Now that serial killer musicals are back in fashion, LACMA’s screening last Fridayof Michael Powell’s rarely seen Bluebeard’s Castle (1964)–with Powell’s widow and longtime Scorsese editor Thelma Schoonmaker in attendance–seems especially appropriate. Made for West German TV in the doldrums of Powell’s post-Peeping Tom (1960) blacklisting, it’s a startlingly expressionist, one-act, one-hour adaptation of Bela [...]
Entries from January 2008
Bluebeard’s Castle
January 28th, 2008 by Doug Cummings · No Comments
Categories: Film review
A new issue of Beyond magazine
January 22nd, 2008 by Doug Cummings · No Comments
The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Lotte Reiniger, 1926)
“Now that rampaging dinosaurs, epic catastrophes, and superheroes have become ubiquitous in movies, animation seems as commonplace as news footage. But animation is as old photography itself; it predates ‘motion pictures’ through a variety of Victorian contraptions. And its practitioners were often the most solitary and obsessive filmmakers–visionaries [...]
Categories: Site news
Film Comment mention
January 10th, 2008 by Doug Cummings · No Comments
It’s always nice to see one’s name in print–from the latest Film Comment:
“Launched in 2001, Masters of Cinema is run by an eclectic group hailing from the U.S., Canada and England: Jan Bielawski, Doug Cummings, R. Dixon Smith, Trond S. Tronsen, and Nick Wrigley. So which masters tie this collective together? Many celebrated auteurs, but [...]
Categories: Site news
Robert Koehler’s Best of 2007
January 4th, 2008 by Robert Koehler · No Comments
In the City of Sylvia
THE FILMS OF 2007
By ROBERT KOEHLER
This is a long list because it was a great year. And it was a great year because weíre in the midst of a new golden age for world cinemaóof which this list is submitted as proof. And because this list is long, Iíll be [...]
Categories: Commentary · Film review
Best of 2007
January 3rd, 2008 by Doug Cummings · No Comments
Honor of the Knights
It’s funny to think back on 2007–a year fraught with many personal changes for me (necessitating a sometimes sporadic approach to blogging here at Film Journey)–and still recognize that I managed to attend four major film festivals, publish liner notes to a CD and a DVD, write entries for MovieMail and film [...]
Categories: Commentary · Film review