Author Archive
Thursday, July 1st, 2010
The Square
In keeping with a tradition otherwise upheld only by Pixar, The Square is preceded by a nine-minute short called Spider—a hilarious macabre hoodwink, clean as clockwork, with nastily prankish timing. This appetizer got my mouth watering; it should have set the tone for the feature to come, which was produced by the same team of [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by elliott
Thursday, June 24th, 2010
Exit Through the Gift Shop
Word on the street is that Exit Through the Gift Shop—supposedly a new documentary, supposedly directed by British street artist Banksy—is a hoax. You can get your noggin in a real holding pattern lingering over this one; but the more revolutions I make, the closer I get to the debunkers’ point of view. Still, I [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by elliott
Thursday, June 10th, 2010
Breathless
Metropolis was already a classic when Jean-Luc Godard made Breathless, in 1959. Godard would actually go on to cast Fritz Lang as himself—playing a frustrated movie director, quashed by the industry—in Contempt, a few years later. But Breathless, back for a very limited engagement, was one of the kickoffs of the French New Wave; and, [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Uncategorized by elliott
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010
The Complete Metropolis
At a time when most of the new releases (Marmaduke, Prince of Persia, Sex and the City 2, The A-Team, The Karate Kid) form the punchline to some obscene and heinous joke, it’s refreshing to reflect on some revivals, now in limited release. The first, Fritz Lang’s silent Metropolis, was, in scale, the Avatar of [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Uncategorized by elliott
Thursday, May 20th, 2010
Robin Hood
The Robin Hood legends give filmmakers a lot to shoot, but Ridley Scott is a rusty marksman. It’s an attempt to put a new spin on the myth: Robin Hood is a prequel to the glory days in the Sherwood Forest. But what’s the point of taking off from common knowledge if you’re going to [...]