Even With Uncertain Future, Video_Dumbo Finds Refuge in Chelsea
After a year of absence, the annual video_dumbo festival has returned with a week of screenings and installations that have video art reflecting on itself. Last night, the central exhibition, Re-Return to Sender, opened at Eyebeam Art + Technology Center in Chelsea. While it’s now extracted from its former Brooklyn home, there is an ongoing installation running alongside at the Front Street gallery space of Dumbo Arts Center, which is continuing its participation in the event as a co-presenter this year.
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The Many Truths of Nonfiction
Film, like writing, is split categorically between “fiction” and “nonfiction.” This nomenclatural divide most likely stems from a perceived obligation to the audience on the part of nonfiction — the title conveys a promise of vérité. Stories We Tell, the new documentary from Sarah Polley (Away from Her , Take This Waltz ), successfully asserts that there is no objective truth to be found anywhere in “nonfiction.” Polley isn’t the first documentarian to upend audience expectations of reality, but Stories We Tell needs no novelty to succeed; it is a beautiful film.
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Renoir’s Last Years
Pierre Auguste Renoir, that painter of young doughy women, now takes his turn as the subject of a French art-house film. The simply-named film Renoir, directed by Gilles Bourdos, earns a solid B+. There’s enough there to make a good evening out of it. But the film, like the painter, is too twee to be a true ace.
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Creating a Dream World in Black-and-White
It takes only one Academy Award for critics to claim a resurgence of genre, and when The Artist won the 2012 Oscar for Best Picture, it was heralded as signaling the return of an interest in black-and-white silent film. Blancanieves, the latest film from Spanish director Pablo Berger (Torremolinos 73) would seem to be a continuation of that (rather small) trend — except Berger’s film was already in production at the time of The Artist’s release. Rather than owing its creation to The Artist’s success, then, Blancanieves points to a simultaneous, transoceanic interest in black-and-white silent film, outside of the usual film-school experiments.
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twohundredfiftysixcolors Flashes One GIF Too Many
CHICAGO — In the GIF world of twohundredfiftysixcolors, there is no time to process visual imagery; viewers are left with reaction options to each short GIF much like those found on a Buzzfeed post. It’s all <3, LOL, WIN, OMG, CUTE, WTF, UNBELIEVABLE, SCARY, FAIL TRASHY, OLD, EW, <heart break! or whatever and then it’s over. Even for a person who spends many hours a day at a computer, this film is torturous, and a painfully accurate experience of today’s over-saturated internet media environment. Certain gifs will keep playing over and over in your mind long after the credits role. It is a perfect portrait of the Internet world we live in.
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Who Is the Master, and Who Is the Slave?
I’ve seen it twice, and it still makes my brain feel like it’s been violated in some sublime way. Visually, The Master is an incredibly beautiful piece of work: the effect of filming a reported 80 percent in glorious 65mm. The movie is saturated with color and tone courtesy of cinematographer Mihai Malaimare Jr., with editing by Leslie Jones and Peter McNulty, who paced the visuals against Jonny Greenwood’s (of Radiohead) odd, whacked-out, jazzed-up staccato soundtrack.
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The Story of the Ad Man Who Toppled a Military Dictator
PARK CITY, Utah — Close your eyes and picture America’s most famous ad man, the fictional Don Draper of the cable TV hit Mad Men. Now push aside your favorite scenes of Don’s bedroom antics, bourbon-fueled lunches, and persuasive client pitches and think: over five seasons of storytelling, what has the dashing ladies’ man done that’s truly made an impact on the world outside his agency office suite?
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Foreign Policy: How the Oscars Slight Global Cinema
In 2009, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences sparked a flurry of debate when it was announced that the Best Picture category for the Oscar would be expanded from five to ten nominees. According to then-academy president Sid Ganis, the increased number would “allow Academy voters to recognize and include some of the fantastic movies that often show up in the other Oscar categories, but have been squeezed out of the race for the top prize.” Much of the discussion hinged on whether a lengthened list of nominees would somehow diminish the prestige of the award — that year genre films like Avatar and District 9 were recognized alongside more traditional Oscar-bait like An Education and The Hurt Locker. The legitimacy of the Academy Awards, some critics declared, was diminished.
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I Think My Life Depends on Me Being An Artist: The Oscar-Nominated Short Documentary Inocente
“When I paint, I feel happy, so it’s a good way to start my mornings, to just paint on something, and what better place than my face?” says Inocente Izucar in the Oscar-nominated documentary short Inocente, which follows the life of the 15-year-old artist. Each day she coils curls of vibrant colors with delicate accents around her eyes, and her paintings are equally vibrant with their richly colored abstract forms and playful creatures. Yet Inocente’s life is anything but, as the undocumented teenager has spent the majority of her life homeless or in shelters with her mom and two younger brothers.
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One Artist’s Attempt to Break into Show Biz and the Art World in One Fell Swoop
Isha is a cinematic work-in-progress both literally and figuratively. Recently a 15-minute screening, as well as actual location shoot happened back-to-back at Long Island City’s Clocktower Gallery as part of the ongoing How Much Do I Owe You? exhibition. It’s a ballsey attempt by Indian writer/director Meenakshi Thirukode to break into show biz and the art world in one fell swoop. Some of it is good, some not so good. But, as they might say in a Busby Berklee musical, “The girl’s certainly got moxie.”
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