Week in Review 10.09.09

No one in the cinephile community lambasted us for last Friday’s Polanski potshot, which leads us to believe that no one reads this site.  Or maybe no one reads us because of it.  Either way, this week we read some pretty good stuff ourselves:

• The Deep Morals of Inglourious Basterds [Senses of Cinema]
• Revisiting a Cinematic Smackdown in Views From the Avant-Garde… [NYTimes]
• Film shows how newspaper family ‘invented’ Los Angeles [CNN.com]
• Pleasures Of The Farber [Some Came Running]
• Public domain collection of film noir at Archive.org [Boing Boing]
• Spike Jonze: Still a Skate Kid at Heart [The L Magazine]
• Besotted with Stars: The Problem with Wall-E [The House Next Door]

Week in Review 10.02.09

Let’s see, what big cinephile news was there this week?  Something… Oh, yeah, Roman Polanski.  And Roman Polanski.  And then some.  We’re avoiding this debate as much as possible because there’s not much else to say about it.  (And last we checked, when you plead guilty to a crime and flee the country before sentencing, you’re breaking a law.)  Read or watch something interesting to avoid all that nonsense:

• The uses of sacrilege: On Von Trier, Tarkovsky, and “Antichrist” [Some Came Running]
• First proper trailer for first Russian anime FIRST SQUAD [Twitch]
• Uwe Boll and Tim League Fix The Falling Sky With Physical Violence [SpoutBlog]
• Paris Journal, September-October 1972 [Jonathan Rosenbaum]
• Can the Muppets Make Friends in Ramallah? [New York Times]
• The Making of Fantastic Mr. Fox [Wired]
• A Serious Man – Calls to God: Always a Busy Signal [New York Times]

Week in Review 08.28.09

To us, the biggest story this week by a long shot was LACMA’s announcement that its long-standing weekend film program will live on. Big ups to the big donors and to the grassroots effort that helped fuel this victory.  Of course, now all you Angelenos have to attend the series or else you’re a bunch of damn hypocrites.

• $150,000 pledged to save LACMA film program [LA Times Culture Monster]
• LACMA and the Crisis of Repertory Cinema Advocacy [motion within motion]
• Thomas Edison by Jonathan Lethem [A New Literary History of America]
• Movie Critics Vs. The Audience [Forbes.com]
• Eclipse Series 17:Nikkatsu Noir [Criterion's The Current]

Week in Review 08.21.09

Nothing makes our day like a beef between film critics, except maybe a beef between fanboys and film critics.  Fortunately for us, Armond White recently inspired both.  The showdown over District 9, a.k.a. White v. Fanboys v. Ebert v. Rotten Tomatoes, was a saga that laid bare White’s absurdly contrary nature, the lack of critical thought in fanboys, and the ludicrous bean counting of Rotten Tomatoes.  Mr. Ebert was unfortunately caught in the crossfire with his pants down.  Below are some of our favorite links from that saga:

• From Mothership to Bullship [NY Press] Don’t miss the comments!
• Not in defense of Armond White [Roger Ebert's Journal]
• Armond White Is Insane [Wes Lawson]
• Question of the day: Is Armond White a troll? [IMDB]
• Armond White and the art of trolling. [IFC.com Indie Eye]
• How Rotten Tomatoes has changed film criticism. [IFC.com Indie Eye]

Just for fun, also be sure to check out What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Movies, an older piece wherein White thumbs his nose at critics who think with their, uh, thumbs.

Week in Review 08.14.09

There was less time for reading this week because, if you must know, Lewis is writing a new novel and Tony is looking for a job.  (Which are kind of like the same thing, no?)  Still, some good stuff out there…

• Sincerely, John Hughes [We'll Know When We Get There]
• A la recherche de Luc Moullet: 25 Propositions [Jonathan Rosenbaum]
• A Canon With More Cannons [GreenCine Daily]
• Young and dumb versus old and in the way [Some Came Running]
• The future king of Japanese animation may be with us [The Japan Times Online]

Finally, if you haven’t already done so, please sign the online petition to save the film program at LACMA.

