The less-than-stellar Elektra Luxx fails to eliminate the bad taste left from the Election Day documentary 11/4/08:
→The director of 11/4/08 states that he enlisted the help of friends around the world to film their experiences on Election Day in order to “see what history looks like,” but you know how the saying goes: History is written by the winners.
Tags: SXSW, Documentary, Comedy, Political, The House Next Door
EssayAlong with a review of the surprisingly good indie frat thriller Brotherhood, I take a closer look at the documentary Marwencol:
→I’m a bit wary of a documentary that feels the need to split itself up into chapters. To me, it’s typically a sign of a director that doesn’t quite know how to unify his material—one of the basic challenges of this genre.
Tags: SXSW, Documentary, WWII, Thriller, The House Next Door
EssayIn my first report from this year’s SXSW, I look at Michel Gondry’s family documentary The Thorn in the Heart, Ivan Reitman’s early and terrible Cannibal Girls, and Crying with Laughter:
→Joey Frisk (a very capable Stephen McCole) is a fireball on the verge of flaming out.
Tags: SXSW, Comedy, Camp, Documentary, Michel Gondry, Ivan Reitman, The House Next Door
ReviewIt’s no tall order to write a tragedy set during the Great Depression, but I imagine it takes some restraint to write one where the era’s circumstances aren’t the immediate sources of distress.
→Tags: Woody Allen, Jeff Daniels, Comedy, Edward Copeland on Film
EssayThings are going to be a little different this time around.
Last year I wrote down a goal (though where I wrote it is anyone’s guess): next time I attend SXSW, I’d attend with press credentials. Well, let’s hear it for the power of the subconscious, because come this weekend, I’ll be down in Austin with a Press Badge on behalf of The Official Blog of Slant Magazine:
→Tags: SXSW, Amer, The House Next Door
ReviewYou knew a guy back in high school, a pleasant, smart, occasionally clever guy. Not a brainiac, not a clown, not a jerk, not a socialite, just a solid guy. He possessed few faults (as far as you cared), and you never thought of him as “average"; he was more interesting than that.
→Tags: Roman Polanksi, Political, Thriller, Perfection, Edward Copeland on Film
Essay→The praise of the Undermain Theatre’s production of Port Twilight primarily centers around, well, the production. Not that it’s undeserved. The play is a three-ring circus of sliding curtain sets, complex sound, light, and video design, and a cast that carries its weight playing scientists, rabbis, mythical demons and, yes, even an organ grinder.
Tags: Port Twilight, Undermain Theatre, Theater, The House Next Door
EssayI don’t like the idea of handicapping films. Whether it had a budget of $300 million or just $300, whether it was shot over two years or over two weeks, I wish I could evaluate every film on the same plane.
→Tags: Handicapping, Lucas McNelly, Uber-indie, #2wkfilm
EssayIt’s easy to dismiss Toy Story as a comparatively shallow Pixar film. A simple story of friendship pushed along by a lot of colorful action, the movie’s virtues seem to pale in comparison to the complexities and subtle implications of Pixar’s latter films—The Incredibles, Ratatouille, WALL•E.
→Tags: Pixar, Toy Story, Personal
EssayA video essay (my first), exploring the similarities between the ending of François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows and the beginning and ending of Jonathan Glazer’s 2004 film, Birth. Based on an old essay of mine, The 400 Births.
→Tags: Francois Truffaut, The 400 Blows, Birth, Jonathan Glazer, Children
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