Master of Japanese Sword FIght Movies, Misumi, at Museum of Moving Image

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Wednesday, 03 October 2012 21:27

Written by Renzo Adler

Creating a crimson swath of cinematic carnage, while director Kenji Misumi is not one of the most recognizable names in Japanese cinema, his films were integral in the creation of period piece (jidai geki) and swordfight (chambara) films. The Museum of the Moving Image (36-01 35 Avenue at 37 Street, Astoria), in association with the Japan Foundation, will be showing seven films from Musumi on October 5 – 14, 2012.

Fans of VHS era gore flicks might recall a film called Shogun Asassin, about a lone ronin wandering the countryside with his infant son and a deadly baby-carriage. This film was actually spliced together from two films by Musumi's long running Lone Wolf and Cub series; Sword of Vengeance and Baby Cart at the River Styx.

Another one of Misumi’s signature film series is Zatoichi, about a wandering blind swordsman posing as a masseur. Even though Misumi passed away in 1975, the Zatoichi series still has a wealth of sequels and remakes to this day. Misumi’s style is bold, perhaps tawdry, but never dumbed-down, and creates an image that is stark and simplictic, yet visually rich.

The films are:

• Destiny’s Son 
  After learning shocking truths about his origins from his dying father, Shingo seeks revenge and redemption. Based on the novel by Renzaburo Shibata.
   
• Fight, Zatoichi, Fight
  After witnessing the death of a young woman, Zatoichi promises to deliver her baby to the father. The eighth film in the Zatoichi series finds the blind hero in a web of deception and violence, as Zatoichi must fight off assassins intent on murdering him while the father refuses to claim the child.
   
• The Sword 
  Misumi’s only contemporary film stars Raizô Ichikawa as a talented pupil of kendo caught up in a rivalry with a fellow student. Based on the novella by Yukio Mishima.
   
• The Homely Sister
  In this touching and perceptive drama set in the nineteenth-century Edo period, two sisters have sacrificed their personal happiness to care for their ailing father. Younger Otaka falls in love but can’t accept a marriage proposal because, traditionally, the older sister needs to marry first. When older sister Oshizu learns of this decision, she takes matters in her own hands.
   
• Yotsuya Ghost Story
  In one of Japan’s most frequently told ghost stories, a murdered wife returns in an act of vengeance. This time around, however, she may have her husband there to help. Misumi’s brilliant black-and-white version of this bloody tale puts a new twist on the old story.
   
• Homeless Drifter
  Mushuku Mono follows Ipponmatsu, a wandering gambler, as he travels to a nearby village in search of his father’s killer. The deeper he gets into the underworld of the city, the more unexpected twists he must face. 

While Misumi is known more for his bloody sword fighting films (which were also a great influence to Quentin Tarantino), these films delve into fantasy and modern drama genres as well. His style is crisp and clean, and filled with stern solitary figures posed against a dramatic backdrop. One could easily give these films a cursory glance and write them off as schlock, but that would be doing a great disservice to their craft and artistry and the foundation they laid in dramatic and action cinema.

To learn more, go to http://www.movingimage.us/

The Films of Kenji Misumi
October 5 – 14, 2012

The Museum of the Moving Image
36-01 35 Avenue (at 37 Street)
Astoria, NY 11106

CMJ 2011 -- Great Sound & Vision

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Sunday, 30 September 2012 22:21

Written by Brad Balfour

For five nonstop days and nights, CMJ Music & Film Festival (October 18-22, 2011) features over 1,300 live performances in more than 80 of New York City's greatest nightclubs and theaters, including the Clearview Chelsea (260 West 23rd Street). 

But it is not only one of the world's most important platforms for the discovering new music, it also surveys and consolidates for viewing by consumers and industry insiders alike some of the year's best  music-related cutting-edge films. 

CMJ also presents over 70 informative panels with renowned speakers, an Entertainment Business Law Seminar and the much beloved College Day for college and non-commercial radio programmers. Your CMJ badge grants you access to shows, movie premieres, Q&As, meet and greets, mixers, parties and exclusive areas like the Exhibitors' Loft and Artist Lounge. 

Having a solid reputation for providing New York City audiences with the best in independent cinema, the 17th annual CMJ Film Festival 2011 is proud once again to announce its latest programming schedule, including the following features:

• Pearl Jam Twenty
  dir. Cameron Crowe
  Carved from over 1,200 hours of rare and never-before-seen footage, plus 24 hours of recently shot interview and live footage, Pearl Jam Twenty is the definitive portrait of Pearl Jam as told by award-winning director and music journalist Cameron Crowe.

• Broke 
  Following on-the-verge artist Will Gray through the recording and release of his debut album (featuring production by the Grammy-winning T Bone Burnett), Broke chronicles the stories of artists and executives searching for ways to thrive in today's music industry. The film digs beneath the clichés to reveal an industry struggling to find a new identity, and an artist who's simply trying to establish one.With appearances from John Legend, Kelly Clarkson, Isaac Slade of The Fray, Seth Godin and Buddy Miller. Q&A with Will Gray and Dan Beck follows the screening.

• Killing Bono
  Based on real events, Killing Bono tells the story of young Irish rocker Neil McCormick and his younger brother Ivan, who attempt to become rock stars, but can only look on as their school friends form U2...and become the biggest band in the world.Q&A with director Nick Hamm following screening, moderated by Kevin Polowy, Executive Editor of MTV's NextMovie.com

• FIX: The Ministry Movie
  Love him or hate him, Al Jourgensen and how he makes his music changed all the rules. Al, and all the guys he played with, paid the price and took no prisoners along the way. No MINISTRY = No NIN, no Korn, no Jane's Addiction. Don't believe it? Hear it directly from Trent Reznor, Jonathan Davis, Dave Navarro and many more.
  Q&A with director Doug Freel and MINISTRY's Paul Barker.

