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Previews
The Weird and the Wonderful of New Orleans at BAMcinématek
- Details
- Parent Category: Film Festivals
- Category: Previews
- Published on Thursday, 01 March 2012 15:33
- Written by Renzo Adler
From March 28 to April 1 and on April 8, 2012, the BAMcinématek will present New Orleans on Film, featuring 10 films on the fabled city, leading up to New Orleans music legend Dr. John’s nine-night residency at BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House this spring.
The Jim Jarmusch film Down by Law features musician Tom Waits and John Lurie, as well as Roberto Benigni (yes, the same actor/director who made Life is Beautiful) as three wrongfully imprisoned convicts on the lamb. Down By Law portrays New Orleans as a nexus of constant duality. A place where someone can be mired in despair, and yet be able to meet a companion that is equally mired.
Down by Law is a film as much about the strangeness of Americana as it is about the strangeness of New Orleans.As eclectic and fascinating as the actual city of New Orleans is, so too is this festival.
Spanning almost every genre of film, the oldest film in the festival is the 1934 Mae West starrer, Belle of the Nineties, while the most recent are the 2009 Abel Ferrara's post-Katrina crime drama Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans and Disney’s return to traditional animation, The Princess and the Frog. This festival embraces New Orleans both as a place of strange possibility and as a place of seedy but beautiful despair.
Paul Schrader’s 1982 remake of Val Lewton’s Cat People is a smoldering film that eschews Lewton’s subtlety for acts of debauchery punctuated by bloodshed. Nastassja Kinski slinks across a New Orleans in which the humidity is almost palpable to the viewer. While it lays the stereotypes of voodoo and decadence a little thick, Cat People is still a cult classic.
On the other side of the coin is Disney’s Princess and the Frog, a film which began to pull Disney back to traditional animation after several clumsy attempts at making CGI films without Pixar holding their hand. While the Randy Newman score can be distracting at times, Princess has a wonderful aesthetic combining 1920’s art deco evocative of Disney animator Mary Blair (Sleeping Beauty), with excellent natural and urban landscapes brought to life with post-Lion King elasticity.
Often when we think of New Orleans on film, we go to either the vested but somewhat tired classics like A Streetcar Named Desire, or to the absurdly stereotyped "Big Easy" of films like Live and Let Die.
This festival creates a picture of New Orleans that feels more whole, a place that is simultaneously beautiful and terrible, an exotic and fragile world that is bound by the same burdens of humanity as anywhere else, but still maintaining and unmistakable charm.
To learn more go to: http://www.bam.org/BAMcinematek
New Orleans on Film
March 28 - April 1
BAMcinématek
30 Lafayette Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11217
Cinequest Film Festival 2012: Celebrating World-Class Cinema
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- Parent Category: Film Festivals
- Category: Previews
- Published on Sunday, 19 February 2012 05:00
- Written by Sean Cusack
Prepare yourself as one of the most expansive, explosive and highly anticipated film festivals in California returns with a bang.
Cinequest Film Festival 2012, a 13 day festival of unparalleled quality, excitement and pure cinematic magic will run from February 28th – March 11th, unveiling over 155 fantastic films in the best state-of-the-art venues in the country, such as the palatial California Theatre, Camera 12 Cinemas and San Jose Repertory Theatre, equipped with Barco DCI-compliant projection digital servers and digital and 35mm projection.
Film Comment Selects: What's Old Is New
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- Parent Category: Film Festivals
- Category: Previews
- Published on Saturday, 18 February 2012 20:00
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Now in its 12th year, Film Comment Selects has become the hipper alternative to the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s headliners, the New York Film Festival and New Directors/ New Films.
Showing films yet to be seen in New York -- although some have distributors and will open--Film Comment Selects has also expanded to include films forgotten or deemed worthy of rediscovery.
Film Comment Selects Festival Brings Film History to You
- Details
- Parent Category: Film Festivals
- Category: Previews
- Published on Friday, 17 February 2012 01:00
- Written by Sean Cusack
This week, Film Comment magazine brings a handpicked lineup of films that are alternately previewing prior to their theatrical runs or quite possibly never coming back to the big screen- the rare and the rediscovered, the unclassifiable and the underrated, the sacred and the profane, the cute and the creepy, the tough and the tender and the naked and the dead in the 12th incarnation of its famed Film Comment Selects annual series.
This massive 32-film salute to cinephiles everywhere has something for everyone, from psychodrama freak-outs to future shock, high art to low brow, the strange to the sweet, and the silly to the serious.
