Link Round-Up: New Views

I promise to get better at updating this quicker so anyone who wants to know what I'm doing will not be confused. So here we go.

I am now writing for Variety. Yes, *that* Variety. I am honored to join a team that includes Scott Foundas, Peter Debruge, and Justin Chang leading the charge, among many others. I'll have a few reviews in the month of February, but for now my first piece is on Freezer, a not so good movie about Dylan McDermott trapped in a freezer. Gotta start somewhere.

Were you looking for my Top 10 films of 2013? I talked about my choices with Keith Uhlich on The Cinephiliacs, which you can listen to both Part 1 and Part 2. My choices also come in a list-handy form on Letterboxd.

Thief came out on Blu-Ray via The Cirterion Collection, so I wrote about how Thief is still pretty awesome over at The Film Stage. I also edited this fantastic conversation on the film between Jordan Cronk and Nick Usen at To Be Cont'd.

Jean-Claude Van Damme re-teamed with Peter Hyams for Enemies Closer. Could have been better, but not the worst way to spend January at the movies. I reviewed over at In Review Online.

On The Cinephiliacs: Noah Isenberg, the author of the recent biography on Edgar Ulmer, and former Film Society of Lincoln Center slash New York Film Festival programmer Richard Pena. Both are excellent listens.

On Letterboxd...The Wolf of Wall Street, Dangerous Game, Chaplin's A Day's Pleasure, Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre, Howard Hawks's Red Line 7000 and The Big Sky, Cukor's The Women, Wellman's Lady of Burlesque, The Freshman starring Harold Lloyd, The Color Wheel, Shanghai Express, Hong Sang-Soo's In Another Country, Arthur Penn's The Chase, The Typhoon with Sessue Hayakawa, Aldrich's Emperor of the North, and Minnelli's Gigi.

I finished my graduate degree. More TK on what follows.

Link Round-Up: Year End

Some final posts and catch up before 2014 takes over, which will have much more exciting information in the future...

Firstly: Above is a copy of my piece that appeared in the 50th issue of Little White Lies. Each writer was given a random year and chosen to write about one shot from that year. I went with the final shot of Abbas Kiarostami's Through the Olive Trees. You can find LWL at some major bookstore retailers or subscribe to the magazine here. 

I also contributed to LWL's "Perfect Day 2013," in which I programmed a perfect day of film watching based on four 2013 films and one 2013 repertory release. Read that here.

For In Review Online, I wrote about Asghar Farhadi's new film, The Past, which is his quite striking and beautiful follow up to A Separation. I also burbled Andrew Bujalski's Computer Chess for the site's Top 20 films of 2013.

Speaking of 2013 lists, my own will be part of an upcoming two part Cinephiliacs show with Keith Uhlich. If you cannot wait, you can see a preliminary list of some of my favorite films, performances, and undistributed films at Indiewire among other categories.

You can also pick up the latest episodes of The Cinephiliacs, which have included Imogen Sara Smith on In A Lonely Place, Nellie Killian on Five Year Diary, and Genevieve Yue on Cafe Lumiere. Lots of goodies in those discussions.

Upcoming on Masters of Cinema are booklets for William Wellman's Wings and Sidney Lumet's Serpico. You can currently pre-order both, but look for more information here on what goodies can be expected.

On Letterboxd: Lots of goodies (and a few baddies) have gotten words from me...

For 2013: American Hustle, Oldboy, Gravity, 12 Years a Slave, I Used to Be Darker, It's a Disaster, and Gold.

Howard Hawks: His Girl Friday, The Dawn Patrol, Air Force, and A Song Is Born.

Canonical Films: Providence, Manila in the Claw of Light, Arabian Nights, L'Intrus, News From Home.
 
And some esoterica: Smile, Freedom, Rapado, Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean.

November Screening Log

Color coded via Dan Sallitt's method (Current or upcoming releases not included). Click on the titles to writing when applicable.

