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Peet Gelderblom directs, edits and develops commercials, TV programs and broadcast design in Amsterdam. His writing and graphic criticism can be found at Lost in Negative Space and 24LiesASecond.
The statement in the press release regarding the new Raconteurs album, Consolers of the Lonely, was telling in its word choice—the album's quick recording-to-release turnaround was designed so no one party would have the "upper hand"—but the quote wasn't attributed directly to Jack White. I assumed it came from him because it's consistent with his twitchiness and his authenticity fetish, but I suppose it's irrelevant exactly who made the statement; what's significant about it is the hardline defensiveness it reflects.
While I can't say that it's an attitude that's entirely on point with regard to the broad critical community (the underlying competition among the most high profile music blogs to stay several months ahead of an arbitrarily defined curve, which I would speculate is the source of defensiveness here, really came to a head during the pre-release hype for Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's first album and has only been scrutinized further thanks to Black Kids and Vampire Weekend), I also can't say that it's entirely unfounded. There is a definite impulse, as Ann Powers wrote in the Los Angeles Times last week, to be first, and a corresponding empowerment that accompanies it: Whether or not any one writer wants to admit to it, I like the idea that one of my reviews may have an impact on even one of the few people who read them. Continue Reading »
[Editor's Note: This is the latest entry in House contributor Kevin B. Lee's Shooting Down Pictures, a record of his ongoing quest to see every title on the list of the 1000 Greatest Films compiled by They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?]
George Armstrong Custer: courageous Civil War hero, honorable friend to Native Americans, steadfast lover and martyr to the sins of American avarice. One doesn't have enough fingers and toes to count the inaccuracies and distortions presented by Raoul Walsh of one of the most dubious heroes of the American West. But if one is looking for the quintessential Walshian hero - rambunctious and goal-driven to the point of heedlessness, charmingly mischievous yet chivalrous and principled - one needn't look further than here. A rare stab by the crime and action master at the prestige biopic, the film sustains energy throughout its two and a half hours thanks to energetic acting (especially by Flynn, in one of his best roles), a masterful shifting of moods (schoolboy comedy, tender romance, social drama, and of course action Western) that would make the likes of John Ford envious, and an awesome array of dynamic blocking, framing, camera movement and editing, most famously in the climactic enactment of the Battle of Little Big Horn, one of the landmark action scenes in Hollywood history, where the frame plays like an open hand closing into a fist, crushing the soldiers trapped within. On purely cinematic terms, the film is a masterpiece both on macro and micro levels, each scene captivating with lively, almost musical exchanges of dialogue and mise-en-scene, building to a story amounting to one man's massive thrust into destiny.
1. "African American filmmakers who seek to be next in line": A feature by Greg Braxton forthe L.A. Times on the perceived effects of Tyler Perry's movies.
["In fact, Perry's popularity—and the images he has presented, particularly Madea, the gun-toting, trash-talking grandmother portrayed by Perry wearing a dress and heavy makeup—has ignited a debate among participants and observers of the black film scene. If Lee laid the groundwork for a diverse army of black creators, then Perry has had the opposite effect, according to several experienced and aspiring African American filmmakers who want to tell dramatic, personal stories with complexity, and without bawdy humor, broad characters or facile resolutions. They contend they are all dressed up with no place to show, all but shut out by studios who have embraced the Perry formula, as well as comedies such as "Who's Your Caddy?" or the youth-oriented frolics "You Got Served," "Stomp the Yard" and "How She Move.""] Continue Reading »
1. "Jones/Kael": The thread on Nathan Lee at The Reeler is visited by Kent Jones, offering a lengthy riposte to a commenter who took issue with several of his statements on criticism and Pauline Kael. Scroll down the page to see his entry.
["I never realized that I'd destroyed Pauline Kael's cultural authority, let alone intended to do so. And just think: it was pointed out to me in a post about a writer who was just fired from his job, and who you wasted no time in denigrating. Do you really believe that I, or anyone else for that matter, is capable of lessening Pauline Kael's cultural authority, let alone destroying it? Find me a film critic who is more widely cited in the mainstream press and I'll send you all the money in my pocket. There are no entries on Andrew Sarris or Manny Farber in A Biographical Dictionary of Film. Louis Menand would never dream of writing a New Yorker piece on Stanley Kauffman. No one is quoted more frequently, and apart from James Agee no one else's writings have been so lovingly and exhaustively collected. Almost seven years after her death, she remains a powerful cultural force."] Continue Reading »
1. "Oliver Stone to begin shooting Bush film 'W.'": Stone! Bush! Brilliance!
