Category: Film
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Because every kid needs a . . .
The Sweet Hereafter play set.
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Three Sisters (2012)
Wang introduced Three Sisters as “a simple film” that “might be too long.” I appreciate his humility (a hallmark of his filmmaking, too), but I think he’s wrong on both counts. There’s nothing simple about this precise assemblage of footage collected during several visits to the girls’ remote farming village, and the length of the film is, in fact, essential to its success.
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Favorite Films of the ’90s
Thanks to the AV Club, film nerds everywhere are declaring their favorite films of the 1990s. I spent all of five minutes on mine, which is why they’re alphabetized.
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TIFF 2012 – Day 6
Dormant Beauty (Bellocchio), Something in the Air (Assayas), Berberian Sound Studio (Strickland), Nights with Theodore (Betbeder), and The Last Time I Saw Macao (Rodrigues and Guerra da Mata).
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TIFF 2012 – Day 5
The Master (Anderson), Once Upon a Time Was I, Veronica (Gomes), Birds (Abrantes), and Viola (Piñeiro).
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Nicolas Rey: differently, molussia
Originally published at Senses of Cinema.
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TIFF 2012 – Day 4
Like Someone in Love (Kiarostami), Far from Vietnam, Tower (Radwanski), and August and After (Dorsky).
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TIFF 2012 – Day 3
Gebo and the Shadow (de Oliveira), differently, Molussia (Rey), and Night Across the Street (Ruiz).
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TIFF 2012 – Day 2
Barbara (Petzold), Mekong Hotel (Apitchatpong), Big in Vietnam (Diop), Sightseers (Wheatley), Student (Omirbayev), and Wavelengths 1.
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TIFF 2012 – Day 1
In Another Country (Hong), Laurence Anyways (Dolan), Argo (Affleck), and Tabu (Gomes).
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Anticipating TIFF 2012
My goal in Toronto each year is pretty simple. I typically see about 30 films at the fest, and if I choose the right 30 then for the next twelve months I get to participate in the larger critical conversation about contemporary world cinema, despite living in a midsized city in East Tennessee.
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Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2012)
I expected Ceylan to fill 150 minutes with stunning images; I didn’t expect him to deliver what might be my favorite script of the past decade.
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Best Films of 2012
With the latest redesign and relaunch of Long Pauses, I’ve decided to take a different approach. Rather than wait until December, I’m going to rank films as I see them. This is a work in progress.
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2012 Film Diary
A day-by-day viewing log of my filmwatching habits in 2012, beginning with Alex Ross Perry’s The Color Wheel (1967) and ending with episode 15 of Mark Cousins’s The Story of Film (2011).
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TIFF 2011
This essay was originally published at Senses of Cinema.
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Chantal Akerman: Madwomen (and Men) in the Jungle
Originally published at Mubi.
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James Benning: Naked Repose
Originally published at Mubi.
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Best Films of 2011
With the latest redesign and relaunch of Long Pauses, I’ve decided to take a different approach. Rather than wait until December, I’m going to rank films as I see them.
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2011 Film Diary
A day-by-day viewing log of my filmwatching habits in 2011, beginning with Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samouria (1967) and ending with Raul Ruiz’s The Mysteries of Lisbon (2011).
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Best Films of 2010
This year, to determine eligibility I’ve decided to follow the “New York commercial release” rule, which means that this list has been culled from the 40 or so films I saw. Honestly, this Top 10 could be shuffled randomly and I’d probably be as satisfied with the results.
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Jose Luis Guerin: Rediscovering the Quotidian
Originally published at Mubi.
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2010 TIFF Schedule
Because seeing 30+ films in a week is a perfectly sensible thing to do. List includes highly-anticipated new films by Apichatpong, Gallo, Breillat, Reichardt, Hong, Wiseman, and Godard.
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By Brakhage
Another capsule review for the Arts & Faith Top 100. Writing a brief introduction to Brakhage for an audience that might not even be aware of the existence of a-g cinema proved to be a really fun challenge. “When film subverts our absorption in the temporal and reveals the depths of our own reality, it […]
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Les rendez-vous d’Anna (1978)
This essay was originally published at Mubi.
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The Apu Trilogy (1955, 1956, 1959)
Dir. by Satyajit Ray Another capsule review for the Arts & Faith Top 100. Between 1955 and 1991, Indian director Satyajit Ray made more than thirty feature films, but he’s best remembered in the West for the “Apu trilogy,” which launched his career. Pather Panchali (1955), Aparajito (1956), and Apur Sansar (1959) are based on […]
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Vivre sa vie (1961)
Dir. by Jean-luc Godard I’ve been an occasional participant in the Arts & Faith discussion forum for nearly a decade. They recently polled members to determine a Top 100 film list, and the results are notable. In previous incarnations, we used the vague criterion, “spiritually significant,” to determine what did and did not belong on […]
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Lucky Life (2010)
Dir. by Lee Isaac Chung There’s a sequence about 25 minutes into Lee Isaac Chung’s new film Lucky Life that I’ve watched countless times over the past few months. In an earlier scene, the film’s four main characters — old college friends who reunite each year at a beach house on the Outer Banks — […]
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2010 Film Diary
A day-by-day viewing log of my filmwatching habits in 2010, beginning with Arnaud Desplechin’s Kings and Queen (2004) and ending with James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931).
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Best Films of 2009
I’ve now seen about 40 of the point-earning films from the 2009 IndieWire Critics Survey, which seems a reasonable enough number. I’ve taken the coward’s route and included eleven films because I just couldn’t decide which one to leave off.
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Best Films of the Decade (2000-2009)
I’ll follow Tom Hall’s lead and call this my “Incredibly Personal, Completely Subjective List of the Best Films of The Decade.” Consider it a snapshot of my taste right now. Conspicuously absent are several filmmakers who made great films this decade but who, for whatever reasons — my age? critical backlash? the weather? — didn’t […]