Posted on July 7, 2010 by Wayne Lorenzo Titus
This year the AAIFF runs from July 15th to July 24th. With a smaller selection of films from last year, the choices are consistently good and occasionally remarkable. Opening Night has been handed over to award-winning Filmmaker Raymond Red, who is no stranger to international audiences. He was the first and remains the only Filipino [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: AAIFF, Raymond Red, Cannes, Slice, At the End of Daybreak, Wo Ai Ni Mommy, People I've Slept With, Au Revor Taipei, Arvin Chen, Manila Skies, Tall Enough, Works of Art | Leave a Comment »
Posted on May 20, 2010 by Wayne Lorenzo Titus
MicMacs Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s whimsy (excluding the dismal Alien Resurrection) is near-mythic at this point with a small coterie of films under his belt. MicMacs continues Jeunet’s streak of small, carefully curated jewels. His previous films, The City of Lost Children and Amélie in particular release their brilliance in small doses scattered about the screen in [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: A Brand New Life, Gerrymandering, MicMacs, Ondine, Saturday Night, Vidal Sassoon: The Movie | Leave a Comment »
Posted on May 13, 2010 by Wayne Lorenzo Titus
The Arbor One of the most unique documentary presentations I’ve seen in recent memory, Clio Barnard tells the story of Andrea Dunbar, a famous British playwright who died tragically at the age of 29. In complete disavowal of the usual stock and archival footage and expert analysis, Barnard has professional actors lip sync interviews with [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: American Mystic, Arias with a Twist: The Docufantasy, Legacy, Loose Cannons, The Arbor | Leave a Comment »
Posted on May 11, 2010 by Wayne Lorenzo Titus
Snap Honestly I can’t tell you what this movie is about at all and that perhaps is a failing in me, but halfway through the screening I began to wonder if the director, Carmel Winters, was simply testing the limits of comprehension in some wry clinical manner. We follow a foul-mouthed mother as she is [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: brilliantlove, Dog Pound, Elvis & Madona, Snap, Sons of Perdition | Leave a Comment »
Posted on March 30, 2010 by Wayne Lorenzo Titus
I caught Night Catches Us last night at the New Directors/New Films Festival. I went in with way too high expectations given the dynamic combination of Kerry Washington and Anthony Mackie. It is still rare to see African-Americans play the leads in complex dramas, much less two actors in their prime, and I was eager [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: 1970's, Anthony Mackie, Black Panther Party, COINTELPRO, Jamie Hector, Kerry Washington, Night Catches Us, Philadelphia, Tanya Hamilton, Wendell Pierce | Leave a Comment »
Posted on March 30, 2010 by Wayne Lorenzo Titus
Some of the best films from last year’s Asian American International Film Festival that I reviewed are on tour nearby. Check out the details below… NATIONAL FESTIVAL TOUR FEATURES IN BERGENFIELD Presented by Clearview Cinema and ACV Come experience another big screen presentation of AAIFF09′s best features at the Bergenfield Clearview Cinema starting Friday, April [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Posted on December 27, 2009 by Wayne Lorenzo Titus
1. Inglorious Basterds I am far from a Tarantino fanatic so this placement is quite surprising to me if no one else. Nonetheless, when I closely examined the competition, I had seen no other film more than once willingly, nor did I enjoy a lead performance more this year than Christoph Waltz as the deranged [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Inglorious Basterds, Hurt Locker, Humpday, Big Fan, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Avatar, An Education, Moon, Goodbye Solo, Up in the Air, Gomorra, Up, Zombieland, The Road, Children of Invention, Watchmen, Star Trek, Rudo y Cursi, The Maid, Summer Hours, Black Dynamite, Antichrist, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Messenger, Coco Before Chanel, Broken Embraces, The Headless Woman, The Informant, 500 Days of Summer, Where the Wild Things Are, Me and Orson Welles, Julia, Treeless Mountain, The White Ribbon, Brothers, In the Loop, A Serious Man, Two Lovers, Sugar, Crazy Heart, Nine, Collapse, A Single Man, The Exploding Girl, Tyson, District 9, Funny People, Of Time and the City, The Baader Meinhof Complex, Medicine for Melancholy, Anvil: The Story of Anvil | Leave a Comment »
Posted on May 25, 2009 by Wayne Lorenzo Titus
IS ANTAGONISM OUR NATURAL STATE? In Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), the postmodern aesthetic interred in the narrative, set design, dialogue, special effects, and literary sources have been explored by various theorists. This postmodernist stance is invariably in dialogue with Fredric Jameson’s influential essay, “The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.” In this treatise, he historicizes [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Posted on May 20, 2009 by Wayne Lorenzo Titus
Posted on February 5, 2009 by Wayne Lorenzo Titus
Chungking Express In Wong Kar Wai’s Chungking Express the frenzied ruminations surrounding lost love, loneliness, and irrepressible change are rendered impressionistically on the screen. The film is broken into two discrete stories. I will be focusing my discussion on a scene between Officer #633 (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) and Fay (Faye Wong) that takes place [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
