Category
Reviews
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08.23.10Separado! ReviewIf you went to see much music in England in the early nineties chances are you stumbled across a Super Furry Animals show. Throughout my teenage years I was lucky enough to see the bonkers Welsh band more times than I can count, each show involving weirder costumes and a more wonderful experience. It was always evident that frontman Gruff Rhys was incredibly creative and the variety of projects he has been involved in have always piqued my interest. If you aren't familiar with him or the band I highly recommend you check them out. Now he has dipped his ...
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08.20.10Louie Bluie DVD ReviewI've always found it amazing that Terry Zwigoff's esoteric brand of filmmaking managed to crack the mainstream. While films like Bad Santa and Ghost World might not be blockbusters, they're definitely a bit more palatable to general audiences than his quirky documentary roots. In my opinion, Crumb remains his best work but Louie Bluie is surely a close second, marking a strong feature film debut. The film is an hour-long portrait of country blues and string band musician Howard "Louis Bluie" Armstrong. Not unlike Zwigoff's follow-up feature Crumb, this film divides its screen time by giving the viewer a bit ...
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08.16.10Crumb Blu-ray ReviewTerry Zwigoff’s Crumb is a magnificent example of a film that successfully manages the delicate balance between traditional retrospective talking-head biopic and a more immediate and intimate character piece. The level of access to Crumb and his family is rooted in an off-camera friendship that exists beyond the boundaries of this film, resulting in a unique look inside the otherwise reclusive life of one of the 20th century's most gifted artists. Robert Crumb found fame in the 1960s as a co-founder of Zap Comics, a movement of LSD-inspired adult-oriented underground comic books originally written and illustrated by Crumb. Curiously, he never ...
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08.13.10Cropsey ReviewCropsey Directed by: Barbara Brancaccio and Joshua Zeman Written by: Joshua Zeman Every neighbourhood has its secrets and every city has a dark underbelly. This seems to be one of the unsettling messages we are meant to take away from Cropsey, a documentary exploring the urban legend of a serial killer with a hook for a hand that has been passed down through the generations on Staten Island. When directors Barbara Brancaccio and Joshua Zeman decide to dig up the truth behind this tale that they heard as kids, their investigation does not necessarily lead to any earth-shattering revelations. It does, however, take ...
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07.22.10F for Fake ReviewThis review is provided by guest contributor Nat Almirall. You can read more of Nat's writing at Frothygirlz and The Flickcast. In the opening scene Orson Welles performs a magic trick for two boys. In an unbroken shot, focused squarely on Welles’ immaculately gloved and deft palms, he turns a boy’s key into a coin, right before the boy’s—and our—very eyes. “And where is the key?” he announces. “Why, it’s in your pocket.” Cut to Welles’ point of view, looking down at the child, who reaches into his pocket and triumphantly pulls out the key. The first one is the real ...
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07.18.10Review: John Huston’s Let There Be LightThis review is provided by guest contributor Nat Almirall. You can read more of Nat's writing at Frothygirlz and The Flickcast. Perhaps the darkest of Huston’s war documentaries, Let There Be Light is a stark and frank look into the lives of war veterans suffering from mental illness. Filmed at Mason General Hospital in Long Island, it chronicles a wide spectrum of psychologically disturbed patients, their psychiatric treatments, and eventual recovery. Huston chose that location because it was then the largest such center in the East, and its officers, doctors, and even patients were willing to let themselves be filmed. Students of ...