The Cinephiles: year one
1. What was your first column? Coming off of my own blog, Four Inches of Dirty Water (A clumsy Robert Altman reference), which mostly consisted of pretty straightforward film reviews, I think I was still struggling a bit to find my voice. My first piece for The Idler — “It’s the unanswered questions that haunt … Continue reading
That’s all there is, there is no more
I haven’t read a word of the Harry Potter series. Not one word. My intentions to do so were fleeting and only arose once the people around me, the ones whose opinions I trust implicitly, began reading and recommending it to me. It all sounded good, but I was already three films deep at the … Continue reading
There are trolls in them thar hills
I clearly haven’t been paying enough attention to U-verse’s On Demand feature, because it turns out that they’ve been offering advanced rentals of movies not yet in theatres for some time now. What kind of cinephile am I? Since this discovery I have been known to occasionally shut off my Netflix streaming (only occasionally) and … Continue reading
It’s not what you say, but how (and when)
The shotgun would ignite, and Ella Mae would scream, but Robert Ford would only lay on the floor and look at the ceiling, the light going out of his eyes before he could find the right words. Finding “the right words” is a quest all writers are intimately familiar with. Everyone knows that it’s not … Continue reading
Jacques Tatis, there and back again
Last year, upon learning about the inevitable release of the French animated film, The Illusionist, I wrote a piece expressing my love for its writer and inspiration, filmmaker Jacques Tati. French filmmaker Jacques Tati passed away on November 5th, 1982, but it would not be until 2010 that his swan song would be played. It would come in … Continue reading
A rock in the shoe: my love-hate relationship with Lars Von Trier, Pt. 2
In 2003 Lars Von Trier decided to become the rock in some else’s shoe. That lucky someone was fellow Dane and film maker, Jorgen Leth. Leth had, in 1967, created a short film called The Perfect Man, of which Von Trier is a huge fan. He invites Leth out of retirement to take part in a … Continue reading
A rock in the shoe: my love-hate relationship with Lars Von Trier, Pt. 1
I had long been considering writing a piece about Danish director, Lars Von Trier, but had never really gotten around to it. Then, at the Cannes film festival press conference for his latest film, Melancholia, Von Trier declared himself to be a “Nazi” and “sympathetic to Hitler.” Well, all right. I suppose that now is … Continue reading
The new technology is already old again
Saying that Hollywood is rarely original is an understatement, but nothing has driven that point home more than the recent market saturation of 3D. While James Cameron’s Avatar did not secure him another Best Picture Oscar, it did launch a new wave of band-wagon jumping that is not currently showing signs of slowing. Believe it … Continue reading
How Robert Altman helped me justify being lazy in film school – Pt. 2
I had found what I had been looking for, cinematically speaking, but what of Altman’s interaction with his cast and crew? I mean, love him or leave him, nobody makes films like Altman. The man’s even had an “esque” attributed to his name! As in: “That film’s very Altman-esque.” No small accomplishment. Of course a film … Continue reading
How Robert Altman helped me justify being lazy in film school – Pt. 1
There was a solid stretch of time during my early goings in film school where I thought that I might be in some trouble. I worried about my disinterest in traditional screenplays or, more to the point, the screenplay itself. That is not as to say that I didn’t and don’t appreciate them (I read … Continue reading