1.  Chimes at Midnight (Welles, France/Spain, 1965).
2.  In the Mouth of Madness (Carpenter, USA, 1994)
3.  Red Line 7000 (Hawks, USA, 1965)
4.    Shanghai Express (Von Sternberg, USA, 1932)
5.   The Freshman (Newmeyer and Taylor, USA, 1925)

Also Notable (No order besides color categorization): Emperor of the North (Aldrich, USA, 1973), Dangerous Game (Ferrara, USA, 1993), The 'Burbs (Dante, USA, 1989), Nosferatu The Vampyre (Herzog, Germany, 1975), In Another Country (Hong, South Korea, 2012), The Big Sky (Hawks, USA, 1952), Batang West Side (Diaz, Philipines/USA, 2001)

Rewatches: Tokyo Story (Ozu, Japan, 1953), The Color Wheel (Perry, USA, 2011), Southland Tales (Kelly, USA, 2006), In a Lonely Place (Ray, USA, 1950)

Link Round-Up: The End is Nigh

Besides some writing on Letterboxd and maybe a blog post, expect this to be the last work you'll see from me until late December—my thesis is due December 12th, and my PhD applications before that, so I'll be working on those day and night until then. You'll still get podcasts (I think), or at least they are in the pipeline, but for now...

Three more episodes of The Cinephiliacs went up in October: you had the final NYFF report with Tony Dayoub talking about big hitters like 12 Years a Slave, Blue is the Warmest Color, Her, The Immigrant, and more. Then there's an episode with Craig Simpson from the Indiana University archives talking about Welles, Pauline Kael, and Paris, Texas. Finally, there's a roundtable episode of the show on the occasion of what would have been Andrew Sarris's 85th Birthday. The roundtable includes past guests like Dan Sallitt, David Schwartz, and Godfrey Cheshire. So head on over and take a listen.

In terms of written work, I took another dive at Blue is the Warmest Color and reviewed it for In Review Online, and then my contribution to scary movies was a piece for The Film Stage on the release of two new Criterions: Lewis Allen's The Uninvited and Michelangelo Antonioni's La Notte (the worst horror is marriage). 

On Letterboxd, my piece on The Counselor got some buzz, so much that Critcwire guru Sam Adams chose it along with a piece by Keith Uhlich on 12 Years a Slave to highlight. Thanks Sam! Otherwise: I also wrote about...A Girl In Every Port, The Big Sleep, Pulse, Club Sandwich, I No Longer Hear the Guitar, HaHaHa, The Chase, I Used to Be Darker, All is Lost, and La Chembre. 

October Screening Log

Color coded via Dan Sallitt's method (Current or upcoming releases not included). Click on the titles to writing when applicable.

1.    Only Yesterday (Stahl, USA, 1933)
2.    The Dawn Patrol (Hawks, USA, 1930)
3.    Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (Altman, USA, 1982)
4.    Manila in the Claw of Light (Brocka, Philippines, 1975)
5.   L'Intrus (Denis, France, 2004)
6. Arabian Nights (Pasolini, Italy, 1974)
7. La Notte (Antonioni, Italy, 1961).
8.   La Chembre (Akerman, Belgium/USA, 1972)
9.    A Song Is Born (Hawks, USA, 1948)
10. Providence (Resnais, France, 1971) 

No Placement Because I Have No Idea What To Do With This Yet: Historie(s) Du Cinema (Godard, France, 1988-1998)

Also Notable (No order besides color categorization): Smile (Ritchie, USA, 1975), Air Force (Hawks, USA, 1948), La Libertad (Alonso, Argentina, 2001), The Chase (Ripley, USA, 1946), Hail Mary (Godard, France, 1985), The Book of Mary (Meiville, France, 1985), Rapado (Rejtman, Argentina, 1992), The Uninvited (Allen, USA, 1944), Hotel Monterey (Akerman, France, 1972), News from Home (Akerman, France, 1977)

Rewatches: His Girl Friday (Hawks, USA, 1946), Paris, Texas (Wenders, Germany/USA, 1984).

Masters of Cinema, Red River, and Me

Big News! I am pleased to announce that I'm joining the team at Masters of Cinema to be a occasional booklet editor. What is Masters of Cinema, you say? In short, they are the "Criterion Collection" of the United Kingdom, and have put out many of the same films with the highest quality transfers. They've also put out things you can't get in the United States, like Le Pont Du Nord, Van Gogh, and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, and then they've done releases for major works like Lang's M, Ozu's Floating Weeds, The Blue Angel, and next year Computer Chess! (you can see a full list here). More than that, each booklet is more than just an essay, but a collection of canonical articles, interviews, and rare photos to go with it. The upcoming Mizoguchi box set, for example, has a booklet that runs 344 pages!

