Author Archive
by Vadim Rizov on October 31st, 2011 at 9:55 pm in Books
Most reviews of The Pale King followed the same wary pattern: an acknowledgment of David Foster Wallace's seemingly unstoppable posthumous ascent in the literary firmament, a list of traits commonly held against the author (sentence length, infinite spirals of neurotically involuted thought, a socioeconomic milieu and cast of characters mostly limited to the first-world problems of the white American middle-class), a carefully measured evaluation of the book as worthy yet flawed, a mention of his suicide, a cursory notice of his recently published modal philosophy thesis. No one wants to be the person declaring war on the recently, tragically dead (except for those who do; more in a second), yet these sympathetic-minded reviews seem flawed and unhelpful, leaving two questions unaddressed: what does it mean to be a DFW fan, and (how) does that affect The Pale King's stand-alone literary value?
One of the quickest ways to voice doubts about DFW's legacy and skill is to remind people that his work is long, demanding and—the most commonly trotted-out detail—contains sentences that can be three pages long. "Ah-ha!" cries the skeptic. "This may be all good for me, but a three-page long sentence? What gives? Is such indulgence really necessary" This is where DFW's famously anal-retentive attitude towards grammar and syntax comes in handy: assuming you have the attention span to read three pages in one go, these famous behemoth sentences aren't hard to read. Every clause logically follows the preceding one, everything clicks: you don't look up after those three damnable three pages and wonder what just happened. Continue Reading »
Tags: Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, David Foster Wallace, Geoff Dyer, Girl With Curious Hair, Infinite Jest, John Jeremiah Sullivan, Michael Pietsch, The Pale King
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Hello Lincolnton, North Carolina!
The summer keeps going as we talk shop with Robert Greene and his new documentary Fake It So Real, which opens tomorrow at Rooftop Films in Brooklyn with a special post-screening wrestling match. We talk a bit about his previous doc, Kati with an I, and delve a bit into wrestling terminology just to make Vadim's eyes gloss over like a good mark would.
Then we go into a minor spoiler about the film, which you'd otherwise never learn; the cinema of grown men slapping each other around; and the rather intimate presentation that Greene brings to the week-in-the-life of this cultural event that is slowly becoming more and more commercial despite the local roots of the thing. I'd also add [INSERT COMMENTARY ABOUT INDEPENDENT FILM AND WRESTLING HERE]. It's very apt, no? But we go into the day-to-day of these men who want nothing more than a chance to break into an industry dominated by a single conglomerate (WWE) that does get name-checked—and has been in the news recently as one of their more high profile stars audibly broke character and then left.
So head out tomorrow to catch a screening AND a wrestling bout at the Crown Vic in Brooklyn and keep track of Fake It screenings here.
And with that, the Grassroots podcast goes on hiatus as we deal with other things like the summer heat wave, possibly going to Cape Cod for a while and sitting in Film Forum for the remainder of the Pre-Code series. As always, if you see us at the bar, buy us a drink or get us our checks on time. Cheers! (JL) Continue Reading »
Tags: Fake It So Real, Kati with an I, Lichman and Rizov "Live" at Grassroots Tavern, Robert Greene, Rooftop Films
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Hello Demons!
Our first of order of business—can you find the moment where I flubbed the original recording and had to do a hard audio edit? If you can, the winner gets to buy me a Brooklyn Lager at Grassroots during Happy Hour!
But more importantly, after we discussed basketball, we brought Michael Tully back to talk in depth about his—technically—third feature, Septien, which opens tomorrow at BAMcinemaFest and in New York and Los Angeles on July 6. So there's a whole bunch of technical stuff we could go into—technically I work for Tully doing HammerToNail on VOD stuff every month, we've had Tully on this podcast almost three times prior, etc etc. But let's face it, to ignore Septien as a film is to bury one's head in the sand and claim there's nothing interesting playing this summer. But first and foremost, what went into Septien? We tackle that, along with The Land of Bad Ideas, which will be on the film's DVD.
