You can tell it was a good year at the movies when so many nomination-worthy pictures and performers got snubbed by the Academy. Alejandro Iñárritu’s The Revenant walked off with the most nominations (12), followed by Mad Max: Fury Road, the type of major studio commercial hit that the expansion of the Best Picture category aimed at including. It pulled in 10 nominations, but … [Read more...]
The View From Home 58: Feminist defiance, a cult horror puzzler, and an Apatow wannabe
Tess: One of the most sumptuously photographed films of Roman Polanski’s career, 1979’s Tess (Criterion, $34.99 Blu-ray + DVD) opens its Victorian-era narrative by conjuring none other than John Ford, as soaring music colors a majestic CinemaScope landscape. This is a film whose images burst at its own golden seams, and its use of wide-open spaces remains arguably unparalleled … [Read more...]
Hap’s picks: Top 10 films of 2013
Now that we have seen the year-end crop of award-worthy movies, it is clear than 2013 was rich in quality films. Family dysfunction, struggles for survival and looks back at our history are among the themes in this highly subjective selection of the best. 1. Nebraska — Alexander Payne’s signature territory of pain-laced comedy about deeply flawed, but recognizable characters … [Read more...]
The View From Home 53: High school vérité, a horror classic and Bergman & Bergman
The We and the I: The We and the I (Virgil Films, $16.22) is another masterpiece from Michel Gondry, and it’s a film that goes a long way toward rendering irrelevant the distinction between fiction and documentary. Mostly putting his fevered visual imagination on the back burner, Gondry takes a vérité approach in this study of Bronx high schoolers on a real-time bus ride … [Read more...]
The View From Home 48: A great French comic’s film legacy
Unavailable for more than four decades thanks to legal disputes and film stock degradation – take your pick – the five feature films and three shorts from French auteur Pierre Étaix have finally been digitally restored and released on home video, and they’re absolutely irresistible (Criterion, $43.83 Blu-ray, $36.83 DVD). A clown both before and after his surprisingly limited … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: Jan. 20-22
Art: The Norton Museum turns to the world of glassmaking this week, having opened three studio glass programs Wednesday. The centerpiece is an installation called One and Others, created by the Wisconsin-based artist Beth Lipman. It’s a large piece that evokes Old Master still lifes from the museum’s collections, and is on view in its European galleries. The museum also is … [Read more...]
In ‘Abyss,’ Herzog gently probes a diseased body politic
If any one theme connects the recent documentaries of Werner Herzog, it’s that the director, narrator and inevitable participant in his films boldly goes where few have gone before – whether it’s engaging with the few human inhabitants of the North Pole (Encounters at the End of the World), flying above rarely seen rainforests in a helium-fueled contraption (The White Diamond) … [Read more...]
The View From Home 32: New releases and notable screenings, Nov. 8-30
American director Alex Cox remains most famous for the first two films he ever made: 1984’s Repo Man and 1987’s Sid & Nancy. He’s continued to be active for more than two decades since, though you wouldn’t know it from the lack of distribution his films have received – Cox seems content with making cult movies for microscopic audiences. A crueler critic might suggest that he … [Read more...]
The View From Home 9: New releases on DVD
Close-Up (Criterion) Release date: June 22 Standard list price: $36.49 This two-disc Criterion reissue of one of the greatest – if not the greatest – films of the 1990s replaces the out-of-print edition from Facets, and hopefully a new crop of young cinephiles will discover it. Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami wrote and directed the film after reading a short magazine article … [Read more...]
Florida festival brings best films from La Belle France
Fortunately, Patrick Giminez lives in Boca Raton. As a result, Palm Beach County residents do not have to travel to Miami this weekend to feast on French films. Of course they could, because the French cineaste who has been distributing films for the past 25 years is kicking off his fifth annual France Cinema Floride at the Tower Theatre in Miami. But those same 11 films -- … [Read more...]