Category: Special event

“Those who had the least confidence in the future of the cinema were precisely the two industrialists Edison and LumiËre. . . . As for the real savants such as Marey, they were only of indirect assistance to the cinema. They had a special purpose in mind and were satisfied when they had accomplished it. The fanatics, the madmen, the disinterested pioneers, capable, as was Bernard Palissy, of burning their furniture for a few seconds of shaky images, were neither industrialists nor savants, just men obsessed by their own imaginings. The cinema was born from the converging of these various

The best thing to happen to the Los Angeles film scene in some time is the Los Angeles Film Critics Association’s “The Films That Got Away,” an ongoing series they’ve sporadically programmed at UCLA and the American Cinematheque. (Among the gems: Peter Watkins’ La Commune (Paris, 1871) and Godard’s Histoire(s) du cinÈma.) Maybe my expectations are impossibly high at this point, but the series’ latest installment–“The Animated Films That Got Away,” programmed this weekend at the Cinematheque–was somewhat disappointing.

It began Friday with a mediocre collection of shorts that, with the exception of FrÈdÈric Back’s All Nothing (1980), were …

The Los Angeles Film Festival–officially in its fourth year–is still finding its groove, but it’s improving. A few years ago, Chicago critic Roger Ebert called the Sundance Film Festival the “de facto Los Angeles film festival,” and said that as the world’s film center, Los Angeles needs a festival less than almost any other place in the world: “There’s no need for one in a town where every commercial release plays usually before it plays anywhere else.” Well sure, if all festivals do is premiere industry films; fortunately, festivals are where hundreds of international films that won’t ever play …

Things in Toronto I wish were in Los Angeles include heavy snow flurries, pedestrians who leisurely stroll through red light intersections and drivers who do not honk, Smarties chocolate candy, and most of all, the National Film Board’s Mediatheque.  Founded in 2002, the Mediatheque (150 John Street) is something like a cross between a theme park ride and a film archive.  It’s situated in a heavily pedestrian area across the street from a Paramount multiplex and it’s open every day of the week.

I stopped by yesterday and reserved one of their many “personal viewing stations” in the lobby: space-age looking …