Seeking revelation in the ways that war is curtailed, hidden, biased, and unfinished, Frames of War, a rigorous group show at the small but dauntlessly ambitious Bushwick nonprofit Momenta Art, approaches state violence through the edges of recognition.
Jeremy Polacek
A son of the Chicago suburbs, Jeremy Polacek has somehow lived in New York City longer than in that metropolis of the Midwest. Often found in the dim light of the theatre or library, he tweets at @JeremyPolacek.
Posted inArt
A Brief Look at 2015 Oscar-Nominated Documentary Shorts
The youngest of the three Oscar shorts categories, documentary shorts are both the vigorous upstarts and the weary middle-agers, questioning themselves and their creative vision in a productive midlife crisis.
Posted inArt
A Brief Look at the 2015 Oscar-Nominated Live-Action Shorts
In our first review of the 2015 Oscar-nominated short films, the imaginative animated shorts led things off. With less than a week to go until the awards themselves, it’s time to get cozy with their often stonier cousins, the live-action shorts.
Posted inArt
A Brief Look at the 2015 Oscar-Nominated Animated Shorts
Often lost amid the Oscar season hype parade, the Academy Award–nominated short films are the lagniappe of the affair, a little extra dose of movie popcorn to munch on and enjoy, even if you skip out on the actual award show.
Posted inArt
Wonders of the World, Through the Lens of the Hive Mind
Have we been here before? Will we all be in this same spot again soon? Corinne Vionnet’s aggregate compositions provoke a puzzling, often beautiful feeling of déjà vu.
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Two Films Capture the Genius of Gaudí
Can a film program be too Gaudí? Graced with Stefan Haupt’s efficient, if a little odd, documentary on the architect’s famously unfinished church, Sagrada Família, the Film Society of Lincoln Center (and at least one other theater) saw a match made in Barcelona and paired it with Hiroshi Teshigahara’s Antonio Gaudí (1984), the rare architecture documentary that has achieved “cult” status.
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When a Political Movement Becomes a Monument
Around the world, the aesthetic of revolt flows unabridged, immediate, and jittery, the revolution in any room. Which makes Maidan, Sergei Loznitsa’s unblinking and stirring documentary of last year’s Ukrainian protests that ended in the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych seem like even more of a formal, rigorous outlier.
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Photographs of Urgent Wilderness
Flush with riveting, enigmatic color and luxuriant depth of field, David Benjamin Sherry’s monochrome photographs radiate beauty, urgency, and a certain humanness — as if their sublime scenes of mountains, forests, and rock formations had been blasted and dyed by a human detonation.
Posted inFilm
The Man and the Myth: Nick Cave’s Memories
The myth-maker becomes the myth in 20,000 Days on Earth, a fun-house foray through memory, music, life, and creativity.
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In Heaven There Is No Les Blank: The Rooted Works of a Great American Documentarian
Following the short stack of “Yum, Yum, Yum! 3 Movies by Les Blank,” which played at its Cinema Fest this past June, BAMcinématek is now serving up a 17-movie Blank banquet.
Posted inNews
Chinese Authorities Shut Down Beijing Independent Film Festival
The 11th Beijing Independent Film Festival was not held last weekend as planned. The modest but increasingly vital festival, a rare incubator for a burgeoning Chinese independent film scene, was shut down on Saturday, August 23, by government authorities, the Associated Press reported.
Posted inArt
A Pioneer of Color Photography Gets His Due
Danish photographer Keld Helmer-Petersen’s underknown, trailblazing series 122 Color Photographs is currently receiving its first solo show in New York, courtesy of Yossi Milo Gallery.