msicism

Is "Images" Worth Repeating?

I decided to ask Lou and John. Their answer was unequivocal.

Images (Robert Altman, 1972)

Wow, it's easy to forget what a long shadow Ingmar Bergman cast over the arthouse directors of the 70s. From its focus on fractured female subjectivity right down to its Vilmos Zsigmond cinematography, w...

Submitted for Your Approval, #4: oh my homeland (Stephanie Barber, 2019)

Currently featured at the online Screening Room at the Baltimore Museum of Art, along with several other Barber films and numerous other artists' works, oh my homeland (stylized in all lowercase...

Submitted for Your Approval, #3: Alfred (Esther Urlus, 2020)

Upon having a look at Esther Urlus' latest film, my friend Darren Hughes asked me why her work isn't programmed more regularly in North American experimental film showcases. I'm not exactly sure. I first discovered her work while reviewing a group of avant-garde shorts for the Nashville Film Fest...

Submitted for Your Approval, #2: Movie That Invites Pausing (Ken Jacobs, 2020)

On the one hand, Movie That Invites Pausing covers familiar territory for Ken Jacobs. His work with pulsating forms, and in particular the complex play of flatness and depth generated with his E...

Submitted for Your Approval, #1: Patrick (Luke Fowler, 2020)

Scottish filmmaker Luke Fowler is an unusual figure in experimental film: not exactly a documentarian, not precisely a maker of essay films, and yet someone whose complex works certainly partake of those genres. He explores a very particular mien, which is intellectual history, having made films ...

Air Conditioner (Fradique, 2020)

To my knowledge, this is the first film I have ever seen from the nation of Angola. 34-year-old Fradique (real name: Mário Bastos) studied in the U.S. and has made several shorts, and spent several year...

The Final Word [on / from] Twitter

So yeah, just for the record, Twitter did not receive any complaints about my most recent account. I did not do anything offensive, or violate any rules of conduct. Rather, they simply found it. And sinc...

Eeb Allay Ooo! (Prateek Vats, 2019)

I wanted to jot down a few quick words about this film before it completely evaporated from my memory, because it's actually not bad, and will be the only film I will end up watching from the We Are One ...

A Word About the Month of June

I try to keep this space generally restricted to film, with the occasional whiny excuse for why I have failed to write about film for a particular span of time.

There are a lot of reasons why I don...

The Infiltrators (Alex Rivera and Cristina Ibarra, 2019)

I have mixed feelings about this documentary, partly because the film is about such a crucial, timely subject without itself being particularly timely. The Infiltrators highlights the very impor...

Blood and Fire

The best films give us flawed, complicated protagonists, people whose responses to problems are knotty and unpredictable. Like those of us existing in the real world, rich, well-rounded characters should...

What Should I Watch Next?

I just finished getting my Summer course online and ready to go, and I need something to wash the taste of Ema out of my mouth. (Review forthcoming.) What would you go with, if you were a paunchy bespectacled Houstonian under quarantine?

One 'Medium,' One Underdone

Medium (Edgardo Cozarinsky, 2020)

So many documentaries about the arts tend to feel like medicine. They are so intent on telling you just how serious and important their subject ma...

DAU. Natasha (Ilya Khrzhanovskiy and Jekaterina Oertel, 2020)

The first film to be released from the gargantuan DAU project (five others are now available), Natasha resembles what we typically think of an an art film, at least on its surface. That...

Oberhausen (Part III)

ABOVE: Uber housing, Pittsburgh, PA

So this is the last batch of short films I watched as part of Oberhausen 66. This may be a tedious exercise for my handful of readers, but I wanted to do it as a...

Oberhaus-Party (Part Two)

TV's Ken Ober (1957-2009)

Here is a second heaping helping of my reviews from Oberhausen 66. Overall, I wasn't quite as taken with these films. But I did discover a potentially interesting new film...

Oberhausin' (Part One)

The latest big-name event to drop its payload online is the 66th edition of the Oberhausen Short Film Festival, an annual mixed bag of experimental debuts, distributor showcases, international calling cards, and undefinable whatsits. Even with the abbreviated running times, there was too much to ...

Circumstantial Pleasures (Lewis Klahr, 2020)

For years now, Lewis Klahr has mastered a particular kind of cinema. Using cut-out and object animation in stop-motion, he has used the copy-stand as a sort of field of dreams, moving fragments of forgot...

Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue (Jia Zhangke, 2020)

Even in a year where there's no Cannes, and new films of any kind are few and far between, there's been relatively little fanfare for this sparkling new documentary from Jia Zhangke, which perhaps indica...

Sorry to say...

Pardon the extended silence here. Not exactly what you're paying for. Apologies.

In addition to the usual COVID-19 related "life is terrible," "hope I can hug my dad again before he dies" sluggishn...

Where Has My Mind Been?

Several weeks ago, at the kind request of filmmaker / cinephile Maximilien Luc Proctor, I curated a program for the Ultra Dogme Virtual Film Festival. There has been a lot of great programming from Ultra...

Visions du Réel 2020: Quick Notes, Part Two

So this is a quick second installment of my report on films I watched for the at-home version of the Swiss documentary festival. Most of the stuff I viewed will be addressed in an upcoming festival report for Cinema Scope. Below, I am jotting down some remarks on films I did not cover in that pie...

Technoboss (João Nicolau, 2019)

Cinema and obsolescence: two great tastes that go great together. Although we are in the midst of "exceptional circumstances" that may hasten the decline of the movies as we have traditionally understood...

Visions du Réel 2020: Quick Notes

I have been doing what I can to dip into this year's online edition of the Swiss documentary festival, and I may end up doing a longer write-up. At least I am hopeful that I will be able to. But for now, I wanted to share some thoughts about the first batch of films I've seen, before they complet...

(puzzle answers)

As you can see, there was a theme running throughout my planned crossword. In short, failure and futility.

USWNT without goalkeeper Solo (6 letters) - NOHOPE

wow, this sucks (6 letters) - VACUUM

clarinetist Acker (4 letter) - BILK 2020-04-23 18:50:06 +0000 UTC View Post