It features several appearances -- as well as a special surprise from film critic J. Hoberman -- by filmmakers and cast including:
- Eric Atlan
- Sara Driver
- James Franco
- JKerri Kenney
- Kenneth Lonergan
- Joshua Marston
- Paul Rudd
- David Wain
A few of the exciting films featured this year include:
A Stoker
(2010)
Dir. Alexei Balabanov
An elderly, not-all-there Afghan war veteran known as “the major” feeds the murder victims of cops and mobsters into an apartment building furnace while working on an epic historical novel in the latest nihilistic crime drama from this Russian provocateur.
Despair
(1978)
Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Based on a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, scripted by Tom Stoppard, and starring Dirk Bogarde, Fassbinder’s first English-language film, a black comedy about a chocolate manufacturer plotting the perfect murder, is a must-see for all, not just Fassbinder completists.
Margaret
(2011)
Dir. Kenneth Lonergan
This is the story of self-involved teenager Lisa’s emotional turmoil after witnessing (and perhaps being in some way responsible for) the death of a pedestrian hit by a bus. Shot in 2007, Margaret then spent three long years in the editing room as writer-director Lonergan battled with producer Scott Rudin and the film’s eventual distributor, Fox Searchlight, over its running time.
The film, whose title is derived from the poem “Spring and Fall: To a young child” by Gerard Manley Hopkins, is one of risk-taking ambition that deserves its due as a fascinating, often wrenching drama of moral crisis in post-9/11 New York. The film stars Anna Paquin, Matt Damon, Matthew Broderick, Mark Ruffalo, and Jeannie Berlin.
Face to Face
(1975)
Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Liv Ullmann is front and center in this underseen Bergman film, playing a disturbed psychiatrist who has an affair with a fellow doctor (Erland Josephson), only to succumb to a nervous breakdown seemingly triggered by haunting memories from her past.
Faust
(2011)
Dir. Aleksandr Sokurov
Winner of the Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion, Russian master Aleksandr Sokurov’s idiosyncratic and playful reinvention of Goethe’s play positions Faust’s craving of knowledge and power (i.e., the Enlightenment) as the source of 20th-century evil.
Role Models
(2008)
Dir. David Wain
Wain’s inspired third feature turns Hollywood’s pious, “be yourself” genre deservedly on its ear with the cheerfully irreverent tale of two disillusioned energy-drink salesmen (Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott) serving out a community service sentence in a youth mentoring program.
Headhunters
(2011)
Dir. Morten Tyldum
A slick, charming corporate recruitment specialist leads a double life as an art thief in this twisty and fast-paced thriller that heralds the arrival of an exciting new directorial talent—and will keep you guessing all the way to its finale.
Silent House
(2011)
Dirs. Laura Lau, Chris Kentis
In this perfectly executed real-time thriller from the directors of Open Water, Elizabeth Olsen finds herself trapped inside the dilapidated cabin her family is readying for sale. With no contact to the outside world and no way out, panic turns to terror. Join directors Laura Lau and Chris Kentis in person for Q&A after the screening!
Wanderlust
(2012)
Dir. David Wain
Meet George and Linda, a typically overextended, stressed-out Manhattan couple. When George is downsized out of his job, they find themselves with only one option: to move in with George’s obnoxious brother in Atlanta. But en route, they stumble upon Elysium, an idyllic community populated by a cast of eccentric characters who look at life through a different prism. Money? It can’t buy happiness. Careers? Who needs them? Clothes? Only if you want them. Is Elysium the fresh start George and Linda need? Or will the change of perspective cause more problems than it solves? Starring Paul Rudd, Jennifer Aniston, Alan Alda, Justin Theroux, Ray Liotta, and Malin Akerman.
Land Passion War of the Dead Christ Worlds
A special Event featuring J. Hoberman in person! Based on 25 years of stunt projections and class presentations at NYU and Cooper Union, it’s Doomsday USA, starring Asia Argento, Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Dennis Hopper, and the mind of Mel Gibson. With subtitles!
Come see old masters rub shoulders with young turks, and witness film history in the making.
Tickets are:
- $13 for the general public
- $9 for Students and Seniors
- $8 for Film Comment members
Savings are available on four-film ticket packages, ranging from $28 for members to $40 for the general public. Screenings will be held at Film Society of Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater.
For more information and screening times, visit: Filmlinc.com/films/series/film-comment-selects-2012
Film Comment Selects
February 17th – March 1st, 2012
Walter Reade Theater
165 W. 65th St
New York, NY