["Like a bill being rapidly pushed through legislation, Oliver Stone's film about President George W. Bush is expected to begin shooting within a month with a goal toward being released before the president leaves office next January. A person close to the film, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because plans were still being formalized, said Stone's "W." will begin filming in late April in Shreveport, Louisiana. The Academy Award-winning director only began shopping his script for financing in January, but has quickly captured the interest of investors and Hollywood. Stone has said that the film, which will focus on the life and presidency of Bush, won't be an anti-Bush polemic, but, as he told Daily Variety, "a fair, true portrait of the man. How did Bush go from being an alcoholic bum to the most powerful figure in the world?""] Continue Reading »
[Editor's Note: This is the inaugural installment of a new House feature compiling links to reviews of new and recent theatrical films playing in North America. It is intended as a sampling of critical opinion and not a guide to theaters because, hey, it's a big world. If we've left out any titles, or if you'd like to call our attention to a noteworthy review, feel free to leave a comment below.] Continue Reading »
By John Lichman & Vadim Rizov
[Editor's Note: The views expressed in this podcast are those of the commenters, and do not necessarily reflect the official policies, positions, or opinions of The House Next Door.]
By Kevin B. Lee
[Editor's Note: These are the latest entries in House contributor Kevin B. Lee's Shooting Down Pictures, a record of his ongoing quest to see every title on the list of the 1000 Greatest Films compiled by They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?]
Perhaps I am willfully misreading through Bunuelian lenses, but I love how Claude Chabrol's wicked and ultimately haunting account of a marriage saved by murder implodes the middle class domestic mindset with its own politely repressed logic and values. And yet there's a line of thinking around this film that maintains the act of killing a wife's lover in order to impress her back into her marriage is presented by Chabrol with sincerity as justifiable, redemptive, even heroic.
Arguably the most celebrated of Chabrol's fifty-plus features is this romantic drama involving a rough but earnest butcher (Jean Yanne) and a lovely but aloof schoolmistress (Stephane Audran) amidst a series of unsolved murders afflicting their idyllic French village. I confess that I have fundamental reservations with a plot that has the viewer more concerned with the emotional claustrophobia of its two leads than with the innocent victims who serve as collateral damage for the unraveling of their relationship. But full credit goes to Chabrol for brilliantly employing a beguiling documentary realism that initiates the viewer in the comfortably unassuming atmosphere of the small town, shifting almost imperceptibly into a wildly expressive and emotional climax.
1. "Out of Print": The New Yorker's Eric Alterman on the death and life of the American newspaper.
["Philip Meyer, in his book "The Vanishing Newspaper" (2004), predicts that the final copy of the final newspaper will appear on somebody's doorstep one day in 2043. It may be unkind to point out that all these parlous trends coincide with the opening, this spring, of the $450-million Newseum, in Washington, D.C., but, more and more, what Bill Keller calls "that lovable old-fashioned bundle of ink and cellulose" is starting to feel like an artifact ready for display under glass."] Continue Reading »
By Vadim Rizov
[Editor's Note: "Indie 500", a look at the music scene past and present, is published every other Thursday, alternating with John Lichman's Japanese cinema/anime column, "Idiot Savant Japan."]
Until a week ago, I hated Willie Nelson. Please understand: from ages 6 to 18, I grew up in Austin, Texas. Austin is a lovely city, full of Tex-Mex food, a bastardized cuisine equal parts queso, spicy meats and Mexican staples whose equal I have yet to find in NYC. (Authentic Mexican, sure; the greasy, cheesy Texas version, not yet. Please advise.) It has the nicest weather in Texas, and since everyone has A/C, we get by, unlike New York's sweltering shit-heap apartments in the summer. It has pretty hipster boys and girls fighting for their turf across from aggrieved UT fratboys, and one of the most supportive scenes for film production in the country. Continue Reading »
"It's a neighborhood movie," says Jim Mickle, director of Mulberry Street. This gritty NYC horror film, set in a rickety apartment building on the lower east side, places its emphasis on the diverse, resilient locals who live there. Some of them have been tenants all their lives, and they all form a funny, wisecracking community of oddballs. There's Charlie (Larry Medich), the old guy who lives upstairs with his portable respirator, and Clutch (Nick Damici, who co-wrote the script with Mickle), a gruff but neighborly ex-boxer who has an unspoken affection for his upstairs neighbor, Kay (Bo Corre), a foreign woman who works at the bar down the street. Meanwhile, Clutch's daughter (Kim Blair) just got back into the city and is making her way from Harlem to the downtown area. They aren't caricatures, but lived-in, believable individuals—perhaps because they were based on some actual people that live upstairs from Dimici. Continue Reading »
1. Richard Widmark, 1914-2008. Obituaries and appreciations by Ed Copeland, Kim Morgan, House of Mirth and Movies, New York Times, Richard Corliss, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, London Times, Hollywood Reporter, Vince Keenan, Cinebeats, Screengrab.
