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Although Yasujiro Ozu (1903-1963) was one of the more popular filmmakers in Japan for decades, his work wasn’t widely distributed in the West until 1972, when Tokyo Story (1953) debuted at the New York Film Festival. Since that time, several somewhat daunting studies of Ozu’s work have been published in English (Paul Schrader’s Transcendental Style in Film, Donald Richie’s Ozu, David Bordwell’s Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema), more of his films have been released on video, and many of the filmmaker’s idiosyncratic films have gradually joined the ranks of the world’s most highly esteemed movies.

Just …

I’ve just spent the last few days enjoying the company of my Canadian friend, Candace, who alerted me to the unorthodox release of Mark Moskowitz‘s documentary, Stone Reader (2002), via Barnes & Noble’s exclusive distribution. Candace joined many critics in enthusiastically lauding the documentary after she recently encountered it at the Calgary International Film Festival, and last night a few of us got together and screened the new DVD.

The film is the debut feature of Moskowitz, an enthusiastic and driven creator of political commercials, part salesman and part investigative journalist. But he relegates his professional career to the …

Awful news from indieWIRE:

After six years in business, Cowboy Pictures has closed its doors. The New York based indie distribution company, which was founded by John Vanco and Noah Cowan, recently let go of its employees and last week filed for bankruptcy. Greg Williams and his Lot 47 team joined Cowboy at its Laight St. offices this summer and he remains with Lot 47 following a split with Vanco and Cowboy.

“We’ve had a great run and I’m extremely proud of the wonderful films we’ve brought to audiences across North America,” said Vanco. “Cowboy could have never grown

There’s always a bit of tension as movie studios release film classics on DVD. The technology should offer an ideal introduction to the films if a 35mm print isn’t handy–I mean, the resolution and freeze frame capabilities and multiple, removable subtitles, CD-quality sound, and special features are always trumpeted any time Digital Versatile Discs are ever mentioned, right?

Unfortunately, studios often don’t treat the classics with the care they deserve and cinephiles are inevitably caught in a Catch-22: do we recommend these discs because the films are landmark works of art and we hope to support their availability, or do …

Just a few updates today:

ïYes, Robert Bresson’s Au hasard Balthazar has finally opened at the Film Forum in New York and I can’t wait for its release in Los Angeles on December 12. In the meantime, check out J. Hoberman’s review here (“Robert Bresson puts the ass in classic with his 1966 masterwork about a saintly donkey”).

Dave Kehr offers a brief interview with its lead actress, a nonprofessional who grew up to be an author, here. An excerpt:

“When I first met [Bresson], I was very much impressed and fell very much under his charm,” Ms. Wiazemsky

On Monday, National Public Radio featured a story on Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, whose latest film, Crimson Gold, has screened at the New York Film Festival this week. It has inspired comparisons to Panahi’s earlier accomplished and searing social critique, The Circle (2000), in part because both films were banned in his native country.

But Panahi didn’t attend NYFF this year. The last time he bothered visiting American soil, he was arrested and chained to a wooden bench at JFK airport for sixteen hours for being an Iranian citizen and refusing to be fingerprinted and photographed for US …