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Ballets Russes (2005)
Fame, glamour, ego, politics, money, war, love ... and dance.

For many, modern ballet began with the Ballet Russe of Monte Carlo, originally made up of Russian exiles from the Russian Revolution. This film tells the story of this landmark company with its stars and production as well as its power games, rivalries and tribulations that marked its turbulent history.

Dancer’s Eyes haven’t enjoyed a movie this much in years. One filmmaking challenge I have been puzzling over for years is how to film dance. It is not enough to have a camera placed in a stationary place as if sitting in a theatre looking at...


Published May 16, 2023
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Dirty Love (2005)
got dumped?
Filmmaker(s): John Asher

The klutzy yet stunning Rebecca Sommers walks in on her hunky boyfriend in bed with another woman. They break up and Rebecca starts to fall apart, but, with the help of her close girlfriends, she begins to date again. Unfortunately, the men she meets all happen to be crazy. John, her dorky guy friend, tries to express his secret love for Rebecca, but she's too busy to notice as she tries to come to terms with her breakup.

Ventriloquism for Dummies an entertaining movie! I share the critical consensus, that it is poorly made and a failure in all its intended dimensions. But I watch movies a different way, and that allows me to get a lot out of it. In this case, it...


Published February 9, 2024
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L’iceberg (2005)

Fiona is the manager of a fast-food restaurant. She lives comfortably with her family in the suburbs. In other words, Fiona is happy... until one day she accidentally gets locked into a walk-in fridge. She escapes the next morning, half frozen and barely alive, only to realize that her husband and two children didn't even notice she was missing. But when Fiona develops an obsession for everything cold and icy: snow, polar bears, fridges, icebergs--she drops everything, climbs into a frozen goods delivery truck and leaves home. For a real iceberg.

Purity seen one other project from this couple, ‘Rumba.‘ I liked it, but this one seems so much better, less cute and choreographed. All storytelling is about abstraction. Sometimes that can be done in ways that by agreement, we see as invisible. We think of the...


Published February 9, 2024
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Noriko’s Dinner Table (2005)
The family that eats together stays together.
Filmmaker(s): Sion Sono

A teenager named Noriko Shimabara runs away from her family in Toyokawa, to meet Kumiko, the leader of an Internet BBS, Haikyo.com. She becomes involved with Kumiko's family circle, which grows darker after the mass suicide of 54 high school girls.

The Magical Inbetweens spaces in Hispanically influenced films are easy to locate. We as viewers find it easy to place ourselves there it seems natural. Only Medem challenges. There are three similarly structured magical traditions in modern Japanese films, and I find them tantalising, sometimes difficult,...


Published February 10, 2024
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The Secret Life of Words (2005)
Filmmaker(s): Isabel Coixet

A touching story of a deaf girl who is sent to an oil rig to take care of a man who has been blinded in a terrible accident. The girl has a special ability to communicate with the men on board and especially with her patient as they share intimate moments together that will change their lives forever.

Blind Spots, Clarity is what Cassavedes thinks of as simple and direct theatre, a pipeline to emotions. The idea is to simplify, presumably to purify. We have a remote oil rig with two full characters and a handful of surrounding beings. Our man (played by Tim...


Published February 16, 2024
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Cha no aji (2004)
We were all watching the sunset, at the edge of the universe.
Filmmaker(s): Katsuhito Ishii

A spell of time in the life of a family in rural Tochigi prefecture. Yoshiko is not an ordinary housewife, instead working on an animated film project. Uncle Ayano, a successful music producer, is looking to get his head together after living in Tokyo. Meanwhile, Sachiko is concerned with why she seems to be followed by a giant version of herself. As the lazy days pass by, each member of the family is followed in a series of episodic vignettes.

Running Toward Touch must be me. It seems that only Japanese filmmakers are able to find that light world where everything seems incidental, but every motion has cosmic force. So very many of these succeed. And again, we have a simple family who we observe, but...


Published February 15, 2024
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The Machinist (2004)
How do you wake up from a nightmare if you’re not asleep?
Filmmaker(s): Brad Anderson

Trevor, an insomniac lathe operator, experiences unusual occurrences at work and home. A strange man follows him everywhere, but no one else seems to notice him.

One and a Half can hope for good films. When preparing for the journey, one communicates with one‘s self about what to expect. If the construction is like this, a ‘puzzle film,‘ then the conversation continues through the film as it sustains two souls watching....


Published February 16, 2024
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Nathalie… (2003)
Can you ever control another person's sexuality?
Filmmaker(s): Anne Fontaine

Paris doctor Catherine starts to think her husband, Bernard, is having an affair when she hears an unfamiliar woman's message on his voice mail. Hoping to learn more about his extramarital activities, Catherine heads to a strip club, where she hires call girl Nathalie to have a fling with Gerard. As the affair progresses, Nathalie gives Catherine regular status reports, and the relationship between the women evolves from business to personal.

Womanly Closeness film about two women, or rather the two hemispheres of a woman, made by a woman. I find nothing to like in most French films. The burst of reflexivity in the 60s where film critics became the most important filmmakers has had a negative...


Published February 23, 2024
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Crop Circles: Quest for Truth (2002)

Space Between Circles documentary is an elastic category that doesn’t know itself. Like the crop circles that are the subject of this one, they in more or less intriguing and attractive manner, secure that our need for a ‘message‘ will impose a narrative. Nominally, documentarians are...


Published February 16, 2024
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Black Angel (2002)
Filmmaker(s): Tinto Brass

Trapped in an unhappy marriage, the wife of a high ranking Fascist official starts a dangerous, self-destructive relationship with a duplicitous S.S. Officer.

Europa's Butt and Brass, even Argento matter to me. They have intuition that inspires. Yes, they make vulgar and sometimes nonsensical films. But that is just a matter of degree compared to Hollywood fare, right? What I like about Brass isn’t about the women or situations,...


Published February 23, 2024
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