Bohemian Cinema By Jonathan Pacheco

Archive

Review

“The Great Dictator” (1940)

Hearing a Charlie Chaplin character crack a quick quip to cap off a conversation can take some getting used to.

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Review

“The Hidden Fortress” (1960)

Back in March, to commemorate Akira Kurosawa’s centennial birthday, Criterion held a number of contests, one of which asked readers to succinctly “convince a friend who is unfamiliar with Kurosawa to watch one of his films.” The winning entry (which may or may not have been plagiarized) simply stated, “He’s your favorite director’s favorite director.”

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Review

“Stardust Memories” (1980)

Because Annie Hall and Manhattan, the two highly revered comedies that preceded 1980’s Stardust Memories, concerned themselves with characters whose insecurities led to the demise of their relationships, Woody Allen’s somewhat polarizing 30-year-old homage to 8 1/2 surprised me in its reversal of the old break-up stand-by, “it’s not you, it’s me.”

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Review

“Cairo Time” (2010)

Not every film we see needs to satisfy our desires for the epic and mind-blowing. Just plain good films fill out the gaps between the monumental ones of our cinematic lives, like sand settling between rocks. We complain and yearn for the rocks, the experiences that push us to emotional extremes, but truly, there’s nothing wrong with the sand.

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Review

“Micmacs” (2010)

I’ve grown somewhat suspicious of Jean-Pierre Jeunet, wondering if my immediate excitement for his films exists because he does quality work or rather because the French filmmaker knows how to push my cinematic buttons.

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Essay

Open Roads 2010: “Kiss Me Again”

The same characters may be around from the Italian film The Last Kiss, but they’re highly unbearable in its sequel, Kiss Me Again:

Admittedly, I quite enjoyed Gabriele Muccino’s 2002 effort, The Last Kiss, finding it entertaining despite its pretentiousness and derivative style.

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Essay

Open Roads 2010: “One Life, Maybe Two”

As part of the Open Roads: New Italian Cinema program by the Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York, I take a look at the tangent universes of One Life, Maybe Two:

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Essay

“Seinfeld”: It’s Real and It’s Spectacular

“The greatest show ever” or “overrated”? “Cynical” or “postmodern”?

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Review

“The Shining” (1980)

It’s well known that Stephen King was, shall we say, less than pleased with Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 adaptation of his novel The Shining.

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Essay

SXSW 2010 Postscript: On “Cold Weather” and Original Live Scoring

I bid adieu to SXSW 2010 with three—count ‘em!—reviews of films with live performances of originals scores, but not before I take a look at the latest from Aaron Katz, Cold Weather:

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