Patti Cake$
The sense of place and uniformly superb performances make it worth seeing, and maybe ultimately singing along with.
Liliana Cavani
-
Ripley's Game (2002)
—
Written and directed by
Roger Ebert -
The Night Porter (1975)
—
Directed by
Roger Ebert
* This filmography is not intended to be a comprehensive list of this artist’s work. Instead it reflects the films this person has been involved with that have been reviewed on this site.
Film Noir For the Baby Boomer Generation: Wim Wenders' "The American Friend"
A piece on Wim Wenders' "The American Friend," released on Blu-ray by Criterion tomorrow.
Opening Shots: The American Friend
The opening shot of Wim Wenders' moody color noir "The American Friend" (1977), based on Patricia Highsmith's 1974 novel "Ripley's Game," isn't anything fancy or complicated -- no intricate tracking or crane movement -- but, wow, does it announce the movie. First we hear the sirens and the traffic noise behind a black screen, over which the title is immediately emblazoned in electric red-orange block letters: "DER AMERIKANISCHE FREUND."
Bam! We're there, at street level on the lower West Side of Manhattan. We get a look at a few cars and a truck heading uptown, and the ghostly outlines of the World Trade Center towers that stand in the distant haze -- modern New York looming over this less imposing block of old New York. (They also provide a Roman numeral II to mark this sequel to the Scanners Opening Shot Project, which is why I chose this shot for last week's announcement of Part 2).
#29 September 22, 2010
Marie writes: Club member and noted blog contributor Tom Dark took this astonishing photograph near his home in Abiqui, New Mexico. The "unknown entity" appeared without warning and after a failed attempt to communicate, fled the scene. Tom stopped short of saying "alien" to describe the encounter, but I think it's safe to say that whatever he saw, it was pretty damned freaky. It sure can't be mistaken for anything terrestrial; like a horse pressing its nose up to the camera and the lens causing foreshortening. As it totally does not look like that at all. (click to enlarge.)
A Seamless performance?
Q. In your review of "Ice Princess," you wrote, "The surprise is that Michelle Trachtenberg seems able to skate, too. That didn't look like a double on the ice, although Variety, the show-biz bible, reports, 'Four different skaters sub for Trachtenberg in the more difficult performances.'"
