Great Movies
Chaz's Journal
Introduction to Women Writers Week
An introduction to a week of content by talented women critics and contributors.
An introduction to a week of content by talented women critics and contributors.
The latest on Blu-ray and streaming, including Encanto, Eternals, House of Gucci, and Criterion editions of The Piano and Miller's Crossing.
Susan Wloszczyna predicts who will be named when Tuesday morning's 2022 Oscar nominations are announced.
An interview with writer/director Mike Mills about his new film, C'mon C'mon.
A look at the many black-and-white films that are a part of this year's award season, including this week's Belfast and Passing.
An article about the 57th Chicago International Film Festival, which runs Wednesday, October 13th, through Sunday, October 24th, and will host a fundraiser on Monday, September 13th.
Thoughts on three films from the unfolding Telluride Film Festival by Sean Baker, Mike Mills, and Joe Wright.
The latest on Blu-ray and streaming services, including "Paterson," "Silence" and "20th Century Women."
A piece from NYFF on the latest from James Gray, starring Charlie Hunnam, Sienna Miller and Robert Pattinson.
A review of Mike Mills' latest from the New York Film Festival.
An extensive preview of 50 films coming out within the next four months, from "Sully" to "Toni Erdmann."
It's a sunny, unseasonable 80 degrees as the 2012 Santa Barbara International Film Festival kicks in, but all I want is to be indoors. When you peer at a schedule listing nearly 200 films jammed into 10 days, and you just can't wait, you know you're an addict. This is my third SBIFF so I recognize the signs.
Suddenly each January, there's an extra bustle in this appealing, laid-back town. Downtown on lower State Street, trucks appear bearing vivid banners, soon to be festooned overhead. Special lights and rigging go up at 2 central venues - the precisely restored, historic Lobero and Arlington Theatres. Locals watch to see whether Festival Director Roger Durling changes his hair: one year it was spikey, another year purple. This time it's rather like Heathcliff - longer, romantic.
Marie writes: every once in a while, you'll stumble upon something truly extraordinary. And when you don't, if you're lucky, you have pals like Siri Arnet who do - and share what they find; smile."Using knives, tweezers and surgical tools, Brian Dettmer carves one page at a time. Nothing inside the out-of-date encyclopedias, medical journals, illustration books, or dictionaries is relocated or implanted, only removed. Dettmer manipulates the pages and spines to form the shape of his sculptures. He also folds, bends, rolls, and stacks multiple books to create completely original sculptural forms.""My work is a collaboration with the existing material and its past creators and the completed pieces expose new relationships of the book's internal elements exactly where they have been since their original conception," he says. - mymodernmet
[click images to enlarge]
Take a breath and be brave. Very, very brave.... smile....Behold the "Willis Tower" in Chicago (formerly the Sears Tower) - the tallest building in North America and its famous attraction, The Skydeck. In January 2009, the Willis Tower owners began a major renovation of the Skydeck, to include the installation of glass balconies, extending approximately four feet over Wacker Drive from the 103rd floor. The all-glass boxes allow visitors to look directly through the floor to the street 1,353 feet (412 m) below. The boxes, which can bear five short tons of weight (about 4.5 metric tons), opened to the public on July 2, 2009.
Marie writes: I love cinematography and worship at its altar; a great shot akin to a picture worth a thousand words. The best filmmakers know how to marry words and images. And as the industry gears up for the Golden Globes and then the Oscars, and the publicity machine starts to roll in earnest, covering the Earth with a daily blanket of freshly pressed hype, I find myself reaching past it and backwards to those who set the bar, and showed us what can be accomplished and achieved with light and a camera...
Cinematography by Robert Krasker - The Third Man (1949) (click to enlarge images)
