7 years ago
Akira Kurosawa 8
Mezzanine Essentials: “Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams”
Like the magic lantern that evokes childhood’s fascination with moving images in the films of Ingmar Bergman, the whole of Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams seems to take us back to the medium’s infancy, to its primal pleasures and terrors. It is a film in which the sho...
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Love Streams: 5 Criterions on Fandor
I spend more time picking a film to watch than I do actually watching them, but I feel like the folks at Fandor have finally created a solution for my predicament: give me an ultimatum. (And since it's almost Valentine's Day, I feel comfortable telling you tha...
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Remembering Takao Saito and The Castle Attack in Akira Kurosawa’s “Ran”
Takao Saito, the extraordinary cinematographer on many of Akira Kurosawa’s films, passed on Dec 6th of 2014 at the age of 85. One of my personal goals this year was to finally catch up on some of Kurosawa’s work, so just a few weeks ago I watched Ran for the f...
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History of Film: “Once Upon a Time in the West”
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The English have Shakespeare, the French have Molière, the Russians have Chekhov, the Argentines have Borges, but the Western is ours.
- Robert Duvall
The Western may be the only art form entirely specific to a time and p...
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Chuck Workman Talks “What Is Cinema?” & Film’s Future
If you've ever watched an Academy Awards show, then you're already familiar with the talents of Chuck Workman. You just might not know it. He's the man behind many of the montages featured during the annual celebration of all things Hollywood (and some things ...
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Top 10 Office Movies
With Mad Men coming back on the air for its (bifurcated) final season, and me returning to work after a wonderful weekend at the Turner Classic Movies Classic Film Festival, I've got offices on my mind. Luckily, the office is not an infrequent topic in cinemat...
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The Second Criterion: ‘Yojimbo’
While set in Japan, Yojimbo is a Western. It carries many of the tropes of the America genre, but with some noticeable differences. Although the change in geographical location, culture and time certainly add texture to the film, it’s not what makes Yojimbo di...
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Los Angeles Top 5 (1/25/13–1/31/13)
LA is the greatest place on earth to watch movies. Here are this week's best picks.
1. Near Dark at the Cinefamily (FRIDAY 1/25, MIDNIGHT)
Perhaps you like vampire films, but Breaking Dawn Part 2 isn't doing it for you. Perhaps you liked the directio...
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