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

Robert Koehler (Cineaste, Cinema Scope, Variety) sent this list in regarding his picks for this year’s AFI FEST, which starts today. -Doug
Here are the AFI films I think are worth checking out. I’m leaving out films like THE WRESTLER,which are going to be readily available for viewing after the festival….this list illustrates why this is [...]

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It’s not often that you can get t-shirts designed by major figures of world cinema, and even less often for a better cause: Chris Marker invokes his trademark character, Guillaume-en-egypte, for Barack Obama at Wexner Center for the Arts.

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Peter Tscherkassky’s Outer Space (1999)
I’m wondering if anyone has any superior horror films or recent discoveries they’d recommend?
I still think Romero’s last zombie movie, Diary of the Dead, is a fantastic genre piece with impressive stylistic qualities (first person camerawork, documentary footage of Katrina) and incisive social commentary, as is typical for the series.
Last year, [...]

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Sita Sings the Blues

Azur and Asmar
As a fan of animation, I’ve embraced the digital era, but my enthusiasm for mainstream three-dimensional CGI has been waning for some time. It seems like computer animated films (shorts as well as features) can increasingly be divided into two groups: those that explore the potential of the medium, [...]

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Count me impressed. I was just scanning the PDF of the Nuart Theatre’s fall/winter Movie Guide and was amazed to see the announcement of new 35mm prints of Charlie Chaplin’s phenomenal Monsieur Verdoux (1947) and François Truffaut’s The Wild Child (1970). Looking closer, I discovered that both are being distributed by a new company [...]

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With its 2008 line-up unveiled yesterday, AFI FEST has become the preeminent film festival for world cinema in Los Angeles. This is a dramatic improvement over past years, when the Palm Springs or Los Angeles festivals seemed destined to carry the torch for movies common to the critical dialogue from major festivals around the world. [...]

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Ran: Ichimonji Hidetora
There are currently two fantastic art exhibitions in Los Angeles that cinephiles won’t want to miss, both offered by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. I’ve already written about “Frédéric Back: A Life’s Drawings” in Hollywood (through November 1st). The second is “Akira Kurosawa: Film Artist” in Beverly Hills [...]

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I have long championed the critical recording by James Naremore and Jonathan Rosenbaum on Criterion’s The Complete Mr. Arkadin as being one of the most pleasurable and informative DVD commentaries of recent years, and their new tag team recording on Universal’s 50th anniversary edition of Touch of Evil (released today) is a worthy followup. By [...]

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