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Saturday, March 31, 2007 - 09:22:19
Saturday. What are you up to? The rain's steadily coming down. I've got a dinner gathering with friends tonight to watch a little basketball and enjoy some good food and drink. I'll probably catch "Blades of Glory" at some point (the Riverdale 10:00 am showing has really opened up my days). Not much else going on. Caught "The Lookout" last night.
Stay dry.
"The Lookout" is every bit as good as I expected. Jeff Daniels and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are brilliant. Go see this film.
Check out this piece on NPR from Howie Movshovitz on "Killer of Sheep" the recently released film from Charles Burnett which was actually made in 1973, but never released commercially because Burnett never secured all of the rights to the music in the film. "Killer of Sheep" was one of the first 50 films added to National Film Registry by the Library of Congress and is hailed as "hauntingly beautiful portrait of Watts." The film was named one of the 100 essential films of all time by the National Society of Film Critics.
Dana Stevens of Slate says, "I saw Killer of Sheep in scratchy 16mm at a university museum screening more than 10 years ago, and it's remained in my memory ever since, not only as a great film about the African-American experience but as a great film, period. It's a joy to realize, all these years later, that I wasn't overrating it at all." David Edelstein of New York Magazine observes, "The soundtrack says the spirit of these people is inexhaustible, the images—the faces—say otherwise. Burnett says both things must be true. Killer of Sheep is indelible." Manohla Dargis of the New York Times says of the film "The result is an American masterpiece, independent to the bone."
The Independent sits down with Thelma Schoonmaker, Martin Scorsese's editor to talk about her work. Schoonmaker is the winner of 3 Oscars including the recent "The Departed."Friday, March 30, 2007 - 07:54:53
Happy Friday.
"The Lookout" is the film to see this weekend (that is if if you've already seen "The Lives of Others"). Robert Wilonsky of Village Voice writes, "Gordon-Levitt's worth the admission all by his lonesome. He's that good—the proverbial young man with an old soul who brings unexpected depth, complexity, and sincerity to what could have been just another damaged-guy role. He's the one to look out for." Pete Travers of Rolling Stones agrees. "Now, in a knockout directing debut, Frank cooks up his own mischief. The web he spins will pull you in. Guaranteed." David Edelstein of New York Magazine admits, "Frank’s writing is razor-sharp, his filmmaking whistle-clean. As a fan of sharp razors and clean whistles, I enjoyed The Lookout—yet I did feel let down by the climax, which ought to have been blunter and messier and crazier and more cathartic. It sounds churlish, I know." Kenneth Turan of the LA Times confirms, "Director Scott Frank brings a writer's ear for language to 'The Lookout,' a skillful thriller."The LOOKOUT" is a writer's thriller. True, it's cleanly and efficiently directed, and it showcases some crackerjack acting, but the reason it's a real pleasure to watch is that a writer's sensibility is the foundation everything is built on." Philip Martin of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette describes the film as "one where nearly every scene stands on its own, with complex, believable characters who talk like real people (only a little smarter and funnier). And there isn’t a false performance in the bunch."
"Blades of Glory," the new comedy starring Will Ferrell and John Heder opens to generally positive reviews. Stephen Hunter of The Washington Post writes, "The endless hilarity is visual: those awkward, self-conscious male bodies, ill-formed and quaking with reluctance, thrown into a gossamer flutter of swanlike routines, clumsily syncopating themselves to the fantasy that they are light and graceful when, as all can see and laugh at, they are hopeless, clueless and graceless. To see seemingly reg'lar guys utterly stripped of dignity and defense is cruel enough, but crueler still is the laughter that you cannot seem to stop from rupturing your lungs and aorta." John Anderson, writing for Variety, calls this film "the triple axel of comedy." Stephen Holden of the New York Times writes, "It comes as a huge relief to find that as “Blades of Glory” speeds along, it avoids going to the obvious, ugly place for cheap laughs."
Helen Mirren & Taylor Hackford
No 'Lives of Others' but . . .
Shout out to Jeff Nichols
More on Tribeca
Annie Get Your Gun
Andy Warhol on screen
A former Berlin correspondent
Tribeca Film Festival
Dude, avoid the concession stand
'Talk Radio'
What's in your queue?
Slightly off topic
Don't forget
The weekend
Frank Miller
International Children's Film Festival
David Denby on the film narrative
Mira Nair
Reichl, food and Julia Roberts
Richard Gere
The Big Three
2007: A Good Year?
'Becket' coming to Little Rock?
On 'The History Boys'
P. Martin asks "Do 'Wild Hogs' watchers know what they're missing?"
Maggie G joins 'Batman' sequel
Spring Movie Preview
Opening today
On Baseball
Oh no!
Kal Penn
25 Best Movie Posters Ever
This American Life
Interesting . . .
Oh, great
Good news
Spring Training
Quentin Tarantino
Premiere magazine says good-bye to print
What's in your queue?
Wow
Gael Garcia Bernal
Talking 'Zodiac'
Orson Welles
What the . . .
Craig Brewer
Travel to Monument Valley
Robert Downey, Jr.
'Zodiac'
Saturday
More 'Zodiac'
Samuel L. Jackson
Jake Gyllenhaal
Bob Dylan: Don't Look Back
Stupid is as stupid does
Midnight movies
Good movie coverage
This weekend
On 'Zodiac'
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