Author Archive
Animal Crackers
On the surface, the story of Project Nim, the new film from director James Marsh (Man on Wire), seems more like fiction rather than truth. It’s late 1973, and a chimpanzee born in a prison-like research facility is shipped to New York to live with a family as part of a controversial and bizarre behavioral...
Animal Attraction
James Marsh’s ‘Project Nim’ goes for the humor in a strange situation On the surface, the story of Project Nim, the new film from director James Marsh (Man on Wire), resembles fiction rather than non-fiction. It’s late 1973, and a chimpanzee born in a prison-like research facility is shipped to New York to live with...
The Day the Musical Didn’t Die
A series of movie musicals from the 1970s proves that the genre could survive rock ‘n’ roll Many insist the Hollywood movie musical died in the 1950s with the collapse of the studio system and the petering out of Arthur Freed’s legendary productions at MGM. But musicals never truly went away, they just got stale...
Neapolitan Sounds
The city of Naples has always considered itself a cultural center. Jammed between two volcanic areas, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, the city’s artistic life continues to hold on to its deep roots, with a mixture of homespun naturalism and flights of fancy. John Turturro brings this dichotomy to life in his film Passione,...
Salt, Spice, Cinema
For many, Italian film begins and ends with the neorealists. The advancements, and lasting influence, of Rossellini, De Sica, and Visconti, play an integral role in the exalted narrative of cinema history—a defining piece, certainly, of the puzzle that would haphazardly emerge as the Nouvelle Vogue. But after the small success of Fellini and Antonioni,...
From Romania, With Love
Looking at the opening moments of Tuesday, After Christmas—on tap for a two-week run at Film Forum beginning May 25—it’s not wrong to think what we have before us is a love story. In a beautifully composed long take, two lovers—Paul (Mimi Branescu) and Raluca (Maria Popistasu)—playfully jostle one another in bed. The scene, lit...
Malick-ite
You may feel it already. The attention is building at an unnerving pace. Rumors propagate, release dates arise—and disappear with the blink of an eye. Images, yet to be projected on any screen, are hailed as otherworldly by description alone. The hype aggravates and seduces in equal measure, forming a clear dividing line among cinephiles....
No Easy Road
The unconventional films of Rudy Wurlitzer are undergoing a much-deserved rebirth Within the history of Hollywood, it’s fair to say, exists a not-so-secret history of novelists being chewed up and spat out. Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Huxley, West: none achieved the same success at the movies, and rarely did they have nice things to say as the...
Twist and Shout
There is no easy approach into the work of Brian De Palma. The director, known for his hyper-stylized thrillers and grand-scale epics, often revels in the slick perversity for which he’s routinely attacked. Blunt preoccupations with sex and death (often at the same time), along with a darkly comic streak and a worldview that teeters...
Fresh Festival Voices
At a time when it seems that film festivals are more commercialized than ever, New Directors/New Films serves as a sharp rejoinder from March 23–April 3. The annual festival co-hosted by the Museum of Modern Art and Film Society at Lincoln Center, now in its 40th year, holds true to the promise of its title:...
It’s a Different World
The Thai filmmaker’s award-winning film makes its debut at Film Forum When the jury of the 2010 Cannes Festival bestowed the Palme d’Or, the festival’s highest honor, upon Apichatpong Weerasethakul for his film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, the filmmaker was just as shocked as the audience. Gliding onto the stage to...
