“When I studied, I met a filmmaker who decided for me, in a way , what I was going to become. It was Armand Gatti who brought us together.” –Jean-Pierre Dardenne at his 2009 Cannes masterclass
“Film is a system that allows Godard to be a novelist, Gatti to make theater, and me to [...]
Entries Categorized as 'DVD review'
Armand Gatti and L’Enclos (1961)
May 27th, 2009 by Doug Cummings · No Comments
Categories: Commentary · DVD review
The Dardennes and Lorna’s Silence
May 21st, 2009 by Doug Cummings · No Comments
If last week seemed like a windfall for Chris Marker, this week the torch has been passed to Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. Tuesday at Cannes, the Belgian filmmakers gave a truly fascinating two-hour masterclass that is already available online, which features extended discussions of key scenes in each of their films. The brothers’ [...]
Categories: DVD review
A Grin Without a Cat (1977, 1993)
May 12th, 2009 by Doug Cummings · No Comments
Last week, Icarus Films released the latest DVD in their excellent Chris Marker series, A Grin Without a Cat (originally released in 1977 but shortened with an added coda in ‘93). Not only is this one of his most acclaimed documentaries, summarizing the decade of the New Left worldwide as well as his own [...]
Categories: DVD review
Robert Koehler’s Best of 2008
January 15th, 2009 by Robert Koehler · 2 Comments
The Golden Age Continued: The Films That Matter in 2008
By ROBERT KOEHLER
It’s always dangerous to assume anything, but I figured that by now I would have been teased—somewhere, by someone—for having argued more than once over the past couple of years that we are living in a new golden age of film. This position runs [...]
Categories: Commentary · DVD review · Film review
Tops Tens of 2008
January 8th, 2009 by Doug Cummings · 2 Comments
Birdsong
This past year was a difficult one for me, schedule-wise, but I still managed to squeeze in a good number of films at the Palm Springs, COLCOA, Los Angeles, DocuWeek, and AFI festivals, UCLA, the American Cinematheques, AMPAS, Cinefamily, LACMA (check out Bernardo Rondeau’s top ten list here), REDCAT, and the Filmforum, not to mention [...]
Categories: Commentary · DVD review · Film review
Sita Sings the Blues and Azur and Asmar
October 16th, 2008 by Doug Cummings · 3 Comments
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, [...]
Categories: DVD review · Film review
Touch of Evil (1958)
October 7th, 2008 by Doug Cummings · No Comments
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 [...]
Categories: DVD review
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner x 3
September 18th, 2008 by Doug Cummings · No Comments
Proteus, one of my favorite documentaries from 2004, is being released on DVD this week by First Run Features. It’s a fascinating look at the work of 19th century artist-naturalist Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) that is experimental film, historical summary, and philosophical meditation all rolled into one. Laboriously assembled by David Lebrun over the course of [...]
Categories: DVD review
Heinz Emigholz’s “Architecture as Autobiography”
April 3rd, 2008 by Doug Cummings · Comments Off
The industrious Adam Hyman of the Los Angeles Filmforum has organized an exciting collaborative event between various local film institutions (Filmforum, LACMA, REDCAT, UCLA) and the MAK Center: a week-long retrospective of German filmmaker Heinz Emigholz from April 6-13. Emigholz’s Schindler’s Houses was one of my highlights of last year’s Toronto film festival, so [...]
Categories: DVD review
Borzage’s The River and Strange Cargo
March 28th, 2008 by Doug Cummings · Comments Off
AndrÈ Bazin once wrote, “Our melodrama in the last century has lost almost all its dramatic integrity and merely survives as a parody.” If that was true in the 1950s (with Sirk and Ray at the height of their powers), it’s definitely true today, when ironic detachment reigns supreme. Outside of contemporary Korean [...]
Categories: DVD review