Seduction Most of what Warhol does for me is of the “oh, I get it” variety of art, where a statement is supposed to trigger an insight and the insight is the art. Its an indirection of agency, and wears out its effect quickly. But sometimes it connects deeply, and this does. You might see… Continue reading Beauty #2 (1965)
Author: admin
Beautiful Losers (2008)
Slacker Art Here is a wonderful little niche genre. Movies are essentially striving to art. Few qualify. Almost no one can manage the complex juggling act that it takes. It just involves too many people, too many risks, too many dependencies on happy accidents. But the fact that film CAN BE art is what underlies… Continue reading Beautiful Losers (2008)
Beautiful Kate (2009)
Writer’s Blocks In the last year, I saw a film (“In My Father’s Den“) with much the same themes. In that New Zealand film, a man, a celebrated war correspondent returns to his rural home on the death of his father. There are significant unresolved frictions between father and son. The returning man had sex… Continue reading Beautiful Kate (2009)
Beautiful Girls (1996)
Dorothy This is some pretty good writing. You know it is pretty good when it deals with ordinary silliness and is directed by a non-entity and yet still engages. This is a fellow that is not afraid to write junk films, but who has also written the amazingly deft self-referential “High Fidelity” and the ambitious… Continue reading Beautiful Girls (1996)
Beau-père (1981)
Music as Sex Nabokov’s “Lolita” is a milestone in literature — the narrator is obsessed to the point where anything he says is at least synthesised out of that obsession and at worse fabricated. It is only about sex in so far as giving a focus to the obsession of being. Here we have a… Continue reading Beau-père (1981)
Beat (2000)
Off Beat Off I will travel to see a film that is “folded“ in the simple sense this one is: writing about writing, especially when the story is historically based and most especially when the literary tradition in question is all about just this manner of folding. I also admire when a writer succeeds in… Continue reading Beat (2000)
Be Glad… (1970)
Woven Tongues I encountered one of those popular psychology ideas recently, the one that says that the music that was on the radio when you were 13 determines your taste in music. I supposed it could be true. I have a deeply sculpted life in cinema but music just flows in to be ‘liked’ or… Continue reading Be Glad… (1970)
Batman Begins (2005)
Mildly Psychotropic Those expecting a fine experience based on prior Nolan projects, even Bale ones, are bound to be disappointed. I was. There are only two redeeming elements here. The first is the mildly radical cutting of the action scenes, at least those involving fights. This technique is usually used when the budget requires confusion… Continue reading Batman Begins (2005)
Basil (1998)
Class Yet another example that just plodding through a novel has little to do with making a tenable film. This one just thrashes through the story with nary a nod to cinematic necessities. But it does have Derek Jacobi, an actor with so much presence it almost makes the trip worthwhile. Derek knows how to… Continue reading Basil (1998)
Barton Fink (1991)
I’ll Show You the World of the Mind Any Coen film is worth traveling to see. All of them are enterprises about the enterprise of film-making or writing, but you never know what little side voyage we’re going on, what creases of creation we’re exploring. In this case, instead of playing with a genre, they… Continue reading Barton Fink (1991)