My first big project, as it turned out, happened to be a favorite: Howard Hawks's Red River. It's an excellent transfer of this amazing film, and the booklet I edited includes essays by Andrew Sarris and Suzanne Liandrat-Guigues, plus interviews with editor (and The Thing credited director) Christian Nyby and writer Borden Chase. The Blu-Ray also features a video conversation with two of my favorite cinephiles: Dan Sallitt and Jaime Christley. Finally, I have a small essay in the booklet as well, talking about the differences between the now canonical Book Version and the rarer, hard to find Voice Version. 

Anyways, major thanks to Craig Keller for bringing me on the team—it's a total honor to work with and investigate these fantastic films and bring them all to you. As a treat to get you all excited, one of the things I pulled during my archival research was The Chisholm Trail, the original short story by Borden Chase that ran in the Saturday Evening Post starting on December 7, 1946. We didn't have room for it in the book, and since it is now out of copyright, I am presenting the first part here for your reading enjoyment—the second chapter should be especially interesting for fans of the film, as it paints Joanne Dru's Tess in a very different light. Enjoy!

September Screening Log

Color coded via Dan Sallitt's method (Current or upcoming releases not included). Click on the titles to writing when applicable. (A smaller list that usual, mainly because New York Film Festival means I didn’t screen that many repertory titles as usual; and I’m a bit behind in writing about each as well for the same reason).

1.    The Rapture (Tolkin, USA, 1991)
2.    Hahaha (Hong, South Korea, 2010)
3.    Pulse (Kurosawa, Japan, 2001)
4.    I No Longer Hear the Guitar (Garrel, France, 1991)
5.    Written on the Wind (Sirk, USA, 1956)
6.    A Girl In Every Port (Hawks, USA, 1928)
7.    The River (Renoir, France/India, 1951)
8.    Twixt (Coppola, USA, 2011)
9.    Il Grido (Antonioni, Italy, 1957)
10. “The Chinese Fan” The Active Life of Dolly of the Dailies (Edwin, USA, 1914)

Also Notable (No order besides color categorization): Russian Ark (Sukurov, Russia, 2002), Never Fear (Lupino, USA, 1949), The Cradle Snatchers (Hawks, USA, 1927), The Spoilers (Enright, USA, 1942), Upstream (Ford, USA, 1928), Trent’s Last Case (Hawks, USA, 1928), The White Shadow (Cutts, United Kingdom, 1924), Autumn Sonata (Bergman, Sweden, 1978), Fig Leaves (Hawks, USA, 1926), Paid To Love (Hawks, USA, 1927).

Rewatches: Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, Japan, 1954), M (Lang, Germany, 1931), The Big Sleep (Hawks, USA, 1946).

Link-Round Up: Looking Forward - Traveling Back

My favorite event of the year, the New York Film Festival, begins today with the world premiere of Captain Phillips. That one is a little wonky (more TK maybe Update: here on Letterboxd), but many of the other selections are not - in fact they're masterful. So for another year, I'll be covering them for The Cinephiliacs as well as a couple other places as well. Check out the first episode of these with In Review Online correspondent Carson Lund, as we discuss new films from Jia Zhangke, Lav Diaz, Hayao Miyazaki, Hong Sang-Soo (my first!), and the Harvard SEL! 

Also, over at The Film Stage, I get philosophical in discussing film history in relation to a fantastic new DVD from the National Film Preservation Foundation, a collection of New Zealand silent film treasures, including Graham Cutt's The White Shadow (written by Alfred Hitchcock) and John Ford's Upstream. There's also an ostrich carriage, which I sadly forgot to mention in the piece. You can read that here.

Some recent Letterboxd stuff is limited to some Howard Hawks silents: Fig Leaves, The Cradle Snatchers, and Fazil.

June Screening Log

Color coded via Dan Sallitt's method (Current or upcoming releases not included). Click on the titles to writing when applicable.

