This was an improved edition of the Berlin International Film Festival, and a number of films seem poised to travel widely, despite being largely ignored by the US media.
David D'Arcy
Visual Arts Review: Letter from New York – Goya, Grief, and Grievance
Museums, now reopened in New York, are trying to coax visitors into their galleries. With two exhibitions, it’s working.
Film Review: Virtual Sundance 2021 — Let Corporations Chase the Crowd Pleasers — Here’s the Real Stuff
Sundance’s strengths for me this year (as in the past) were the festival’s documentaries.
Film Review: Frederick Wiseman’s “City Hall” — A Kinder, Gentler Government?
City Hall is a quiet, unsentimental celebration of civility in its many forms.
Television Review: Art Lives on But Dealers Die in “Velvet Buzzsaw”
Jake Gyllenhall and company will survive this broad satiric lark, as will the art world.
Visual Arts Review: “Armenia!” — Art, Religion, and Trade at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Armenian cultural history has always been about survival: between Armenians preserving their art within the shifting boundaries of their homeland, and carrying their art beyond the country’s borders.
Film Review: Stop and Smell (and Watch) the Corn — Fred Wiseman Slows Down in “Monrovia, Indiana”
While nothing happens, there’s an understated splendor in all that’s uneventful here, so much so that I didn’t want to miss any of it.
Film Review: Spike Lee’s “Chi-Raq”—A Long and Sexy Sermon
Chi-Raq is a work of agitprop—preachy, strident, sentimental, even sacramental.
Film Review: “WHITEY” — Rat or Robin Hood? Whitey in his Own Words
By the end of the documentary, you’re in no doubt that Whitey Bulger was beneath dignity. Though not in his own eyes. There’s even vanity left in a crook who trims his white beard so scrupulously.
Visual Arts Review: Italian Futurism — The Future That Wasn’t
Futurism, as the Italian proponents conceived of it, ended up not having much of a future. But its practitioners had some good days at the beginning.