Author: Doug Cummings

Recent documentary screenings

Film review

Over the past few weeks, I’ve seen some pretty knockout documentaries that have been rattling around in my head ever since; each of them offers a penetrating portrait of their subject that expands into larger questions of form or meaning. I’ll comment on two today and two others tomorrow. -Doug


The Legend of Time (2006)

A few posts down, I wrote about what proved to be my favorite film at PSIFF, Albert Serra’s Quixotic (Honor de Cavalleria), but Serra’s fellow Catalan filmmaker, Isaki Lacuesta, may have provided my second favorite film with this seemingly effortless, but enigmatic and deeply …

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Rossellini series and Tag Gallagher

Commentary, Special event

After a slow winter season for cinephiles in Los Angeles, the new Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum in Westwood–the site for UCLA Film & Television Archive screenings–is in full operation; that is, if you overlook the late film starts, the mistimed electronic subtitles, and the misplaced DVD remotes. (The inaugural screening of the Archive’s Roberto Rossellini series, Open City, was best by all these problems and more, which hardly diminished the exhilaration of seeing the film’s recently restored print.)

UCLA boasts an exciting March line-up that includes a lot of rare Rossellini titles (which, given the …

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Contemplative cinema and Honor of the Knights

Commentary, Film festival, Film review

“Contemplative cinema” is obviously a vague term. It could mean the kind of thought-provoking movies that essayists mine through lengthy analyses, or it could mean the exact opposite: films that resist conceptualization and push beyond words and thoughts toward silence and meditation. This second category of contemplative films is the hardest to describe. That’s not to say ideas can’t emerge, or that these films defy formal descriptions, only that engaging them is less about amassing their information and articulating their meanings than sharing their sights, sounds, and rhythms in deeply experiential ways.

I’m in my second or third day of …

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Animation Unlimited

Texts

Before heading off to the Palm Springs film festival, I thought I’d post a collection of links I’ve amassed inspired by a book I recently received: Animation Unlimited: Innovative Short Films Since 1940. It’s a large, glossy paperback published in the UK in 2003 that features short write-ups on 50 animators, over 500 color stills, and–best of all–a two-hour, region 2 DVD sampler containing 29 of the works (in part or in whole) that the authors cite.

I’m still exploring it, and so far I’ve been favoring non-digital work over digital entries (co-writer Liz Farber is a managing partner …

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2006 Top Ten: Older Films

Commentary, Film review


Top ten lists for new releases are sometimes a nice barometer of the state of the art, but often I’m much more interested in lists of older films. Aside from the obvious reasons (dude, the cinema’s over a hundred years old!), they’re usually comprised of better movies that are also more readily available on DVD, so they’re more useful as viewing guides. Secondly, they tell me what films are contributing to a critic’s (in the loosest sense of the word) current perceptions and judgments (or if they’re contributing at all). And finally, I simply spend a lot more time each …

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2006 Top Ten

Commentary, Film review


The Death of Mr. Lazarescu

Drawing up a list of favorite films each year can be a lengthy but illuminating task, especially for those of us lucky and/or obsessed enough to watch a lot of good movies; on a list of ten, one can easily spend more time deciding which films to exclude than include. This year was no exception; between large festivals and small ones, limited engagements, and wide releases, I spent innumerable hours immersed in fantastic cinema in 2006. But it deserves mentioning that Los Angeles remains by and large an industry town, and despite the efforts of …

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