As always, if you see us at the bar or BAM buy us a drink! Continue Reading »
Tags: BAMcinemaFest, Lichman and Rizov "Live" at Grassroots Tavern, Michael Tully, Septien
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Hello Atlantic Avenue!
We're back with episode 3—which you're going to hear first due to timeliness before Episode 2—and are joined at Grassroots Tavern by Alex Ross Perry, director of The Color Wheel, which premieres this Sunday at BAMcinemaFest. This is the second time we've had Perry on (the first for his feature Impolex, which you can download here) and we even allow him the distinct honor of rating us via the Pitchfork Scale.
But we do go into the nature of awkward party scenes, obscure references thanks to Chris "Wheels" Wells and a little into the Shaw Brothers' The Boxer's Omen. Regardless listen onward, mind the spoilers toward the end and do your damndest to get tickets to this Sunday's screening. If you don't, the gargoyles will cry and the dolphins will smile.
As always, if you see us at the bar or at the BAM, buy us a drink! Or a ticket! Or a meal! please. Continue Reading »
Tags: Alex Ross Perry, C. Mason Wells, Lichman and Rizov "Live" at Grassroots Tavern, Shaw Brothers, The Boxer's Omen, The Color Wheel
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The True/False Film Festival in Columbia, Missouri completed its eighth year last weekend, and that title as a terse talking point is only more and more pervasive. At this very moment, a class-action lawsuit against Catfish demands to know what was staged and what was real (true/false indeed). This question of how to approach the many hybrid documentaries rising up has preoccupied film writers for the last year, leading to a mind-numbing, redundant slew of essays on the subject. (Full disclosure: I was supposed to speak on a panel about this and almost completely missed it, so the notes below here are something like what I might have said.) Trying to empirically pin down a film's "truth," shot by shot, is a parlor game to evade thinking about a film's form, meaning, context, etc. In that respect, much documentary criticism fixates on questions of what's staged and what isn't. The hard work of taking a film apart and building it back up block by block, trying to reassemble it in written form, is set aside for faux-journalistic inquiry.
One of the best films at the festival was You Are All Captains, whose very nice director Oliver Laxe introduced it by noting that everything in it was false. This, as it turned out, wasn't the stumbling block for some viewers: the real problem was that at least 20 people walked out, and I'm told that a third of the screening later in the day did the same. I loved it, but I'm an arthound: this is a movie made for me. The stumbling block was artiness: You Are All Captains is serene, black-and-white and contemplative. Very much in the spirit of Abbas Kiarostami's work, especially in its presentation of children—whose responsiveness to the world matters more than their cuteness—the film gives us a way of looking at a difficult part of Morocco that transcends the direness of what we see. If you wanted straight reportage (but why?), this was not the place to be. Continue Reading »
Tags: Catfish, Exit Through the Gift Shop, Oliver Laxe, True/False Film Festival, You Are All Captains
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by Vadim Rizov on December 16th, 2010 at 11:27 pm in Film
[The Conformist opens today for a one-week run at Film Forum.]
Generally understood to be an unshakably influential film and a keystone of the canon, The Conformist represents Bernardo Bertolucci's first fully successful coordinated attack on the retinas. Vittorio Storaro had been a camera operator on Before The Revolution, but in 1970 he first worked for Bertolucci as DP, here and on the preceding The Spider's Stratagem. The film presents one stunning image after another; it takes about 45 minutes to even start noticing much else on first viewing.
That The Conformist isn't Bertolucci's most sexually perverse film of the '70s merely means that Last Tango In Paris and Luna exist. (And like the same year's The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, the film contemplates the effects of fascism on Italian life at least partially via Dominique Sanda's breasts.) In boldly operatic and unapologetically allegorical terms, The Conformist presents the story of Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a sexually indecisive and morally persuadable man who tries to get himself to focus by being a good fascist. Marrying a "mediocre bourgeois" (Stefania Sandrelli) is as important as volunteering to inform for the secret police. Continue Reading »
Tags: Bernardo Bertolucci, Catch-22, Dominique Sanda, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, The Conformist, Vittorio Storaro
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Hello Maryland!
