Film
Unlike Sundance, where “independent” has been stretched to allow for expensive non-studio movies with slumming Hollywood stars, the films we watched at Seattle were mostly low budget.
The clips from both experimental and commercial cinema play well against the interviews from a group directors who are known for pushing boundaries.
Director Alejandro Jodorowsky is a fascinating artist, but this rehash of his own Dadaesque style is lurid, stale, and simplistic.
Artist/scholar Elizabeth Lennard has managed to evoke the breadth of Edith Wharton’s life and work in a relatively short and vivid film.
At times, David Thomson’s movie criticism resembles the approach of old-school British critics (the Walter Pater or John Ruskin variety) who didn’t mind occasionally cutting loose from being erudite to waxing lyrical.
The reason these films are in this series is because of their color, and they do not disappoint.
Like the Jon Savage book it is based on, “Teenage” avoids gooey nostalgia; the documentary’s enjoyable to watch, and refreshingly not tongue-in-cheek.
Boston’s MFA should be congratulated for screening these Technicolor musicals in way that does wondrous justice to their eye-popping colors.
Given its its male-weepy genre, the “inspirational sports movie based on a true story,” Million Dollar Arm is surprisingly enjoyable.
Arts Commentary: The “Maleficent” Syndrome — Making the Villain the Hero
Perhaps because real life is so painful, so tragic, we cannot bear to see evil in full flight. Evil must be relative, it must fly on wings of rationale, on a broomstick of retribution.
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