s disguised or disfigured? And what does it conceal? Guest curator Imogen Sara Smith, a critic and author of the book In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City, assembles a series of films that revolve around enigmatic faces transformed by masks, scars, and surgery, including Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face (1960) and Hiroshi Teshigahara’s The Face of Another (1966).
Tuesday, July 4 Tuesday’s Short + Feature: Premature* and Ten*
Come hitch a ride with Norwegian director Gunhild Enger and the late Iranian master...
- 6/26/2017
- by Ryan Gallagher
- CriterionCast
It’s Yasujiro Ozu in light mode, except that his insights into the human social mechanism make this cheerful neighborhood comedy as meaningful as his dramas. Two boys go on a ‘talk strike’ because they want a television set, a choice that has an effect on everyone around them. And what can you say about a movie with running jokes about flatulence . . . and is still a world-class classic?
Good Morning
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 84
1959 / Color / 1:37 flat Academy / 94 min. / ohayo / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date May 16, 2017 / 39.95
Starring: Keiji Sada, Yoshiko Kuga, Chishu Ryu, Kuniko Miyake, Haruko Sugimura, Koji Shitara, Masahiko Shimazu, Isamu Hayashi, Kyoko Izumi, Toyo Takahashi, Sadako Sawamura, Eijiro Tono.
Cinematography: Yushun Atsuta
Film Editor: Yoshiyasu Hamamura
Original Music: Toshiro Mayuzumi
Written by Yasujiro Ozu, Kogo Noda
Produced by Shizuo Yamanouchi
Directed by Yasujiro Ozu
Ozu’s Good Morning is a straight-out delight, being both inconsequential and insightful.
Good Morning
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 84
1959 / Color / 1:37 flat Academy / 94 min. / ohayo / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date May 16, 2017 / 39.95
Starring: Keiji Sada, Yoshiko Kuga, Chishu Ryu, Kuniko Miyake, Haruko Sugimura, Koji Shitara, Masahiko Shimazu, Isamu Hayashi, Kyoko Izumi, Toyo Takahashi, Sadako Sawamura, Eijiro Tono.
Cinematography: Yushun Atsuta
Film Editor: Yoshiyasu Hamamura
Original Music: Toshiro Mayuzumi
Written by Yasujiro Ozu, Kogo Noda
Produced by Shizuo Yamanouchi
Directed by Yasujiro Ozu
Ozu’s Good Morning is a straight-out delight, being both inconsequential and insightful.
- 6/9/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
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