This episode was recorded a scant two weeks ago, way back when the Claire Denis retro was winding down at IFC Center. I was in town to celebrate Thrashgiving and get down with all my friends—coincidentally when the Golan/Globus series was about to start at Lincoln Center.
But who cares about that? They're all over. So instead: for this podcast we grabbed Michael Tully, writer-director-Terps fan (and now, Park City bound for Sundance 2011) to open up about his beloved team the night before they played in the Coaches Versus Cancer series at the Garden. But we also go over the $13 cost of Tully and Vadim's cinephilia while ignoring any four-hour long Taiwanese films. Mainly we marvel at U.S. Go Home's use of pop music along with the film festival standard of—as Tully describes it—"the 90-minute thing." And in return, we remember a simpler time when Kelly Reichardt made THE SLOWEST CREDITS SEQUENCE EVER for Wendy and Lucy just to eke into "feature-length" status—not to mention a surprising addition to this trope from Wes Craven.
We do go into the art of dealing with your independent film, talk a bit about how Putty Hill's recent sound woes and background music can be the unofficial knee capper of most independent film.
But join us in our SUPER DUPER EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW Q&A CHAT INTERVIEW SUNDANCE 2011 TALK WITH MICHAEL TULLY SUCK ON THAT NIKKI FINKE (j/k, while we knew about the film, this was recorded before the announcement of his film being accepted into Sundance 2011. Congrats, dude.)
So if you ever see any of us at the bar, please remember to buy us a drink. For some reason, being influential film folk and podcast host/producers doesn't pay nearly as well as being employed full time. Your liquid charity is appreciated. (JL) Continue Reading »
Tags: Claire Denis, Kelly Reichardt, Lichman and Rizov "Live" at Grassroots Tavern, Michael Tully, Podcast, Sarah Palin, Wes Craven
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Hello Hot Chocolate City (again)!
We come to you "live" this time not from the hollow hall of Grassroots Tavern but downtown Washington, DC. For reasons beyond our mortal comprehension, our friend and fellow House contributor (along with being the invaluable 'Foreign Correspondent' for a certain Ebert) Ali Arikan was briefly in town and graced us with his presence. So Vadim took a slow boat from Bushwick and joined us in a podcast at the Ritz-Carlton hotel bar. The bar so fancy, you can order on your iPad!
But as for what we discuss, the film talk gives way to debating Mad Men (note: recorded the day prior to the season finale) and the very nature of TV versus film criticism and appreciation that Noel Murray and Scott Tobias argued about on The Onion A.V. Club. We also namecheck Hipster Hitler.
And we have a very special closing song if you listen closely.
So as always if you happen to be in DC and want to buy us drinks at The Ritz-Carlton hotel bar, we'll be more than happy to drop everything and produce your podcast. Or I will, since I'm stuck here. Vadim will handle the Bushwick end, which involves PBR, whiskey shots and The Rent Being Too Damn High. (JL) Continue Reading »
Tags: Ali Arikan, Hipster Hitler, Lichman and Rizov "Live" at Grassroots Tavern, Mad Men, Noel Murray, Podcast, Scott Tobias, The Onion A.V. Club, The Ritz-Carlton, Washington D.C.
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[Editor's Note: To read Part One of this interview, click here.]
Vadim Rizov: The visuals, as ever, are yours, and I would've recognized Babnik as your film without a credit. You've spoken online of your gleefully indifferent approach to space, which doesn't seem quite true to me: it's more like every room is its own setting with its own atmosphere. You're connecting space through tone rather than geography. Thoughts?
