Word: cinema
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
This enchanting chatterbox, with the round face and electrified hair of a Madrid muppet, makes you believe the oldest myth of cinema: that the magic is real, that movie people in person are as delightful, as bigger-than-life, as they are on the giant screen. Thus the truest compliment to pay his movies--those tangy, nourishing stews of bent men and brave women, of comedy and melodrama, passion and grief--is to say they are every bit as beguiling as he is. And the only thing to say about his new film, All About My Mother, is that...
Defying common labels seems to be a habit with Zhang. While he is categorized as a "Sixth Generation" director, Zhang balks at the reductionist labeling prevalent in Chinese cinema. While Zhang is right when he says "discussing directors as cohesive generations collapses varied styles into one," generational labels do help identify key changes in cinematic practice. Unified by a stylistic break from the past and disillusionment born out of the Cultural Revolution, Fifth Generation directors searched history and literature for a native, pristine China...
...Dogma's message is undeniably reverent. It probes, mocks, deconstructs, reconstructs and criticizes religion, but never faithit knows better than to mess with faith. Yes, the Catholic League might have some qualms with this movie, and so might film purists. Dogma isn't a spectacular example of cinema--far from it. But the themes are too powerful to ignore, no matter what you believe...
...Radu Mihaileanu presents the humorous story of an Eastern European Jewish shtetl (village) and its fantastic escape from the Nazis on a fake deportation train they build themselves. Never mind that it was historically impossible for such an event to have occurred. There is no ultimate reality principle in cinema, and this French language film acknowledges that life is better portrayed when it is idealized...
...result is a visual spectacle unlike anything in the American film tradition. Rumor has it that Steven Spielberg is planning his own "Dogme" film, and, though doubtlessly it will conform to most of his predictable conventions, it does suggest the potential for a more down-to-earth popular cinema...