Top 10 and then some of 2009

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 Nazi [...]

The Details: Blade Runner’s Postmodern Legacy

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 postmodernism [...]

Check Out What my Brain looks like!!!!

Head in the Fishbowl: The Politics of Romance

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 towards [...]

Two Plus One Does Equal Three

Deux Vies…Plus Une

Review also posted at Nextbook
Deux Vies…Plus Une is a whimsical look at boredom and uncertainty around forty. The film’s New York Premiere is part of the Jewish Film Festival at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Idit Cebula’s feature debut is engrossed with the newly turbulent life of Eliane Weiss, played by Emmanuelle [...]

This Revolution Will Be Televised

Revolutionary Road

Based on the acclaimed 1962 novel by Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road is a clear-eyed indictment of the American dream as it stood in 1950’s America—the respectable house with the well-manicured lawn, the upwardly mobile job in the city, the 2.5 children, and the desire to be just like everyone else but slightly better. Well [...]

Bringing Africa Together Under One House

Juju Factory

Profile: Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda
Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda’s oeuvre suggests a marriage between the razor-sharp, political allegory of Ousmane Sembène and the surreal, lyrical poetry of Djibril Diop Mambety. Bakupa-Kanyinda’s native Democratic Republic of Congo is a ways from the home of these Senegalese masters, but ideas have no nation.
Sembène began his career in the late 1950’s as [...]

Check the Peephole

Let The Right One In

Let the Right One In is the perfect synthesis between an indie art film and a gory horror movie. This Swedish chimera from director Tomas Alfredson is a love story between two lonely pre-teens, Oskar and Eli. The only problem is that Eli has been twelve for longer than she remembers, [...]

My Top Ten Movies of 2008

Addendum: I was just reminded that Milk really should be on this list. It just arrived a little to late for me to make this tally. Let’s consider it my Number 11. See my review. Simply put though Gus Van Sant continues to pontificate over death, Sean Penn became relevant again, James Franco finally gave [...]

The White Stuff

Milk

I usually don’t write about films right after seeing them, but this review is long overdue and I was compelled to capture my immediate reaction to such a visceral piece of filmmaking. However let me make it clear, Milk is a good film, not a great film. Even though Sean Penn is in almost every [...]