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

world cinema in Los Angeles and beyond

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Entries Categorized as 'Commentary'

The Film Desk

October 9th, 2008 by Doug Cummings · No Comments

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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Categories: Commentary

Lola Montès restoration

September 18th, 2008 by Doug Cummings · 5 Comments

(Click to enlarge.)
In case you’ve only seen Max Ophüls’ last and only widescreen, color film on the abysmal Fox Lorber DVD that refuses to go away, you might check out this comparison I’ve made between a direct screengrab of the DVD versus a still courtesy of Rialto Pictures from the new restoration. I just [...]

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Categories: Commentary

Why the Foreign Oscars Need to be Blown Up

February 23rd, 2008 by Robert Koehler · No Comments

Garbage In Garbage Out, or Why the Foreign Oscars Need to be Blown Up
By ROBERT KOEHLER
Computer programmers have a term for the risk flawed data input poses to the goal of good data results: Garbage In, Garbage Out. No four words better sum up the profound problems that have turned the foreign-language Oscar category into [...]

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Categories: Commentary

Animation industry

February 6th, 2008 by Doug Cummings · No Comments

The estimable Animation World Magazine offers an excellent article on Persepolis‘ lack of exposure from Sony. The author doesn’t make any points that a lot of us haven’t been making for years, but it’s great to see more articles like this in popular industry trades/sites. It’s also well written, offering gems such as this:

“On the [...]

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Categories: Commentary

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 [...]

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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 [...]

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Categories: Commentary · Film review

AFI FEST preview

October 9th, 2007 by Doug Cummings · No Comments

In years past, the Los Angeles AFI FEST has proven to be a lot like many American Film Institute events–big, glitzy, and not especially exciting in terms of world cinema. This year, however, its line-up–just announced today–is an improvement. In addition to some of my own TIFF favorites (The Duchess of Langeais, Persepolis, [...]

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Categories: Commentary · Film festival

LAFF 2007

June 21st, 2007 by Robert Koehler · No Comments

Robert Koehler and I are both planning to attend this year’s LAFF, and as of this afternoon, it looks like I’ve been granted press credentials for the festival, so I plan on writing about a decent share of films. (And rewatching a few favorites, such as Honor of the Knights, Times and Winds, Syndromes [...]

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Categories: Commentary · Film review

Goethe-Institut and “Starring Berlin”

May 4th, 2007 by Doug Cummings · No Comments

One of the cultural institutions here in Los Angeles that screens movies on a regular basis is the Goethe-Institut, and currently is not an exception, with its Starring Berlin series featuring the capitol in 40 films, from Paul Leni’s Backstairs (1921) to Detlev Buck’s Tough Enough (2006). The series continues throughout the year.
I’ve known [...]

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Categories: Commentary · Film festival · Film review

Criticism: Food and Film

April 20th, 2007 by Doug Cummings · Comments Off

The Pulitzer Prize for criticism was announced this week, and personally, I couldn’t be more delighted that for the first time in its history, it went to a restaurant critic: Jonathan Gold of the LA Weekly, whose “Counter Intelligence” column has served as my homing beacon for food exploration and discovery ever since I moved [...]

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Categories: Commentary