Week in Review 08.07.09

Big news this week included the tragic passings of Budd Schulberg and John Hughes, titans of very different generations, as well as the exciting announcement of A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips as the new hosts of TV’s At the Movies.

• Gotham in wartime: Skirball will screen 1943 Batman this Sunday [Hero Complex]
• A.O. Scott, Michael Phillips to Take Over ‘At the Movies’ [NYTimes ArtsBeat]
• A new Joseph Goebbels film? [SpoutBlog]
• Werner Herzog’s Lost Bad Lieutenant Journals [Vanity Fair]
• Notes of a Seidl sceptic [Some Came Running]
• TV News and the Myth of Public Opinion (Kinsley vs. Borneman) [Jonathan Rosenbaum]
• Dirk Bogarde on LSD [TCM Movie Morlocks]

Week in Review 07.31.09

The best cinephile news of the week came via Twitter, when blogger extraordinaire David Hudson resurfaced, transposing his indispensable Daily format to Twitter via @theauteurs.  Now we don’t have try so hard to keep up because Mr. Hudson will do all the work for us!

• Introducing The Auteurs Daily [The Auteurs]
• List-o-Mania, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love American Movies [Jonathan Rosenbaum]
• Corner: G.I. Joe Movie Not American Enough [Huffington Post]
• Japanese Monsters [Cracked.com]
• Manifesto by Jean Douchet [Cinemasparagus]
• Like Torture? New Vegas Attraction Offers Real-Life ‘Saw’ Experience [Cinematical]
• The MPAA Wants To Shoot Themselves [A.V. Club]

Two Weeks in Review 07.24.09

It’s been a slow two weeks for us in terms of online reading, what with catching up on the print version of Film Comment and moping about not attending Comic-Con.  Here are the highlights:

• Why La Dolce Vita and Jules et Jim are among the worst best films ever made
• Reinventing the Superhero for Bollywood
• Wonderfully absurd escapes from mortal danger in the original G.I. Joe cartoon
• Introducing: The Greensters
• As the Hollywood machine abandons L.A., its supporting workers struggle
• SHADOW OF A DOUBT: Lucrecia Martel interviewed by Amy Taubin

Week in Review 07.10.2009

Here’s a sample of what we’ve been reading lately, between vacationing and general summer laziness:

• The Ethics of Video Exclusives, Embedding, and the Future of Online Film Journalism
• 80s Action Movie Cliches: The Witty Retort
• Upskirts for Christ: A Discussion About “Love Exposure”
• Movie Review – ‘Dead Snow’: A Scandinavian Splatterfest, Relishing Its Cliches
• ‘Conquest of the Useless,’ by Werner Herzog – First Chapter Excerpt
• A Journey Round My Skull: Forgotten Illustrator – Jiri Trnk
• Future of the Web: I Want My WebTV

Week in Review 06.12.2009

A bit of what we read, watched, and clicked this week:

• Low Key Sci-Fi: “Moon” Nails Genre’s Appeal — Indiewire
• Capital, it fails us now: “The Wages Of Fear” in the post-imperial age — The Auteurs
• Twitch – Get it while it’s hot! Promo reel for the Korean-Kiwi martial arts western ‘The Warriors Way’
• Someecards for Cinephiles
• An Eternal Thought in the Mind of Godzilla: Wolfguy — Enraged Wolfman – 1975 – Sonny Chiba
• Drag Me to Hell – Don’t lose your head – Features, Films – The Independent
• The Reality of Reality TV: It’s Acting, Court Rules – NYTimes.com
• Hollywood’s Blurb Search Reaches the Blogosphere – NYTimes.com
• Food Party – Original Series – On Air – IFC.com
• Chow Down: Robert Kenner’s ‘Food, Inc.’ – indieWIRE

Check out more of our links on del.icio.us.