1. The Son (Dardennes, Belgium, 2002)

2. Tokyo Twilight (Ozu, Japan, 1957)

3. Hatari! (Hawks, USA, 1962)

4. Trail of the Vigilantes (Dwan, USA, 1940)

5. Umberto D (De Sica, Italy, 1952)

6. Manhandled (Dwan, USA, 1924)

7. Early Summer (Ozu, Japan, 1951)

8. Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (Ozu, Japan, 1952)

9. One Mile From Heaven (Dwan, USA, 1937)

10. Drunken Master II (Lau, Hong Kong, 1994)

Also Notable (No order besides color categorization): Paris Belongs To Us (Rivette, France, 1959), Record of a Tenement Gentleman (Ozu, Japan, 1947), The Munektata Sisters (Ozu, Japan, 1950), Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn (Meyers, USA, 1982), Birth (Glazer, USA, 2004), The Only Son (Ozu Japan, 1936), A Modern Musketeer (Dwan, USA, 1917), There Was a Father (Ozu, Japan, 1942), Stage Struck (Dwan, USA, 1925), Frontier Marshall (Dwan, USA, 1938), Brewster's Millions (Dwan, USA, 1945), They All Lie (Piñeiro, Argentina, 2009) Late Autumn (Ozu, Japan, 1960), Police Story 3: Supercop (Chan, Hong Kong, 1992), The Restless Breed (Dwan, USA, 1957), Driftwood (Dwan, USA, 1947), Rosalinda (Piñeiro, Argentina, 2010), Impolex (Perry, USA, 2009), The Iron Mask (Dwan, USA, 1929), Rendezvous With Annie (Dwan, USA, 1946), Dragnet Girl (Ozu, Japan, 1933), The Stolen Man (Piñeiro, Argentina, 2007), An Autumn Afternoon (Ozu, Japan, 1962)

Interlude: The Limits of Control?

            My occasional Twitter pal Richard Brody has a nice post up in regards to the Sight & Sound poll, remarking on the fact that many films are by directors with complete control of the camera as opposed to looser filmmakers. He writes:

The prominence of films by of Stanley Kubrick (“2001” at number six), Francis Ford Coppola and Andrei Tarkovsky (three each), and Akira Kurosawa (two); the relative absence of Italian neo-realism (“Bicycle Thieves” at thirty-three, “Voyage to Italy”—if that counts—at forty-one); and, in general, the lack of movies where the strings seem looser (e.g. John Cassavetes, Elaine May) indicates that directorial control freaks have a higher standing among the voters than those whose movies reflect heads-up curiosity, spontaneity, and responsiveness to unexpected discovery.

            Richard is certainly right – Vertigo is dominated by Hitchcock’s precision in every frame, as is The Searchers and Tokyo Story and 2001 – and I too lament the absent of Rio Bravo, or anything by Howard Hawks for that matter. But I think to call these films lacking in unexpected discoveries might be a little too mischievous. Part of this might be due to the fact that Richard is a better critic than I’ll ever be – nothing misses his eyes or ears, while sometimes I need repeat viewings to fully take in some films. That’s what happened when I re-watched Vertigo two weeks ago, and I noticed, on my tenth viewing of the film, that Scottie is not the real name of Jimmy Stewart’s character, but instead it is Johnny (or “Johnny-O” as Midge calls him, which reminded me of Roger O. Thornhill – The O stands for nothing, he tells us – in North by Northwest). 

In Praise of Andrew Sarris

            During my sophomore year of college, I signed up for a class on Howard Hawks. I hadn’t cared for Hawks much before—I liked some of his films, but they didn’t strike me as masterpieces (naivety is the basis of youth). Instead I signed up for the class for another reason: Andrew Sarris. For someone who had only minimal exposure to film criticism at the time, there were only a few names I knew (Pauline Kael wasn’t even one of them). 

            Even before I studied cinema, Sarris (who sadly passed away today) already had influenced my cinephile brain without me even knowing who he was. I was watching films because they were directed by a certain person. I was making connections between the works of John Ford and Orson Welles. The way a kid like me watched films was you’d try and watch three or four by one great director, just so you could have taste. And then you could figure out the grand statement. Ford was about the changing American landscape from individualism to society. Kuorsawa’s films explored the possibility of empathy. And so on and so on.

            But Hawks was tricky. He worked in every genre possible. His films, at least to the untrained eyes, lacked the visual dynamics that the other canonical Hollywood directors showed off (actually to think of it, would there be a canon of Hollywood directors without Sarris?). If I waited a year, Sarris would teach Hitchcock, a director everyone loves. But I wanted a challenge; I wanted to see Hawks the same way Sarris saw him.