The decades-old cliché goes, watching other people's home movies is hell frozen over. Strangely, this is true only if you know the people, and it's their vacation in Tahoe that you're forced to sit through after a few cocktails and a bellyful of spinach lasagna, as they narrate the landscapes and sigh at their own kids' antics and wistfully recall the best restaurant sea bass they've ever eaten. As Daffy Duck said, I demand that you shoot me now.
Removed from that cloying context, though, home movies are raw and beautiful cinema, mysterious, bewitching and filled with the melancholy for the passage of time, as anyone who has seen "Capturing the Friedmans" (I mean that heartbreaking 8mm footage of the roof-dancing girl, whose demise tipped the whole family into doom), or Ken Jacobs' "Urban Peasants" (family home movies, edited together without intervention) knows. In fact, the allure of old...
Removed from that cloying context, though, home movies are raw and beautiful cinema, mysterious, bewitching and filled with the melancholy for the passage of time, as anyone who has seen "Capturing the Friedmans" (I mean that heartbreaking 8mm footage of the roof-dancing girl, whose demise tipped the whole family into doom), or Ken Jacobs' "Urban Peasants" (family home movies, edited together without intervention) knows. In fact, the allure of old...
- 9/1/2009
- by Michael Atkinson
- ifc.com
If you are a fan of Syfy's Battlestar Galactica, you probably know that some scenes of the series were filmed in and around the extensive forests of western British Columbia. What you may not realise, however, is that two of the show's stars - Tricia Helfer (Number Six) and Tahmoh Penikett ('Helo') - have lent their talents to a new indie docu-drama that is intended to raise awareness of issues associated with cutting down some of these forests.
The film, called The Green Chain, was written, directed and co-produced by Vancouver-born Mark Leiren-Young. His previous credits include scripts for episodes of the series The Collector, Blood Ties and Psi Factor. He has also written a book, 'Never Shoot a Stampede Queen', articles for 'Time Magazine', 'Maclean's' and 'The Utne Reader', and stage plays.
True to his roots, Leiren-Young focuses The Green Chain on the debate in British Columbia, but it...
The film, called The Green Chain, was written, directed and co-produced by Vancouver-born Mark Leiren-Young. His previous credits include scripts for episodes of the series The Collector, Blood Ties and Psi Factor. He has also written a book, 'Never Shoot a Stampede Queen', articles for 'Time Magazine', 'Maclean's' and 'The Utne Reader', and stage plays.
True to his roots, Leiren-Young focuses The Green Chain on the debate in British Columbia, but it...
- 8/22/2009
- CinemaSpy
I have feelings more than ideas. I am tired, but very happy. My 11th annual film festival has just wrapped at the Virginia Theater in my home town, and what I can say is, it worked. There is no such thing as the best year or the worst year. But there is such a thing as a festival where every single film seemed to connect strongly with the audience. Sitting in the back row, seeing these films another time, sensing the audience response, I thought: Yes, these films are more than good, and this audience is a gathering of people who feel that.
Let me tell you about the last afternoon, the screening of a newly restored 70mm print of "Baraka." The 1,600 seats of the main floor and balcony were very nearly filled. The movie exists of about 96 minutes of images, music and sound. Nothing else. No narration. No subtitles.
Let me tell you about the last afternoon, the screening of a newly restored 70mm print of "Baraka." The 1,600 seats of the main floor and balcony were very nearly filled. The movie exists of about 96 minutes of images, music and sound. Nothing else. No narration. No subtitles.
- 5/2/2009
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
I thought Spike Lee's "When the Levees Broke" was pretty much the last word on the national tragedy and disgrace that followed Hurricane Katrina's assault on New Orleans. Maybe not.
"Trouble the Water," a new documentary on the same subject, begins unpromisingly, with familiar TV news footage and some extremely shaky camcorder shots of the winds the day before the hurricane's arrival. I'm no cameraman, and I shot better stuff in a 1992 storm that forced my family's evacuation from the Jersey Shore.
But like Katrina, this documentary - cleverly built around footage shot by a black couple in...
"Trouble the Water," a new documentary on the same subject, begins unpromisingly, with familiar TV news footage and some extremely shaky camcorder shots of the winds the day before the hurricane's arrival. I'm no cameraman, and I shot better stuff in a 1992 storm that forced my family's evacuation from the Jersey Shore.
But like Katrina, this documentary - cleverly built around footage shot by a black couple in...
- 8/22/2008
- by By LOU LUMENICK
- NYPost.com
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