(2006) dir. Paul Rachman
viewed: 02/25/07
The documentary American Hardcore is one of the latest attempts to capture music scenes of the 1980’s that I have seen recently. For me, this one held reasonably high interest because this was one of the musical forms that I first genuinely got into, though according to the documentary, my real [...]
Archive of entries posted on February 2007
American Hardcore
Jesus Camp
(2006) dir. Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady
viewed: 02/18/07
I wrote about this and then the blog thing published and didn’t get any of it.
I don’t have it in me to write it all again. Bottom line: Evangelical Christians represented in this film are self-righteous and hypocritical, and this film is a good reminder that this is still a [...]
Blow-Up
(1966) dir. Michelangelo Antonioni
viewed: 02/15/07
Before now, I had never seen an Antonioni film, even though he’s one of those big names in cinema, and this film, which I think was his biggest cross-over hit and was available readily on VHS even in the piddliest video stores in the 1980’s, I never saw it. I thought [...]
The Big Combo
(1955) dir. Joseph H. Lewis
viewed: 02/13/07
I had a friend who was bugging me for months to see this film. Then it came and played the Castro Theatre as part of their Noir City festival. And of course I missed it. And my friend pestered me again. So I queued it up in Netflix and got [...]
Visitor Q
(2001) dir. Takashi Miike
viewed: 02/12/07
Finally, a movie that shows how sex and violence can redeem the conventional family unit!
For Takashi Miike, probably the most prolific and bizarro director working today, this film is often referred to as his most extreme and taboo-rific work. Which is saying quite a lot. This film has all kinds of hilarious [...]
Pan’s Labyrinth
(2006) dir. Guillermo del Toro
viewed: 02/09/07 at CineArts @ the Empire Theater, SF, CA
I’d been wanting to see this movie for ages, even before it actually came out, but for some reason it took me a long, long time to finally get around to it. So, I left work a bit early on Friday and [...]
This Film Is Not Yet Rated
(2006) dir. Kirby Dick
viewed: 02/06/07
There is something sinister here, the MPAA, its secretive staff and policies that dictate the ratings that films get in the United States. And while theoretically this organization has no power to do anything in regards to legality, their endorsements (by means of ratings) influence the ability for films to be [...]
The Bad Sleep Well
(1960) dir. Akira Kurosawa
viewed: 02/04/07
Akira Kurosawa is one of the big names in cinema, very deservedly so. I had a professor at University who was highly critical of the archetypes that he created of the samuarais and the tone of Japanese-ness that became so broadly accepted as “truth” as Kurosawa’s films were the primary Japanese [...]
