Film
New York Asian Film Festival
By David N. Meyer and Lu ChenSummer means Asian Films Are Go. The New York Asian Film Festival will present its wild selection of the most recent and most curious films culled from the current crop of Asian pop cinema.
Angrier Every Night
By Sarahjane BlumIn one of his most straightforward magazine articles, “True Love: Groping for the Holy Grail,” science fiction legend Harlan Ellison signs up with a dating service—Great Expectations—which in the 1970s, was both technically cutting edge, and a cultural throwback. Utilizing five-minute video interviews, people were able to anonymously size up potential lovers and safely set up dates.
Celebrating the Earth: The Films of Franco Piavoli
By Mary HanlonFranco Piavoli’s films, praised by greats such as Bertolucci, Brakage and Tarkovsky are unique, falling somewhere between Italian Neo-Realism and extreme formalism. Virtually free of dialogue, and sans subtitles, Piavoli draws the viewer into his world with images of nature-turned-abstract through his experimental editing techniques and eye for the fantastic. Humans are merely a cameo in Piavoli’s universe, and his perception of the earth is bountiful with details most never see, magnifying them and taking them to another realm. Though all very different, Blue Planet, Nostos: The Return, Voices Through Time and At The First Breath of Wind are all unmistakably marked with Piavoli’s triumphant style.
Sex and the City (AKA Cinderella Spoof, AKA SKYY Vodka Commercial) Hits New York Hard
By Makenna GoodmanA lot of dress-up, a lot of live-blogging, a lot of build up. People have had the Sex and the City: The Movie boner for like, three months now. And suffice it to say, in the end, the spunk was funky. It may well have been the worst sex of our lives.
Travelogue, Poot Style
By David N. MeyerThere’s no two ways about it: Werner Herzog has become an old poot. A Wagnerian, Nietzschian old poot, but an old poot nonetheless. Werner rails—old poot-like—against ‘tree-huggers and whale huggers’ and describes as ‘an abomination’ the fact that workers living in the no nighttime summer of the McMurdo Center in Anarctica practice yoga and aerobics. He sounds like Grandpa on The Simpsons.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
By Rachel BalikThere are two types of people who went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on opening weekend. There are those who love the trilogy, and those who love action movies. If you possess unconditional love for Indy that surpasses that a mother feels for her child, you will like Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. You will laugh. You will reminisce. You’ll feel warm and fuzzy.
