Interviews
You Can Never Be 100 Percent Sure: Lodge Kerrigan on Keane
An interview with the writer/director of Keane, getting a restoration release this week in NYC.
An interview with the writer/director of Keane, getting a restoration release this week in NYC.
Reviews from Sundance of three films that played in the festival's Premieres section.
A look ahead at the 2019 summer movie season, starring ten of our most anticipated films.
What our TV critic would nominate for Emmys for the 2017-18 season.
The best of the 2016-17 TV season in Emmy ballot form.
The latest and greatest on Blu-ray and streaming services, including The Infiltrator, Cafe Society, Blood Father, and a Criterion edition of Boyhood.
Director James Ivory talks about his film adaptation of E.M. Forster's classic novel.
A TV critic's picks for the best TV of 2015-16.
A review of Werner Herzog's "The Queen of the Desert" from the 2015 Berlin Film Festival.
Marie writes: As the dog days of summer slowly creep towards September and Toronto starts getting ready for TIFF 2013, bringing with it the promise of unique and interesting foreign films, it brought to mind an old favorite, namely The Red Balloon; a thirty-four minute short which follows the adventures of a young boy who one day finds a sentient red balloon. Filmed in the Menilmontant neighborhood of Paris and directed by French filmmaker Albert Lamorisse, The Red Balloon went on to win numerous awards and has since become a much-beloved Children's Classic.
Marie writes: Now this is something you don't see every day. Behold The Paragliding Circus! Acrobatic paragliding pilot Gill Schneider teamed up with his father’s circus class (he operates a school that trains circus performers) to mix and combine circus arts with paragliding - including taking a trapezist (Roxane Giliand) up for ride and without a net. Best original film in the 2012 Icare Cup. Video by Director/Filmmaker Shams Prod. To see more, visit Shams Prod.
Writer-director-producer David Simon (creator of "The Wire," "Generation Kill," "Treme") has a piece at Salon headlined: "Media's sex obsession is dangerous, destructive," in which he eviscerates Roger Simon (no relation) for his Politico column, "Gen. David Petraeus is dumb, she's dumber." And The Week offers a round-up of trashy "journalistic" misbehavior, " The David Petraeus affair: Why the media's coverage is sexist." I don't know. "Sexist" seems like an understatement. Puerile, snotty, crass, raunchy, snide, scary, onanistic, stupid, instructive, pointless -- it's all those things, too. At the very least.
Rarely does a TV show arrive with lower expectations than the annual Emmy Awards telecast. It's a given that the thing will suck. Even so, this year's -- the 64th -- managed to come up short and disappoint. And it wasn't one of those "so bad it's good" campy things you can enjoy making fun of, either. It was more like one of those "so bad it's lousy" things that leave you incredulous and drained of the will to live.
Yes, but is it Art? Marcell Duchamp's famous "Fountain" aka urinal
Marie writes: The local Circle Craft Co-operative features the work of hundreds of craftspeople from across British Columbia and each year, a Christmas Market is held downtown at the Vancouver Convention Centre to help sell and promote the work they produce. My friend and I recently attended the 37th Christmas Market and where I spotted these utterly delightful handmade fabric monsters by Diane Perry of "Monster Lab" - one of the artist studios located on Salt Spring Island near Washington State...it's the eyes... they follow you. :-)
(click to enlarge)
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.)
From the Grand Poobah in Toronto: It was slightly chilly and I threw on my Toronto International Film Festival jacket and hurried out of the hotel. Only an ooh and an ahh from behind me at the Elgin Theater alerted me that I was wearing my official Roots 20th anniversary jacket. Since 2010 is the festival's 35th anniversary, that's not bad, n'est-ce pas? I hope that at the theater my T-shirt wasn't peeking out.
The Grand Poobah writes: I carry a little Canon S60 digital camera so small it tucks in my jeans pocket. Sometimes, all by itself, it will take a great photograph. Here are Lena and Werner Herzog. She is the acclaimed photographer. This was taken shortly after Herzog and Errol Morris held their lively onstage conversation, which I video recorded from the front row.
Roger Ebert's best movie lists from 1967-present