A movie.
Just a Bunch of Footage
Security camera footage is not a movie, but screened at a film festival with a name like ‘Big Brother’s Kung Fu Grip’ (or some artsy crap) it is. Andy Warhol filming the Empire State Building for nine hours is a movie—the video the real estate agent showed you of the interior of the house on Maple is not. It’s all about context and intention.
Continue reading The Idea of What a Movie Is: A Very Greg Journey Through Film
As you can probably tell by my posts here so far, I don’t like many movies. Movies suck. But even an old curmudgeon like me can’t help but love Martin Scorsese.
Continue reading The Guy Who Made ‘Kundun’
Stone Reader
Written and Directed by Mark Moskowitz
127 min.
Mark Moskowitz could have easily just hired a private investigator and called it day. Thank god he decided to make a movie rather than just find someone.
Stone Reader is a documentary about a guy who reads a book, likes it a lot, and wants to read the author’s other work. He can’t find any, and decides to track down the author and find out why he never wrote anything else. This may seem like a pretty thin, simple premise, but the movie transcends that. It is literary, with a clear narrative and linearity, and it tackles an overall theme (that unfolds beautifully). Like a great novel, it also meanders—’hangs out’ and ebbs and flows. It’s a movie made by a writer-at-heart who just happens to be a filmmaker and not an author, and a wonderful journey that you can’t help but melt into.
Continue reading Stone Reader: This Review Does Not Contain Spoilers, Read It and Go Watch the Movie
Rob Fortucci, one of my best friends, commissioned this review. I met him in tenth grade—in film class, no less. First hour at Dwight D. Eisenhower High School, in affluent/middle class Shelby Township, Michigan.
By the time we met we had each already cultivated our respective cinephile statuses. Mine was completely traditional—my parents and grandparents are movie buffs and introduced me to all the kid-friendly classics, everything from Spielberg to Chaplin. At around 12, I started venturing out on my own into more ‘subversive’ territory, as one does. By the time I met Rob at 14, I was already a Kubrick, Scorsese, and Allen fanatic, and a true student of the 70’s and ‘golden age cinema’.
Continue reading Eventually, This Will Be a Review of the Movie ‘Husbands’ by John Cassavetes
Cody’s Oscar Thoughts:
I hate the god damn Oscars. Basically, for all the same reasons everyone hates the Oscars, so I don’t need to get into all that here. However, I still watch every year, because the tree of disgust for Hollywood must be refreshed from time to time by the blood of patriots. (I think Thomas Jefferson said that.)
Of what’s nominated, basically, Joaquin should win Best Actor (his acting in The Master is as good as acting can possibly get) Michael Haneke should win Best Director (I haven’t seen Amour yet, but the man can do no wrong, and fuck the Academy for snubbing The White Ribbon for Best Foreign Film a few years back) Amour should win Best Picture (because fuck you again) and Emmanuelle Riva should win best actress. (I’m sure she’s great in Amour. She’s a great actress. Léon Morin, Priest is like the greatest thing ever.)
Continue reading A Smug Film Bonus Post About the 2013 Oscars