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

Comment on Berlin Viewing 4 by D

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 07:53:50 +0000

beautiful and very sophisticated review. You’ve won me for your reader from now on.

Comment on World on a Wire (1973) by Susan White

Susan White — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 18:06:44 +0000

Hi Doug,

Just caught this at the Loft in Tucson: stunning! Wish I had the clip of the mirroring scene with all the scientists/industrialists reflected infinitely into the abysm.

Comment on What Matters at the Los Angeles Film Festival by Marilyn Ferdinand

Marilyn Ferdinand — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 14:45:17 +0000

There are, in fact, a great many voices in the film blogosphere devoted to what I call on my blog “offroad” films. However, Americans are so conditioned to want the biggest and most popular (remember Willie Loman buying the refrigerator with the “biggest ads,” only to find it a lemon), and daring distributors like the Shooting Gallery so many corpses in a too-full grave, that it’s hard to get anyone to try something new. I made an informal Top Films of 2010 list that ignored the AMPAS rules for “commercial release” that most other sites follow because who cares where it played so long as I saw it and thought it made my year. I got ridiculed for it at one site. I totally believe we have to advocate for quality, and I think this article takes well-deserved aim at the commercial worm that is starting to eat away at film festivals.

Comment on What Matters at the Los Angeles Film Festival by Doug Cummings

Doug Cummings — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 05:44:25 +0000

I don’t agree that LAFF has been bad for five years, I think it has been decidedly mediocre the past two since Rachel Rosen left (and SFIFF has been strong), but I’m not sure why; I think David Ansen and Doug Jones have good taste. Three years ago, it was a world cinema powerhouse, with titles by Martin Rejtman, Mariano Llinas, Miguel Gomes, Celina Murga, Claire Denis, Wang Bing, Kore-eda, Pere Portabella, Koji Wakamatsu, etc. Last year, at least they had the Torre Nilsson spotlight. But this year, it’s much less adventurous–LAFF is quickly resembling AFI FEST of the early-2000s, when none of the cinephiles I knew even bothered to attend.

Opening Night films for all festivals are press events unto themselves, I don’t think Bob begrudges that at all.

Comment on What Matters at the Los Angeles Film Festival by David Poland

David Poland — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 03:17:46 +0000

I think the world of you, Bob, but it’s a lot more complicated than you make it seem.

Ain’t It Cool News has long positioned itself as “film advocates” and neither journalists or critics. (This has changed as they have mainstreamed, but not the point.) Harry Knowles was and is an expert in a wide away of obscure films and filmmakers. He is an aggressive supporter of film preservation.

And he wets his pants over Transformers movies.

So where do you put him?

Where do we put the New York Film Festival, putting The Social Network as their opening night film last year… perhaps because they believed… but mostly because it was their first opportunity to World Premiere an Opening Night movie in over a decade. So then they break the review embargo by weeks and promote the film relentlessly. I respect all of those guys and women… but where is the line?

All those silly films at LAFF this year… par for the course in the last 5 years or more. But the shock of LAFF this year was that they opened with a movie without distribution. Advocacy or desperation?

I certainly qualify as one of those idiots who worry about box office and spends far too much time on studio junk. But I am also an active advocate for films without distribution, festivals that don’t get enough attention (like Seattle… oy… a mighty fest with not nearly enough reputation outside of the NW), documentaries that get scant distribution, etc, etc. I kinda know where I fit into your world view… but I’m not 100% sure where I should fit in.

Comment on Boyer Out, 108 and Decline In by JeanRZEJ

JeanRZEJ — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 00:57:41 +0000

I appreciate the response, Doug. It seems there is quite a bit of potentially interesting Russian cinema that gets completely ignored for one reason or another these days. I guess it’s true of cinema anywhere, though, even France – Civeyrac’s films have abysmal distribution, but the few I have seen are quite intriguing. I guess Robert’s latest post about the importance of advocacy is all-too relevant. I missed the one showing of Angela Schanelec’s latest film last year and by this point it may as well never have existed. Too bad, she’s the best.

Comment on Boyer Out, 108 and Decline In by Shane Danielsen

Shane Danielsen — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 19:55:54 +0000

To me, that list – with the exception of ‘Ajami’ and ‘Polytechnique’ – pretty much makes my case.

