Film
Invisible Cities: Matthew Barney's Blindspot
Let’s look past the globules, barnacles, and goo. At its heart, Matthew Barney’s River of Fundament is a film about white, male America’s failure to comprehend urbanism.
Film
Film
Capturing Slow Portraits of People and Landscapes
Koyanisqaatsi, a debut collaboration between filmmaker Godfrey Reggio and composer Philip Glass, broke ground in so many ways in the 1980's for exploring film as a poetic, rather than narrative or theatrical expression. Over ten years later, Reggio and Glass have come together to produce Visitors, a
Art
Barbara Stanwyck, Proto-Feminist Hollywood Star
It’s a sure sight for sore eyes to see the name “Stanwyck” emblazoned on a cinematheque marquee. Then again, not everyone today may be familiar with this name — but the uninitiated have every reason to stop in for one of the afternoon or evening double bills playing all through December at Film Foru
News
Two Long-Lost Peter Sellers Films Discovered in a Trash Can
Today's "holy crap!" story is the discovery of two long-lost Peter Sellers films that were salvaged from a trash can.
Film
The Things of Life
Between the bellows and the bed unfolds the universe of Cousin Jules. It is a small world, but polyvalent. He is Jules Guitteaux, a blacksmith in rural Burgundy, husband then widower, and — crucially — cousin of the late filmmaker Dominique Benicheti, whose 1973 documentary film Cousin Jules pays ce
Art
All Style, No Substance: Williamsburg in 3D
Stereoscopic, or 3D, vision is a technique usually associated these days with blockbuster movies. But, using a simple stereo camera, Carlton Bright rollerbladed around Williamsburg from 2003 to 2013 documenting a series of “modules” or “vignettes” about the neighborhood he loves and calls home.
Art
Remaking "Carrie" in the Age of Social Media
CHICAGO — Boys don't cry, and young girls fight back with their psychic powers in director Kimberly Peirce’s films. This past Saturday in Chicago, Peirce, the director of Boys Don't Cry, Stop-Loss, and most notably the new remake of Carrie, took to the stage with WBEZ reporter Alison Cuddy at Franci
Film
The Pervert’s Guide to Slavoj Zizek
Once more into the rabbit hole breach, The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology tails Slavoj Žižek on another meta-tour of the popular cultural sub-terrain.
Art
Blue Is the Color of Desire
Blue Is the Warmest Color, which clocks in at just under three hours, may be one of the most ambitious film love stories ever made. There are movies that paint first romance as a coming-of-age story; others try to capture the process and feeling of falling in love; some dissect the series of events
Opinion
Swedes to Apply Gender Ratings to Movies
Four Swedish film organizations are banding together to fight sexism by applying a letter-grade rating to new releases, the Independent reports. That's awesome news in and of itself, but the idea is even cooler because it's based on criteria that come from a comic strip by cartoonist Alison Bechdel.
Art
Rethinking the Retrospective: Jean-Luc Godard in New York
The current Jean-Luc Godard retrospective in New York, admirably entitled The Spirit of Forms, reintroduces the French auteur’s films into familiar territory: namely, the New York Film Festival (NYFF) at Lincoln Center, where his work has made many memorable as well as infamous North American debuts
Art
How to Paint Like Vermeer, as Explained by a Techie
CINCINNATI — Tim Jenison is an imaging software engineer who talks like Oracle founder Larry Ellison but looks like artist Chuck Close. Jenison believes he has solved one of the greatest mysteries in art: how did 17th-century Dutch Master Johannes Vermeer paint so photo-realistically 150 years befor