Despite the bad reviews, I had looked forward to seeing Paul Schrader’s The Canyons. I feel that Lindsay Lohan is under-rated, and that she is an easy target for the Hollywood press because of her off-screen drug problems. For example, Lohan’s much-derided performance as Liz Taylor in Liz & Dick was pretty good, and the [...]
The Mirror is the strongest film by the great Russian film poet Andrei Tarkovsky. This masterpiece conveys a magical, sometime terrifying childhood, through a series of spoken poems and thoughts illustrated by stunning, memorable images. The Mirror is one of those few films that succeeds in being a pure poem of images and sounds, rather [...]
I have always felt that the two hardest things to film are sex and dreams. Andrei Tarkovsky succeeds in filming dreams. +++ A 6-minute excerpt from The Mirror: Watch on YouTube +++
The opening 1-shot scene of this poetic film is an illustrated lesson in astronomy given by a young man in a tavern at closing time. The camera movement is masterfully choreographed by director Bela Tarr. +++
I finally saw this superb 2009 film by Peter Jackson. The Lovely Bones combines the thriller, fantasy and coming-of-age genres in a unique tapestry of teenage memories and glimpses of an afterlife full of darkness and light. Saoirse Ronan is powerful as the heroine Susie Salmon, and Stanley Tucci plays a deeply disturbing bad guy. [...]
Vivian Kubrick’s extraordinary 35-minute documentary about the making of her father’s film, The Shining, has many wonderful moments: – her dad setting up a low-angle shot on Nicholson – or his correcting Duvall’s performance, – or the great Garrett Brown doing a Steadicam shot. A rare document by someone with almost total access to a [...]
From thefilmbook archive, a look back at was truly revolutionary about Avatar
A Bangkok shoot-out and chase from Nicholas Winding Refn’s upcoming film, which will premiere in Cannes: +++ In another scene, Gosling’s character and his date get crudely insulted by his mother +++ In another excerpt, Gosling’s character attacks a man in an empty nightclub +++ The cinematography by Larry Smith is dark, moody, colorful. It [...]
A provocative poster for Lars von Trier’s upcoming film Nymphomaniac starring Charlotte Gainsbourg.
Bert Mayer & Mike Farino’s site showcases improvised rigs from very low budget sets. The photos are by turn funny, ingenious, scary … and all too familiar for any one who has ever worked on a short or ultra-low budget film. — THE SHITTY RIGS BLOG +++