• We Are The Hartmans 
  Acomedy parable for our gentrified age. Set in a small town plagued by fast food chains and Big-Box-Mart, Hartmans rock club is the only local hangout left. When the owner (Richard Chamberlain) falls ill, his estranged family comes to town to sell the building and collect the money. What they don't expect is a full-scale neighborhood uprising by the eccentric musicians, drunks and drag queens that frequent the club. Features original music by Black Taxi, also performing at CMJ. Q&A with Blayne Ross, Laura Newman, Ben Curtis, Jennifer Restivo, and members of Black Taxi following screening. Moderated by Arin Crumley, Four Eyed Monsters, DIY Filmmaker.

• Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels Of A Tribe Called Quest 
  An insightful music doc about one of the most innovative and influential hip-hop bands of all time. The film takes viewers behind-the-scenes, chronicling the group's rise to fame while revealing the story behind the tension, which would erupt in the years to come. Q&A with director Michael Rapaport following screening.

• Freaks In Love 
  Following the 25-year career of the seminal psychedelic punk band Alice Donut: from humble beginnings to playing at CBGB, from signing to Alternative Tentacles to performing at Reading Festival and, ultimately, touring with Blind Melon. Throughout their ups and downs, the band has remained friends and created some of the underground's most compelling music. This is the story of many bands from the late '80s/ early '90s, when getting in a van and touring the country was all one could ask for; when free beer and pizza were a luxury. Q&A with Skizz Cyzyk, David Koslowski and members of Alice Donut following screening.

• Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life 
  Renowned comic book artist Joann Sfar's Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life is a completely original take on one of France's greatest mavericks - the illustrious and infamous singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg (Eric Elmosnino). Born Lucien Ginsburg to Russian-Jewish parents, Gainsbourg evolves from a precocious child in Nazi-occupied Paris, to a small-time jazz musician, and finally, an international pop superstar. Along the way, he romances many of the era's most beautiful women.

The Festival will also include three exquisite programs of short films - all at Clearview Chelsea Cinema:

• Captivus Blackstone
• The Double
• Tempo
• Quirk Of Fate
• The Wedding Gift (Snubni Prsten)
• Cartoons

CMJ Music & Film Festival
October 18-22, 2011

Clearview Chelsea
260 West 23rd Street
New York, NY 10011

50th New York Film Fest Pulls Out the Stops

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Published on Thursday, 27 September 2012 15:09

Written by Renzo Adler

The New York Film Festival (September 28 – October 14, 2012) at Lincoln Center (165 West 65th Street, and various locations)  is putting on one hell of a show this year.  As the 50th installment of the NYFF, exemplary films, both classic and new are being shown in this colossal event.

Opening the NYFF is Ang Lee’s technical marvel, Life of Pi, based on the novel by Yann Martel. It’s safe to say the film will be visually stunning, but can Lee deliver the emotional goods in this story of a young boy living on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger?

Lee Daniels’ Nicole Kidman vehicle, The Paperboy, starring the waifish Zac Efron, is  a coming of age story mixed with a sexualized thriller as the titular paperboy (Efron) gets wrapped up in an affair with Kidman, who has a fiancée on death row. Nicole Kidman, director Lee Daniels, and star Macy Gray will also be at the screening in person to discuss the film.

Caesar Must Die, directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, shows inmates in an Italian prison putting on a production of Julius Caesar, while their rivalries have to be kept in check to prevent bedlam from breaking. Already a winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, Caesar has been attracting attention because several of the cast members are actual former inmates and gangsters.

Considered one of cinema’s greatest achievements (or a teaching tool in moral ambiguity if you saw Prometheus) Lawrence of Arabia is being screened with a new 4K restoration which Sony worked on laboriously and premiered earlier in Cannes to much aplomb. Another classic being shown is Walt Disney’s Snow White, which is also being opened with a new animated short by director John Kahrs, Paperman, which has been a hot topic among animation fans.

Cinema Reflected is a special block of documentaries focusing on the men and women behind great films. Casting By looks at the complex world of casting films (natch), Celluloid Man is about P.K. Nair, the founder of India’s National Film Archive.

Room 237 is the new and hotly debated analysis of Kubrick’s The Shining and how the enthusiasts have been attaching different meanings to the film for decades. One of the stranger entries of Cinema Reflected is Final Cut- Ladies and Gentleman, a sort of experimental large scale clip show, it assembles scenes from over 450 films to create its own narrative.

Holy Motors, directed by Leos Carax, is a stream of consciousness film described by Carax as “a film about a man and the experience of being alive.” A man taking on multiple identities over the course of a day as he is shuttled around Paris by Edith Scob from Eyes Without a Face and an appearance by Kylie Minogue, Holy Motors defies description.

Childhood favorite of 80’s kids, The Princess Bride is celebrating its 25th anniversary at the NYFF with a special reunion of director Rob Reiner with Billy Crystal, Cary Elwes, Carol Kane, Mandy Patinkin, Chris Sarandon, Wallace Shawn and Robin Wright, who will be having an onstage conversation after a screening of a 35mm print of the quotable classic.

Typical only for being exemplary, the NYFF’s selection this year is quite possibly it’s most varied and celebrates not only the modern movie darlings, but also the entirety of cinema history.

To learn more, go to: http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff2012

The 50th New York Film Festival
September 28 – October 14, 2012

The Walter Reade Theater
70 Linclon center plaza,
165 West 65th Street #4
New York, NY 10023