Film Journey – Page 60 – world cinema in Los Angeles and beyond

Star Spangled to Death

October 14, 2004 Doug Cummings Film review

Although Stan Brakhage died in 2003, another icon of Beat Generation experimental filmmaking, Ken Jacobs, has just released the latest iteration of his Star Spangled to Death, a fabled project he began in 1957 but didn’t complete, reworked as a performance piece in the ’70s, and decided to go ahead and finalize on digital video for last year’s New York Film Festival with new footage from the 2003 anti-war demonstrations in New York; my screening of it this week at the REDCAT theatre in L.A. included George W. Bush’s comments opposing an International Criminal Court during the presidential debate …

Latest Update…

October 7, 2004 Doug Cummings Uncategorized

I’m flattered to have just been invited to join Cinemarati: The Web Alliance for Film Commentary as a member critic. The organization is a “professional guild for film writers whose work appears primarily on the Web” that includes folks like my friend Acquarello of Strictly Film School and Ed Gonzalez of Slant. I’m looking forward to interacting with them.

Speaking of Acquarello, he’s starting his commentary for the New York Film Festival today, so keep an eye on his site; you won’t want to miss it.

And another friend, Mike Hertenstein, has begun adding some thoughtful reviews of …

Battle of Algiers DVD

October 7, 2004 Doug Cummings DVD review

What must surely be the best film (re)released in theatres this year has become what could also be the best single-title DVD package of the year, Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers (1966). The Criterion Collection doesn’t disappoint with its three discs of material and 55-page booklet to be released next Tuesday. I reviewed the film last January when it played on Los Angeles screens, so I’ll simply highlight the DVD extras that impressed me the most. In addition to the following four programs, the DVD includes a new 51-minute documentary on the making of the film, a collection of …

Nuri Bilge Ceylan

October 4, 2004 Doug Cummings Film review

The Small Town (Kasaba)

I try not to get too cynical about the cultural constraints enforced by popular film discussion, but here in Los Angeles, one of the NPR radio stations hosts a high-profile and thoroughly middlebrow program entitled Air Talk, which includes a weekly summary of opening movies called Film Week. The show’s faux-intellectual discourse wouldn’t bother me too much if it didn’t aggressively promote itself as the personification of cultural engagement. (“Join [host] Larry Mantle,” its website says, “weekdays at 10:00 a.m. for lively and in-depth discussion of city news, politics, science, entertainment, the arts …

OIAF, fest report

September 30, 2004 Doug Cummings Uncategorized

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post, Kevin Nikkel, an independent filmmaker living in Winnipeg, has submitted a festival report for OIAF and some of the best films he saw there. –Doug

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Dial ‘M’ for Monster

By Kevin Nikkel

Film festivals are strange things. I flew to Ottawa for the weekend to attend the now annual Ottawa International Animation Festival. Itís been a long time since I was in Canadaís capital. Itís always a treat wandering the streets of a city with a long history and lots of culture.

The festival took me by surprise in …

Ottawa IAF, critic-artist

September 29, 2004 Doug Cummings Uncategorized

Mr. Reaper’s Really Bad Morning

The Ottawa International Animation Festival, a very large and impressive event, concluded on Sunday and included several retrospectives (Hayao Miyazaki, Robert Breer, and others) and scores of new works. Two of those works involved Canadian friends of mine, John Torvi’s animation in Mr. Reaper’s Really Bad Morning (2004) and director Kevin Nikkel’s Dial ‘M’ for Monster (2004).

Kevin also attended a seminar entitled “Your Criticism Sucks!” Here is its description:

Is critical commentary of the animated film dead? Useless? There was a time when there was a vibrant, if small, voice for popular criticism