CARLOS SAURA: FADOS (2007)
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CARLOS SAURA: FADOS (2007)
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I'm reading these reviews with great interest and anticipation. However, I'm running into the old problem of having difficulty reading them because of the "characters" or format being used. Is there anything you can do about it?
That's terrible. I don't know what is happening. I'll try to correct it.
They're all fixed. Was it difficult to do that so quickly?
Yes. Only in that I had to redo the italics and quote marks manually. There are two new reviews up today. Links below.
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ERIC ROHMER: THE ROMANCE OF ASTREA AND CELADON (2007)
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SIDNEY LUMET: BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD (2007)
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CLAUDE CHABROL: THE GIRL CUT IN TWO (2007)
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Weekend roundup:
Definitely the best so far have been Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Chabrol's The Girl Cut in Two. The others were a bit disappointing. Saura's Fados was very fine, but not an official selection of the Festival.
Meanwhile away from Lincoln Center on my own I saw some current releases that have had a lot of press.
--There was In the Valley of Elah, which has great acting in it and which I like better than Haggis' previous one, Crash, but somehow seems questionable again for being too preachy. And too negative to convince anyone not already convinced hat the Iraq war is a mistake.
--The Brave One seems a complete waste of time. So is, despite its artistic visuals,
--The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Casey Affleck is arresting, but Brad Pitt doesn't come through with anything special. The film is too meandering anyway. The one new commercial release that I loved is
--Into the Wild. It does full justice to the book and is a fine directorial performance by Sean Penn and a great role for Emile Hirsch, who I have always thought was a very interesting actor with qualities other actors don't possess. I've not seen Eastern Promises yet. It comes so highly recommended I am apprehensive, and I considered The History of Violence overrated.
--Also saw but no time to review Jacobson's documentary about her grandfather Toots Shor, the famous 40's-50's-60's NYC celebrity saloon keeper, an invaluable picture of America and New York in those years from the post-Prohibition era into the 1960's and the differences between the old celebrity culture and the new one. It's called Toots and will be in very limited release. Look for the DVD.
Some of the still-to-be seen NYFF selections are movies we're all going to get to see soon, No Country for Old Men, Paranoid Park, Margot at the Wedding (Noah Baumbach), I'm not there (Todd Haynes' Bob Dylan evocation), Wes Anderson's Darjeeling Limited. But I am excited to see Bela Tarr's The Man from London, and there are some other directors whose work we don't get to see as often in theaters, Hou Hsiau Hsien, Catherine Breillat, even Abel Ferrara. Marjane Satrapi 's graphic novels I've read, but I hope the animations will add something new to them. They're to be featured as the closing night film of the Festival, Persepolis.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 09-23-2007 at 08:08 PM.
Great job, CK.
*Very interested in Schnabel's film, which opens in December. It seems to have quite a bit in common with a magnificent and unreleased impressionistic doc I watched in 2006 called Black Sun. It attempts to convey the experiences of painter Hugues de Montalembert after he lost his sight during an assault.
*I am a fan of Sean Penn's The Pledge and the followup (as director) is already in theaters and attracting high praise.
*The Rohmer "sounds" and looks (I've seen the trailer) like a close cousin of Rohmer's mid-70s films like Perceval and The Marquise of O.... It got 4 stars from Positif, Cahiers, and Les Inrockuptibles. I'm very curious about it. Like Triple Agent (which I didn't like), it doesn't have distribution in the US (not at the moment).
*Saura's Fados is likely coming to the MIFF. I'm sure it's lovely but I keep wishing Saura would make another Cria. Ot at least another Ay Carmela!.
*I've been very busy with Antonioni and Bergman retros. And this week my nights are occupied with Ken Burns' 15 1/2 hours-long The War (on PBS and not to be missed!). So In the Valley of Elah, Dans Paris, Across the Universe, Eastern Promises, The Assassination of Jesse James... and Into the Wild will have to wait until the weekend and beyond.
Thanks for the response, Oscar. I didn't know about the Montalembert film, which would be interesting to compare, no doubt, with Schnabel's.
I don't think you'll find Rohmer's swan song quite as striking as Perceval, at least I didn't.
The Reygadas is very beautifully done, and I'll be posting a review of it and Ferrara's Go Go Girls shortly, if technical problems are overcome.
Enjoy your retrospectives and War.
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CARLOS REYGADAS: SILENT LIGHT (2007)
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Beautiful thread Chris.
Thanks.
"Set the controls for the heart of the Sun" - Pink Floyd
Thank you.
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