f i l m j o u r n e y . o r g

This weekend, I stopped by my local theatre in the hopes of seeing Fahrenheit 9/11 and both to my dismay and pleasure, every single screening was sold out even though it was showing on dual screens. The “return of the documentary,” indeed.
So I ambled down the road and checked out another film, Jehame Noujaim’s [...]

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The last two features I’ve screened at the LAFF are exemplary thrillers, both immersed in existentialist dread, both diverging in tone: CÈdric Kahn’s brooding and suggestive mood piece, Red Lights (Feux rouges, 2004), and Raoul Ruiz’s comedic and flamboyant neo-noir, A Taste of Murder (known at other festivals as A Place Among the Living from [...]

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It’s always great to see a film festival establish its groove, and the Los Angeles Film Festival is doing just that in its fourth incarnation since its merger of two film organizations. Evolving from a festival that specialized in independent American fare, it is now more international in scope and offers several high-profile screenings [...]

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My pal John Torvi up in Calgary keeps me up-to-date with the latest developments in the animation scene, and he has sent in this report concerning Pioneer’s new DVD release of Haibane Renmei, a Japanese anime series that’s getting rave reviews across the board. Here’s John. –Doug
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By John Torvi
I [...]

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Browsing through a used bookstore on Hollywood Boulevard yesterday, I came across critic/filmmaker/curator Jonas Mekas‘ out-of-print Movie Journal: The Rise of a New American Cinema, 1959-1971, a partial compilation of his writing for the Village Voice during that period. Mekas was born in Lithuania in 1922, but after graduating from college, he was arrested [...]

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I haven’t seen The Day After Tomorrow, and given its scathing reviews, I don’t intend to any time soon, but seeing Rialto’s new print of the original Godzilla (1954) last night (certainly a much smoother, dramatically cohere film than its American makeover), I found myself pondering end-of-the-earth films in general, and one my own favorite [...]

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“Increasingly some of the greatest international film archives–currently the CinÈmathËque franÁaise and Britainís National Film and Television Archive–are under acute threat from official economic cut-backs and the incursion of ill-informed new bureaucracies.
The most acute current crisis is the threat to the National Film and Television Archive. The British Film Institute, the body currently entrusted with [...]

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Back in 1995, I had the pleasure of living in South Korea for the summer months teaching conversational English to a variety of young adults. It was a wonderful experience being immersed in a culture which had recently modernized but nevertheless retained its roots in a rich historical tradition.
While I was there, I eagerly sought [...]

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The official website for the Masters of Cinema Series from Eureka Video in the UK is now online, featuring our first release, Arnold Fanck’s The Holy Mountain (1926). Unlike the Kino region 1 version, this 2-disc set contains the original German intertitles (subtitled), the complete three-hour 1993 documentary The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni [...]

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