[Corliss:"The gentleman was a goon....In the 1947 Kiss of Death, [Widmark] played the psychopathic Tommy Udo, maniacally giggling as he pushed a wheelchair-bound old lady down the cellar stairs to her death. This sort of violence, explosive and explicit, was startling in early postwar films, as were the insane delight glinting in the killer's eye, the sexual thrill in his catarrhal voice. But that was just acting—glorious acting—for Widmark was a well-liked, well-mannered, essentially private star, a gentleman of the old school."] Continue Reading »
An issue film that doesn't play like one, Foster Child hangs compellingly from the shoulders of its characters, and though the influence of the Dardennes is felt, director Brillante Mendoza doesn't aim for claustrophobic effect. Like Jeffrey Jeturian's The Bet Collector, part of this year's Global Lens series, the filmmaker's docu-realist gaze absorbs a Philippine community's way of life without prejudice or judgment, roving narrow streets and capturing seemingly unrehearsed episodes of joy and panic with equal fixation. Much of the movie consists of Thelma (Cherry Pie Picache) simply getting around town and doing the only thing she knows how: being a mother. Under her foster care is a strangely silent little boy named John-John (Kier Segundo), whom she tends to just as she would her own blood, feeding him, clothing him, and in one particularly expressive scene, bathing him until she makes the mistake of going to get a towel, thus allowing him to piss on the street and run off to get dirty again. The boy's seemingly uncontrollable need to urinate is a running gag as amusing as it is touching, and as in a scene where Thelma's son helps the boy aim his dingaling into a toilet bowl, the film attests to the role of motherhood in society and the way in which behavior is ingrained at an early age. The film's goodwill is only squandered once, when Mendoza condescends to Thelma's know-how when she walks into a pimped-out shower inside a luxe hotel room, all in the interest of expressing the differences between the haves and have-nots and point out the absurdity of a shower with too many knobs accomplishing just as much—if not less—than a bucket filled with water, but the focus he places on the bounty of family ritual is not easily forgotten, not unlike the final shot in the film, which literally and figuratively looks up to Thelma and the role she fulfills in her society.
By Steven Boone, Vadim Rizov, Andrew Schenker, Keith Uhlich, Zachary Wigon and Lauren Wissot
Introduction
Now in its 37th year, the annual New Directors/New Films series kicks off tonight with a screening of the Sundance Film Festival prizewinner Frozen River. The schedule for the following week-and-a-half (closing night: Sunday, April 6th) is an outwardly eclectic mix of subjects, though whispers from several festival-fatigued colleagues suggest there's a lot of same-ol'-same-ol' chaff among the needle-in-the-haystack wheat—a par for the course reaction as far as these things go, helpful only in pointing up the ease with which cinephilic passion becomes masochistic drudgery. I attended only three press screenings (one of these was for a film I had seen several times before), but that was enough to glean something of a linking theme: the symbolic weight of one's home/homeland, literally evident via the plantations that figure as central locales in Eat, for This Is My Body and Moving Midway, and more figuratively explored via the cluttered downtown Manhattan loft (a repository for several characters' perpetually resonant memories and inescapably present-tense hang-ups) in Momma's Man. Such an observation runs the risk of reducing the New Directors series to some kind of singular, bastardized essence. No doubt the many writers who contributed to this festival preview (heroes all of 'em) would beg to add their own perspective, and that they have done in the entries below (all told, eleven of the series' twenty-six features are reviewed). Consider the result less a consumer's guide than a signpost marking a moment—use our collected observations to journey where you will. (Keith Uhlich) Continue Reading »
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