#10. The Grand Budapest Hotel
Had I not revisited this upon its blu-ray release earlier this summer, it’d have been at #5 on this list. This is in large part due to the fact that Anderson’s sense of humor only really works for me when I’m watching his films in a theatre, surrounded by people who get off on it; their laughter is contagious enough that I’m able to stop wincing at its awkwardness and join in. Viewed in solitude, it’s just the same old strained, self-conscious dead pan that sign posts its cuteness to the point that I’m more an observer than a participant to the jokes. The Royal Tenenbaums never had this problem, because it’s more than just a (very impressively produced) set of winks and gags. Still, it’s undeniably entertaining and immaculately constructed as a throwback caper, and Tilda Swinton’s...
Had I not revisited this upon its blu-ray release earlier this summer, it’d have been at #5 on this list. This is in large part due to the fact that Anderson’s sense of humor only really works for me when I’m watching his films in a theatre, surrounded by people who get off on it; their laughter is contagious enough that I’m able to stop wincing at its awkwardness and join in. Viewed in solitude, it’s just the same old strained, self-conscious dead pan that sign posts its cuteness to the point that I’m more an observer than a participant to the jokes. The Royal Tenenbaums never had this problem, because it’s more than just a (very impressively produced) set of winks and gags. Still, it’s undeniably entertaining and immaculately constructed as a throwback caper, and Tilda Swinton’s...
- 7/21/2014
- by Blake Williams
- IONCINEMA.com
This year's New York Film Festival seems to have fulfilled its brief so well you have to wonder what the programmers will come up with for its 50th anniversary edition next year. 2012 will also mark Richard Peña's 25th year as programming director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center and chairman of the Nyff selection committee — and, as he's just announced, his last. "It's been a terrific ride," he told the New York Times' Larry Rohter on Saturday, "but I've had other interests, and it got to the point where I got to thinking about what I want to do with the rest of my working life. It's a good thing for me personally, and also for the organization, because change is good, and it will be good for the organization to have fresh eyes and ideas and new ways of doing things."
For now, though, the 49th edition.
For now, though, the 49th edition.
- 10/17/2011
- MUBI
"Now in its 15th year," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times, Views from the Avant-Garde, opening today and running through Monday, "has undergone a growth spurt since 2010 and has added a fourth day and enough titles to make your eyes tear from the ecstasy of excess or just exhaustion…. The titular monarch of [Ken] Jacobs's contribution, Seeking the Monkey King, appears to be the American greed and corruption that have sent the director into an agony of despair, if happily not a paralyzing one. Set to the music of Jg Thirlwell, this digital video largely consists of valleys and hills of what look like crumpled foil that Mr Jacobs, through his manipulations, has turned into landscapes that shift, undulate and seem to pop off the screen as if in 3D. Often tinted golden yellow and blue (colors used in the silent era usually to denote day and night), the...
- 10/9/2011
- MUBI
"Benning's titles are 'Snakes on a Plane' direct," wrote Michael Sicinski in dispatch to Cargo from Toronto, "and this one consists, as you'd expect, of 20 shots of individuals smoking a single cigarette. The shot lasts however long it takes the given participant to mow down that cancer stick. As Benning explained (although the piece makes it fairly obvious), the ciggie is but an excuse for sustained time-based portraiture; each shot is a close-up, and the action, much more so than the smoking, is the subject forgetting his or her self-consciousness and existing as a face."
"Last year's festival brought his debut on digital, Ruhr, a massively beautiful meditation on duration," writes R Emmet Sweeney at Movie Morlocks. "Twenty Cigarettes is more of a lark, a way for him to work and hang out with his friends at the same time, kind of an avant-garde Ocean's 11."
"There's a...
"Last year's festival brought his debut on digital, Ruhr, a massively beautiful meditation on duration," writes R Emmet Sweeney at Movie Morlocks. "Twenty Cigarettes is more of a lark, a way for him to work and hang out with his friends at the same time, kind of an avant-garde Ocean's 11."
"There's a...
- 10/7/2011
- MUBI
"The guard is down and the mask is off, even more than in lone bedrooms where there's a mirror. People's faces are in naked repose down in the subway." —Walker Evans
"So, have you ever smoked?" I laughed when James Benning asked me this question at the end of our conversation. "Honestly, I've probably smoked about twenty cigarettes," I told him. "I'm a child of the 70s and 80s. Nancy Reagan told me to say ‘no.'" That was almost the full extent of our discussion of smoking, despite the fact that Benning's feature-length video, Twenty Cigarettes, is constructed solely of portraits of smokers. The duration of each of the twenty shots is determined by the length of time it takes each subject to light, smoke, and discard a cigarette. Benning composed each shot, staged the person in front of a flat backdrop, and then walked away from the camera.