Alejandro Adams: Whatever I've said, it wasn't false modesty. I corrupt space as much as I honor it. Most of my effects in all three films are achieved through disorientation. The unrecognizable is really important to me. Depicting the unrecognizable is difficult. I think the most unrecognizable elements in my films are the ones that people sense are most "real." Continue Reading »
Tags: Alejandro Adams, Babnik, Canary, Michael Umansky
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[Editor's Note: Alejandro Adams's Babnik screens at UCLA's James Bridges Theater on Tuesday, October 12th at 7:30pm. Click here for more information.]
When they write a history of Twitter, hopefully a footnote will be spared for Alejandro Adams, the first meaningful filmmaker to make himself known that way, at least in my book. Conventional wisdom says you should use Twitter to beg for followers, chronicle your production, spam your friends and hope they suck it up for the greater good of social networking's future. Adams took a different tack: he got in touch with only the critics he admired and asked them to watch his work after making it very clear (through a barrage of polemics, hilariously self-aggrandizing declarations and gnostic aphorisms) he was playing on a whole other level.
The movies, fortunately, are good too. Around The Bay isn't quite L'Enfance Nue, but it's not that far off either: childhood has rarely been this abrasive. Canary's a tougher watch; its sci-fi framework is deliberately difficult to follow, and its most impressive setpieces involve very realistic rooms of people all talking at the same time, making a mockery of the Altman ideal of floating in and out of one conversation to each other. Here, the cacophony is the goal in and of itself. Babnik is a whole other creature, a first leisurely and suddenly urgently twisty crime drama; the less you know, the better. And not knowing much won't be a problem: it may be months or years before you get a chance to see this, or Adams' other two films.
So why read this two-part e-mail exchange between me and Adams? I've never met him, but this is the kind of promotional collaboration/collusion I try to avoid; it's vaguely sketchy. But he's a fun guy to argue and correspond with, and I'm comfortable whoring for him a bit. What I've done here is chopped up our back-and-forth into something more or less structured; it's out of order and distorts the actual chronology, but that seems appropriate. In part one, we mostly talk about acting; in part two, we mostly talk about visuals. Digressions abound, as do faux-aggressive taunts. Enjoy. Continue Reading »
Tags: Alejandro Adams, Around the Bay, Babnik, Canary, Michael Umansky, The James Bridges Theater, UCLA
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by Vadim Rizov on October 5th, 2010 at 10:15 pm in Film
Armond White always begins with himself and ends there too; like T.S. Eliot, the end of all his exploring is to arrive where he started and let us know he was the destination all along. Twice this year he's written "essays" that boil down, essentially, to how he's film's grail‐keeper and everyone else is a fraud. The first was March 17th's "My Greenberg Problem—And Yours," in which White, among other things, promised—in terms worthy of a HUAC friendly witness—to "no longer keep silent" on the conspiracy ("a racist lynching of a black critic by white critics," he noted) to throw "personal brickbats my way."
It wasn't really a subject he'd "kept silent" on; Armond vs. the world is a perennial motif of his writing. Still, enough was enough; he was going to dismantle the whole rotten system once and for all. The subject was a Gawker blip on the screen: White had been denied access to one of the earliest screenings of Greenberg, though he was allowed into an early enough screening to draft a review for print. The publicist was none too thrilled about White calling for Noah Baumbach's retroactive abortion in print, or indeed just calling him an asshole; White denied the latter, the proof was uncovered, and he issued another blustery statement about how his prose, having approached the interpretative complexity of late Foucault, had been misinterpreted. Continue Reading »
Tags: Armond White, Discourteous Discourse, New York Press, Rotten Tomatoes, The Social Network
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There are 2.5 million people in Brooklyn; 1.1 million people nationwide tuned in to season one of Bored to Death, but it's hard not to suspect most of them were in the show's heartland. With those built‐in numbers (there's nothing a particular kind of white twenty/thirtysomething Brooklynite loves more than celebrating themselves in the ostensible name of community), there's no reason Bored couldn't have rolled along for a good long time pandering solely to the interests of a small coterie of people who think jokes about brownstones are funny.
