Category: Commentary

Criticism: Food and Film

Commentary

The Pulitzer Prize for criticism was announced this week, and personally, I couldn’t be more delighted that for the first time in its history, it went to a restaurant critic: Jonathan Gold of the LA Weekly, whose “Counter Intelligence” column has served as my homing beacon for food exploration and discovery ever since I moved to Los Angeles about six years ago.

This is one of the world’s great culinary cities, not necessarily because of indigenous cuisines, but because of its authentic and multifaceted ethnic imports; my stomping grounds in the San Gabriel Valley, for example, are widely regarded …

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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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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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2005 Oscar nom’s

Commentary

Each Oscar-recognized country in the world is allowed to submit one film of its choosing to be considered for final nomination, and the results are in for 2005. What, you ask? It’s only October? True, but who takes this event–or this category–very seriously anyway? Still…some nice choices and some titles to keep an eye out for. –Doug

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Beverly Hills, CA ó A record fifty-eight countries from four continents, including new entrants Costa Rica, Fiji and Iraq, have submitted films for consideration in the Foreign Language Film Award category, Academy President Sid Ganis announced today.

The 2005 …

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