"So, have you ever smoked?" I laughed when James Benning asked me this question at the end of our conversation. "Honestly, I've probably smoked about twenty cigarettes," I told him. "I'm a child of the 70s and 80s. Nancy Reagan told me to say ‘no.'" That was almost the full extent of our discussion of smoking, despite the fact that Benning's feature-length video, Twenty Cigarettes, is constructed solely of portraits of smokers. The duration of each of the twenty shots is determined by the length of time it takes each subject to light, smoke, and discard a cigarette. Benning composed each shot, staged the person in front of a flat backdrop, and then walked away from the camera.
- 10/7/2011
- MUBI
The adventurous Wavelengths experimental film programs at the Toronto International Film Festival, curated first by Susan Oxtoby and then, in recent years, by Andréa Picard, are a true festival highlight. 2011 was exemplary in this regard, its five experimental programs marked by a diverse range of aesthetics and artistic projects.
An eerie mood pervades the smart, surprising Sea Series #10 by John Price, one of the only films in the 2011 Wavelengths experimental program at the Toronto International Film Festival explicitly inspired by world events. An intertitle explains that the film was made “10,190 km from Fukushima” on May 21, 2011, two months after the deadly Japanese earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, and a week after a leak was reported at the nuclear power plant that lurks just outside Toronto. Located on the shores of Lake Ontario, Pickering is one of the largest nuclear plants in the world. For Price, the date held the added significance...
An eerie mood pervades the smart, surprising Sea Series #10 by John Price, one of the only films in the 2011 Wavelengths experimental program at the Toronto International Film Festival explicitly inspired by world events. An intertitle explains that the film was made “10,190 km from Fukushima” on May 21, 2011, two months after the deadly Japanese earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, and a week after a leak was reported at the nuclear power plant that lurks just outside Toronto. Located on the shores of Lake Ontario, Pickering is one of the largest nuclear plants in the world. For Price, the date held the added significance...
- 9/20/2011
- by Livia Bloom
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
As has been noted many times before, by me and others, the Wavelengths series of the Toronto International Film Festival is like a festival unto itself. So far removed from the red carpet nonsense, the deal-making, and the me-firstism of web journalists hoping to hit the Web with their initial impressions of some new Bryce Dallas Howard vehicle, Wavelengths affords breathing room to cinema and video at its most formally adventurous and, yes, uncommercial. We come here to look and listen, not to look “at” or listen “to,” and if that sounds hopelessly pretentious, come on down to the Jackman Hall and see for yourself. It’s actually quite cleansing, often funny, and a guaranteed good time, at least in part. (Short films are like the weather in my hometown of Houston, Texas. Don’t like it? Wait a moment. It’ll change.)
Sadly, Wavelengths 2011 will be the final year for series curator Andréa Picard.
Sadly, Wavelengths 2011 will be the final year for series curator Andréa Picard.
- 9/8/2011
- MUBI
Due to time constraints and reader importance, it's the section I regrettably avoid during the film festival, but that'll likely not be the case in 2011 as Wavelengths 4 features the latest work from our very own Blake Williams. His Coorow-Latham Road falls under the programme heading of "expanding spatial possibility through a consideration of inner and outer spaces, of varying cartographies and aesthetic patterns." Among the heavyweights in Andréa Picard's Wavelengths, we have Apichatpong Joe's latest (see pic) and it might feel like 2010 again, but James Benning and Thom Anderson are returning to the programme (note: Anderson is one of the smokers in Benning's Twenty Cigarettes). Here's the link for the works that make up the five Wavelength programme descriptions. ...
- 8/16/2011
- IONCINEMA.com
What follows is the Toronto International Film Festival's announcement of the lineup for Wavelengths, its avant-garde program. To reiterate, the text comes from the festival, which runs from September 9 through 18. See, too, the lineups for Visions, Contemporary World Cinema, Future Projections and the Galas and Special Presentations; entries on further programs are on the way — as are links and notes on this one.