Bored wasn't anyone's idea of a great show; the conceit of a struggling writer turned private eye didn't go anywhere in particular, and Jonathan Ames has zero range or insight. But that proved to be zero problem. Instead, Jason Schwartzman, Ted Danson and Zach Galifianakis sat around in various configurations and talked shit, which is all you really need if you like those actors. Schwartzman basically revisited I Heart Huckabees (all nervous twitches and sexual fear), Galifianakis glowered through his beard to compensate for his insecurities and Danson—finally freed from the constraints of network television and able to let his not‐so‐inner misanthrope loose—walked around saying things like "Men face reality, women don't. That's why men need to drink." It was all highly enjoyable. Continue Reading »
Tags: Bored to Death, HBO, Jason Schwartzman, Jonathan Ames, Ted Danson, Zach Galifianakis
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Hello Michigan!
Summer is officially over and all the kids are going back to school. Such is the case with friend of the podcast Akiva Gottlieb, who is off to make Ann Arbor his new home for some graduate program in thermonuclear dynamics and relating to Eric Rohmer. I'm not really sure.
But before that we discuss the nature of geographic cinema—in that how does one leaving New York for Michigan and continue to watch rep cinema? Do they wait for an IFC release to trickle out there, or do they resort to the Internet and torrenting? Does such a thing upset a director, as we ask Preston Miller (God's Land), whose movie will play at the Buffalo Film Festival next month.
And then, of course, we discuss Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Because that film really was better than the folks whose sole job it is to "review" a film by its box office said it was.
So sit back and listen to us after the break as we wax poetic on the end of Summer 2010 and the beginning of the end of 2010's cinematic calendar. And hope you dig our little audio nods—all of which are used with the utmost hope we never get sued, because God knows some of us (i.e. me) can't even afford to swing up to New York these days. (JL) Continue Reading »
Tags: Lichman and Rizov "Live" at Grassroots Tavern, Podcast
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by Vadim Rizov on September 3rd, 2010 at 3:51 pm in Politics
Towards the end of Glenn Beck's 200-minute mega-church-style "rally"/sermon "Restoring Honor"—as bagpipes blared an ill-advised version of "Amazing Grace" and cameras searched the crowd for those swept away in a patriotic frenzy—they stopped on an elderly man dressed in one of those folded yellow hats so popular at Tea Party gatherings (the "1776 Clothing Company" was doing brisk business handing out cardboard fans). Seeing himself on the big-screen, he about-faced, slowly saluted in a I'll-never-stop-serving-you-Old-Glory gesture, then returned to singing along. It was as schticky and corny a gesture of Americana as any cynical TV director could've hoped for, and it worked: what Gawker with cruel but acute concision dubbed "America-porn for the elderly in lawnchairs" succeeded in squandering one of the biggest Washington D.C. gatherings in recent memory. The masses (or maybe just media train-wreck watchers) wanted fire and revolution: Beck gave them nearly three-and-a-half hours of Jesus and gospel.
To read the rest of the article at Infinite Philistinism, click here.
Tags: Glenn Beck, Restoring Honor, Sarah Palin
1 Comment »
Hello Finland!
Our third International podcast is here! We've knocked out the UK with Faisal Qureshi and Canada with Adam Nayman and Andrew Tracy. Now we add Finland to that list with our special guest Olli Sulopuisto!
And no, we cannot ever pronounce his name for fear of being assumed more intoxicated than we actually are. Thankfully, Olli was more than happy to abide by our ignorant tongues.
If you had any burning questions about the state of Finnish film culture, media, and how many Finnish film critics we can name then boy howdy do we have the episode for you. Olli educates us on that and we delve a bit into Symbol, which was at NYAFF 2010 and leads us into a discussion of our favorite boring films. Continue Reading »
Tags: Jeanne Dielman, Lichman and Rizov "Live" at Grassroots Tavern, New York Asian Film Festival, Podcast, Symbol, Takashi Miike, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
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