But this is of course merely my opinion – just as yours is yours. Your ‘good’ and my ‘good’ are clearly very different; we are, after all, different people. And if you can manage to find something magical and compelling in, say, ‘Go Get Some Rosemary’, or ‘Oxhide II’, I can but shake my head in wonder and, yes, a little awe.

I do, however, think your close relationship with Olivier Père (aren’t you advising Locarno these days? and didn’t he put you on a jury there last year?) renders any pretense of impartiality on the Père/Boyer question, on your part, somewhat suspect.

Comment on Boyer Out, 108 and Decline In by Robert Koehler

Robert Koehler — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 19:23:03 +0000

Olivier Pere regularly and creatively mined genres all through his guidance of the Quinzaine, so programming “Somos” was hardly innovative on Boyer’s part.
Second, I do not like all Hubert Bals films, by any stretch. I dare say, were he still with us, Hubert Bals himself wouldn’t like all Hubert Bals films. (I didn’t mention the Hubert Bals Fund in my piece.) However, a “paradigm” under which the films are considered for funding is no great problem, but is something to weigh and consider. At its best, it both supports creative filmmakers from areas of the world that struggle for funding and fosters careers for longevity. At its worst, like the mixed legacy of Francophone African cinema, it can begin to create a cliched cinema full of tropes that the filmmaker assumes the funders expect. This is the danger of all of the European-based funding sources, and filmmakers need to beware such traps.
Finally, the 2010 Quinzaine was not good. I saw everything in that section, and my list of good films is much shorter than Shane’s, and Shane’s isn’t very long, actually. That list is: “The Light Thief” and “Le quattro volte,” with some honorable mention for the Civeyrac, though that film has already begun to fade. Pere’s final year, by comparison, included these: “Ajami,” “Carcasses,” “Eastern Plays,” “La Famille Wolberg,” “Go Get Some Rosemary,” “I Love You Phillip Morris,” “Like You Know It All,” “Karaoke,” “Navidad,” “Ne change rien,” “Oxhide II,” “La Pivellina,” “Polytechnique,” “Le Roi de l’evasion,” “La Terre de la folie,” “Yuki & Nina.” ‘Nuff said.

Comment on What Matters at the Los Angeles Film Festival by Robert Koehler

Robert Koehler — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 19:05:08 +0000

Thanks Tom for your comments. I think that a criticism of advocacy also provides a way out of the rut that many thoughtful critics may understandably feel about their own work, especially when they find themselves forced to write weekly about crap. This perspective on criticism is only possible when there are many good films to write about, which there are (and generally ignored by the film criticism of advertising). I should also add that advocating certain films over others isn’t simply to put a happy face on the state of cinema, but to declare an articulate stance, which implicitly OPPOSES other kinds of cinema–and to state that as needed. AND there are exceptions to all of this: Like arguing (as I did at length at this site last month) why THE TREE OF LIFE is a very bad film. There can be films that matter that are also failures, and no self-respecting criticism can ignore this work. But advocating is where programming and criticism intersect, and opens up all sorts of possibilities.

Comment on Boyer Out, 108 and Decline In by Shane Danielsen

Shane Danielsen — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 18:57:47 +0000

The ‘disastrous Mexican vampire family movie, Somos lo que Hay’ was in fact a Mexican cannibal movie: try to at least get your basic facts straight.

And its inclusion, far from being ‘a shot across the bows’ as you claim, was read by a number of us – less narrowly concerned with one type of cinema to the exclusion of every other – as a breath of fresh air, opening up Quinzaine to the possibilities of different kinds of filmmaking, different narrative and stylistic strategies, engagements with genre, and a concession that there might, just possibly, exist another kind of ‘festival cinema’ besides the Hubert Bals paradigm, which too often – and from this critic in particular – is venerated merely for existing.

For the record, I think Boyer’s 2010 lineup was superb, though was dismayed by his selection this year. (And yes, I also admired ‘Decline’, which I caught at LAFF the other night, a great deal.) His first selection, at least – which also featured ‘Leap Year’ and ‘Le quattro volte’ and ‘The Light Thief’, ‘Two Gates Of Sleep’ and ‘Un poison violent’ and Civeyrac’s flawed but interesting ‘Des filles en noir’ – deserves better than this lazy and, worse, reflexively lazy dismissal.