Wavelengths 1: Analogue Arcadia. As celluloid threatens to disappear altogether, Wavelengths launches with a celebratory and elegiac program comprised of doomed desire, vanishing worlds and a love of analogue. Wavelengths launches with a rare screening of Tacita Dean's Edwin Parker (USA/United Kingdom — courtesy of the Marion Goodman Gallery), an intimate portrait of Cy Twombly, one of the great artistic geniuses of the past century. The film's inclusion in the Festival has been exclusively made possible in honour of Twombly, who died on July 5. Dean is...
Wavelengths 1: Analogue Arcadia. As celluloid threatens to disappear altogether, Wavelengths launches with a celebratory and elegiac program comprised of doomed desire, vanishing worlds and a love of analogue. Wavelengths launches with a rare screening of Tacita Dean's Edwin Parker (USA/United Kingdom — courtesy of the Marion Goodman Gallery), an intimate portrait of Cy Twombly, one of the great artistic geniuses of the past century. The film's inclusion in the Festival has been exclusively made possible in honour of Twombly, who died on July 5. Dean is...
- 8/16/2011
- MUBI
After three separate announcements (here, here and here), the Toronto International Film Festival has announced the final line-up for their Galas and Special Presentations, as well as a few other categories. Most notable is Andrea Arnold‘s Fish Tank follow-up Wuthering Heights, the next film from Timecrimes director Nacho Vigalondo, as well as Dogtooth director Yorgos Lanthimos’ Alps.
We also get Whit Stillman‘s Damsels in Distress starring Greta Gerwig and Geoffrey Fletcher’s Violet & Daisy starring Saoirse Ronan and James Gandolfini. In what should be a little fun we have Gary McKendry‘s Killer Elite starring Robert De Niro, Clive Owen and Jason Statham. We also get Owen’s horror flick Intruders and Joel Schumacher‘s Trespass starring Nicole Kidman and Nicolas Cage. Check out the full line-ups below.
Galas
Closing Night Film
Page Eight David Hare, United Kingdom
International Premiere
Johnny Worricker (Bill Nighy) is a long-serving M15 officer.
We also get Whit Stillman‘s Damsels in Distress starring Greta Gerwig and Geoffrey Fletcher’s Violet & Daisy starring Saoirse Ronan and James Gandolfini. In what should be a little fun we have Gary McKendry‘s Killer Elite starring Robert De Niro, Clive Owen and Jason Statham. We also get Owen’s horror flick Intruders and Joel Schumacher‘s Trespass starring Nicole Kidman and Nicolas Cage. Check out the full line-ups below.
Galas
Closing Night Film
Page Eight David Hare, United Kingdom
International Premiere
Johnny Worricker (Bill Nighy) is a long-serving M15 officer.
- 8/16/2011
- by jpraup@gmail.com (thefilmstage.com)
- The Film Stage
Above: filmmaker Sharon Lockhart at Parker Pass in shot #11 of James Benning's Twenty Cigarettes.
James Benning largely eschews music in his films, but if there's one track which should have been used to accompany the latest work by the USA's leading avant-garde director—Twenty Cigarettes, comprising twenty shots of solo individuals each smoking a single cigarette—then (passing over The Platters' too-obvious Smoke Gets In Your Eyes) it's perhaps The Dave Brubeck Quartet's Take Five.
This is because the instrumental jazz classic—written by Paul Desmond in 1959 for the Quartet (whose magnificent drummer Joe Morello passed away March 11th)—gets its name partly from unusual 5/4 time-signature, and partly from the idea of "taking five" as in "taking a break." According to the Oxford English Dictionary, such usage dates back to 1929, and refers to "the approximate time it takes to smoke a cigarette.
The pace of modern life has...
James Benning largely eschews music in his films, but if there's one track which should have been used to accompany the latest work by the USA's leading avant-garde director—Twenty Cigarettes, comprising twenty shots of solo individuals each smoking a single cigarette—then (passing over The Platters' too-obvious Smoke Gets In Your Eyes) it's perhaps The Dave Brubeck Quartet's Take Five.
This is because the instrumental jazz classic—written by Paul Desmond in 1959 for the Quartet (whose magnificent drummer Joe Morello passed away March 11th)—gets its name partly from unusual 5/4 time-signature, and partly from the idea of "taking five" as in "taking a break." According to the Oxford English Dictionary, such usage dates back to 1929, and refers to "the approximate time it takes to smoke a cigarette.
The pace of modern life has...
- 3/28/2011
- MUBI
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