The Section Formerly Known as Masters
Last year, TIFF edged toward maybe considering reviving its terminated Masters program(me), not by putting the section back but by adding a sort of subca...
2024-03-09 03:41:00 +0000 UTC View Post
msicism posts
The Age of Innocence (Martin Scorsese, 1993)
BY REQUEST: Chris Lester
Last seen November 2003. Although it's unfair, when I watch The Age of Innocence I cannot help ...
2024-03-08 05:40:20 +0000 UTC View PostOur Body (Claire Simon, 2023)
A film is always several things at once. To a great extent, it is a group of images and sounds that are assembled into a text, a piece of communication ...
2024-03-07 03:04:31 +0000 UTC View PostArcadia (Yorgos Zois, 2024)
Maximum big surprise?
No, not exactly, but Arcadia is watchable enough, given that Zois lays out a number of worthy gimmicks and fo...
2024-03-02 04:22:58 +0000 UTC View PostDavid Bordwell (1947-2024)
Few academics in the humanities have had the impact, in their field and beyond it, that David Bordwell had. He and his partner Kristin Thompson essentia...
2024-03-01 23:32:32 +0000 UTC View PostNo Hard Feelings!
I've been meaning to leave a note here to acknowledge a situation that might be weird, although I certainly don't want it to be. A few of the re...
2024-03-01 02:48:19 +0000 UTC View PostThe Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed (Joanna Arnow, 2023)
Like many of you, I've been hearing about Joanna Arnow for a while now. In cinephile circles, her films I Hate Myself :) and Bad at Dancing...
2024-02-29 20:47:20 +0000 UTC View PostThe Aerial (Esteban Sapir, 2007)
BY REQUEST: Daniel
One of the reasons I enjoy the subscriber lottery so much is that I end up watching films I almost certainly w...
2024-02-27 17:33:40 +0000 UTC View PostA Sense of Nothing (Francisco Rojas, 2024)
Rojas' last film, A Sea of Glass, was one of my favorite films from 2023, and I fessed up to the fact that I wanted to program it in my Houston ...
2024-02-25 05:50:40 +0000 UTC View PostLovely Rita (Jessica Hausner, 2001)
My feelings about Club Zero, which are conflicted but nevertheless quite negative, prompted me to go back to Jessica Hausner's debut, a film tha...
2024-02-23 00:19:45 +0000 UTC View PostEntrance Wounds (Calum Walter, 2023)
If you haven't yet read Phil Coldiron's ...
2024-02-22 06:43:32 +0000 UTC View PostThree Recent Films by Colectivo Los Ingrávidos
The somewhat anonymous Mexican experimental film group Colectivo Los Ingrávidos are astonishingly prolific. When one checks in with their Vimeo page, it's often the case that the group have posted a sudden spate of new works. Some of them are ful...
2024-02-21 05:35:53 +0000 UTC View PostLottery Without Balls
There still remains one selector from the previous batch, but I wanted to go ahead and line up the next three deciders.
As always, contact me eithe...
2024-02-20 19:06:53 +0000 UTC View PostClub Zero (Jessica Hausner, 2023)
"The logical result of Fascism is the introduction of aesthetics into political life." (2024-02-18 07:09:34 +0000 UTC View Post
Anticipation of the Night (Stan Brakhage, 1958)
It's another InRO special, this time permitting me to go long, and hopefully deep, on one of Brakhage's first definitive works. Here's a sample:
"I...
2024-02-15 21:40:13 +0000 UTC View PostShort Fuse (Warren Sonbert, 1992)
Obviously there's a great deal to be said about Warren Sonbert's films on a formal level. His montage style was utterly unique in that it created small t...
2024-02-14 18:39:40 +0000 UTC View PostHow to Have Sex (Molly Manning Walker, 2023)
ABOVE: a vaguely phallic swimming pool
I must admit, I am not sure there is any version of this film I would have really appreciated. ...
2024-02-14 05:32:41 +0000 UTC View PostInside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (Phạm Thiên Ân, 2023)
It's a familiar gambit. A first-time filmmaker, uncertain that the funding vicissitudes of venture capital will ever allow him another at-bat, throws eve...
2024-02-14 02:26:53 +0000 UTC View PostRecent InRO Pieces
Welp. With the official end of Cinema Scope after 25 years, In Review Online is now my main pipeline for getting my work into the wider world. (Granted, I am usually too busy to pitch stories or hit up editors, so if anyone on here has any tips or...
2024-02-09 06:07:31 +0000 UTC View PostMaborosi (Koreeda Hirokazu, 1995)
BY REQUEST: Maxwell S.
I'm not sure exactly how long ago I first saw Maborosi, since I only have screening logs going bac...
2024-02-09 05:16:27 +0000 UTC View PostPriscilla (Sofia Coppola, 2023)
Although I found Priscilla rote and rather tedious, I have a sneaking suspicion that it will be the film of Coppola's that gains admirers in sub...
2024-02-04 04:09:43 +0000 UTC View PostOrigin (Ava DuVernay, 2023)
Okay, so Origin is not a good film. There are a lot of things wrong with it. But it is also a very weird film.
I have not read Isabel Wilk...
2024-02-04 03:35:17 +0000 UTC View PostGood One (India Donaldson, 2024)
Above is the lone film still available for India Donaldson's Sundance premiere Good One. This is unfortunate, because I want to talk about a ver...
2024-02-01 21:46:46 +0000 UTC View PostLorang's Way (David and Judith MacDougall, 1977)
As usual, in my Writing 1302 courses we are studying documentary form. Since the students have to write a final research paper, I find it useful for them...
2024-02-01 19:39:01 +0000 UTC View Postdon't blow it in the vector (Richard Sides, 2014)
BY REQUEST: Nicki Duval
If I had been seduced, or even intrigued, by the music under consideration in this lo-fi doc, I might've b...
2024-01-29 02:45:23 +0000 UTC View PostSelection Time Again
I did the lottery a bit different this time. Since Patreon now allows unpaid subscribers (who are pretty much just alerted when I post something), I deci...
2024-01-25 21:58:07 +0000 UTC View PostCaptain Elliott's Circle (Jake Barningham, 2023)
BY REQUEST: Daniel Gorman
If we take the position that essay films are essentially like written essays, only using visual and audi...
2024-01-25 20:41:27 +0000 UTC View PostBlack Girl (Ousmane Sembène, 1966)
It seems that Black Girl, Ousmane Sembène's debut featurette, is destined to be his consensus masterpiece. While the cynical streak in me wonde...
2024-01-22 05:19:32 +0000 UTC View PostAre You There God? It's Me, Margaret. (Kelly Fremon Craig, 2023)
Ideologically, the polar opposite of Air, although perhaps the comparison is unfair. But where the Nike film mobilized and fetishized the past t...
2024-01-22 00:34:06 +0000 UTC View PostLast Summer (Catherine Breillat, 2023)
We all know that the film industry and younger audiences are 2024-01-21 23:56:00 +0000 UTC View Post