I very much appreciated all the live footage and interviews with Jeff, as I hadn't really seen him in interviews and such, before.
4/5
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The Campbell Review |
This is a one-hour BBC documentary about Jeff Buckley. If you're a Buckley fan, or interested in him at all, this is a great doc. I very much appreciated all the live footage and interviews with Jeff, as I hadn't really seen him in interviews and such, before. 4/5
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Anna Christie is based on the play by Eugene O'Neill about a young but bitter, alcoholic, former prostitute who quits the life, tracks down her estranged father, and moves onto his barge. After a while, they come upon 3 stranded sailors and Anna falls in love with one. Of course, her past torments her and so she wrestles with revealing her past to her father, and the sailor, Matt. In early Hollywood things were pretty lax until 1934 when the Hays Film Production code (film censorship) was implemented by Joseph Breen. The code feel apart in the mid 1950s and was replaced by the MPAA in the late 1960s. As a result, films before 1934 and between 1954-1968 often have darker, more adult subject matter. Anna Christie is pretty dark. Anna Christie was Greta Garbo's first talking picture, she starred in both this (English) version and the German language version, both in 1930. Her accent is a bit jarring, especially given that Anna is supposed to be from Minnesota. It's also very early talkie, and feels like one. Before subtitles became common place they used to shot multiple language versions of the same film for export. Most are lost but both the English and German versions of Anna Christie exist. 4/5 t took me 8 years to see Cocksucker Blues and it was definitely worth it. Crappy versions do exist and one might even live on Youtube, but I was fortunate enough to see it at the Telluride Film Festival this summer. Guest Director Rachel Kushner chose the rare documentary. It wasn't on film, but it was on the big screen--and it was LOUD. Cocksucker Blues is Robert Frank's rarely screened, long-suppressed, unstructured and experimental documentary on The Rolling Stones. Essentially, Frank allowed anyone to pick up the camera and film. The film combines incredible on stage footage--using the 16mm sound as it was filmed--with behind the scenes debauchery including some pretty rapey content, all filmed during the 1972 Exile on Main Street tour. This is a noisy, clunky, jarring film and I'm so glad I finally got to see it! 4/5 tend to have a bone to pick with just about every bio pic out there. Furthermore, did we really need ANOTHER movie about Steve Jobs? I didn't think so... For Winslet and Fassbender's sake I decided to take it in at the Telluride Film Festival and I'm so glad I did. This is not your typical bio pic. Steve Jobs is more like a three-act play than a movie. There are essentially three scenes in the entire film. Each scene takes place backstage in right before the three big Apple product launches (from the original Apple to iMac in the late 1990s). In addition to the film's unusual style and impressive performances all around, the film's form is exciting shot in three different formats that change as the film progresses (from 16mm to 35mm to digital). This film is at times funny, and it's a very enjoyable time. 4/5 Viva is a Spanish-language Irish film about a Cuban boy named Jesus, who works in a Havana drag club and dreams of being on stage. He unexpectedly reconnects with his now ailing, recently released ex-con former Heavyweight father. Ultimately this is a story about redemption, love, forgiveness, and courage. It's quite beautiful. I like an understated film. Oscar bait for sure! 4/5 Spotlight is a strong Hollywood slow-burn ensemble thriller about the Boston Globe's Spotlight team who uncovered the Catholic Chuch's Sex Abuse scandal in Boston in the late 90s and early 2000s. This is a well-written film with a great cast rounded out by Stanley Tucci, Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Liev Schrieber, and Rachel McAdams. Truly, it is difficult to make an exciting film about paperwork. So much paperwork. Todd McCarthy does well here. I appreciate that Spotlight focuses on the team and their work instead of on the salacious details of the scandal, the priests, and the survivors. 4/5 I had the good fortune of seeing David Holbrooke present his new HBO documentary film, The Diplomat, to a Telluride hometown audience this evening. The Diplomat works on several levels, but primarily as the history of five decades of US foreign policy through the lens of the impressive career of the US Diplomat, Richard Holbrooke. Holbrooke's long career began in Vietnam, took him to the Balkans, and later to Afghanistan and Pakistan. He served as Assistant Secretary of State and while he never held a cabinet position and never became Secretary of State, he is considered one of the most influential US diplomats. Holbrooke famously helped negotiate peace in the Balkans for Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s under President Clinton. This documentary has clout, and Holbrooke's life and legacy is fascinating. 4/5 A year before CB4, there was Fear of a Black Hat. Fear of a Black Hat is also a mockumentary about a year following a fictitious hip hop group NWH (Niggaz With Hats) comprised of Tasty Taste, Tone Deaf, and Ice Cold. This is a bit more raw, more goofy, and more political than CB4. There are a few uncanny similarities; props go to Fear for being the original. The song parodies here are terrific, such as "Grandma Says Kick Yo Ass" and "Fuck the Security Guards. 4/5 There's a lot to say about Colors. Colors is a mid-80s, Pre-Rodney King LA, gang-themed police procedural starring Sean Penn, Robert Duvall, Don Cheadle, and Damon Wayans. Wayans is playing it all In Living Color against Cheadle's earnest portrayal of Rocket, leader of the Crips. Super weird. Colors is also Dennis Hopper's return to directing after being blackballed twice in Hollywood. This is his first film since Out of the Blue (1980). This is a very stylized movie, expertly shot by Haskell Wexler. I fully appreciated the use of South Central LA's murals, the rawness of the hand held camera shooting on the streets, and all the real people crammed into the frames--Hopper hired real gang members and non-actor residents as extras. Two of the gang members were shot dead, during the course of filming in 1987. I wasn't sure what to expect and thought this would be pretty cheesy and dated. It is dated, but it also is a fascinating movie. It's slightly quaint in it's depiction of the relationship between gang members and the cops. There is a surprising sub-plot where a white cop accidentally shoots and kills an unarmed black man. It's treated quite seriously. Of course, I think it's prudent to take this in context as pre-Rodney King LA. I was also surprised by all the scenes Hopper gives to the two gangs apart from the two cops. While the Herbie Hancock synth score is one of the more dated aspects of the film, the pared down use of score, especially in the scenes where you might expect the score to play heavily, was stunning and well-played. Instead of empathic score buttressing the emotions, Hopper offers sirens and dogs barking. Check it out. 4/5 This is a delightful film. I'm partial to, and have a personal interest in, movies about mental illness particularly bipolar/manic depression. This was of particular interest to me because it is about a parent with bipolar and about the kids of a bipolar parent. These movies tend to focus on young single people, so this was refreshing and different. Infinitely Polar Bear is a family drama about a sorta single bipolar dad struggling to raise his two daughters while his sorta wife earns her MBA in New York City. The film is set in Boston in the late 1970s and told mainly from the perspective of the two daughters. Mark Ruffalo is the heart and soul of the film, and the girls are excellent. I love Zoe Saldana, so really, this little film is stacked. I would have like the film to be a little bit longer and slower, it could have taken its time but at the same time its manic pace was more than well-suited overall. Ruffalo manages to play the manic panics, the frantic desperation, and the rages with mastery. This is not easy to pull off without veering into overly melodramatic "danger" and "violent" territory. I liked that it focused on the mania and not so much the depression. I was also so pleased to not be really scared at any point during the film. There are some reckless events, but nothing too dire and I appreciate that. That said, the film could have dug in a bit more and fleshed some things out especially in terms of race and poverty. I also highly recommend Mr. Jones starring Richard Gere as another stellar rendering of manic depression. It's quite remarkable. 4/5 |
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