Film
Raw Footage, Raw Knuckles
By Sarahjane Blum[UPDATED] Watch Picture Me in a forgiving mood, and Sara Ziff’s documentary about her and her friend’s experiences as working models in the pre-recession fashion industry has a freshness to recommend it.
DVD Culture
Color As Emotion, Emotion As Color
By David N. Meyer“For this will to deceive that is in things luminous may manifest itself likewise in retrospect and so by sleight of some fixed part of a journey already accomplished may also post men to fraudulent destinies.”
DVD Culture
Ride With The Devil
By David N. MeyerAng Lee’s such a consistent, frustrating mediocrity. His films are all very almost. It’s tricky to pinpoint what makes each second-rate, but invariably, when the closing credits roll, the predominant emotion is dissatisfaction. Teamed as he is with uber-scholar and producer James Schamus, Lee’s non-blockbusters feature scholarly but misguided attention to period detail of clothing, transportation, mise-en-scène.
Take Any Heart, Take Mine
By Sarahjane BlumYou can thank me for Pirates of Penzance. Thank me for the long-awaited DVD release of 1983 feature film adaptation of the Joseph Papp produced revival of Gilbert and Sullivan’s finest work. I signed the online petition twice; played my Betamax dub of the original television airing until the tape warped and I couldn’t even transfer it to a new one.
JAMES T. HONG with Penny Lane
Although expressly political, James T. Hong is not your typical activist filmmaker. He has said, “I don’t think movies always have to have socially uplifting value. For the most part, if they do, it's boring.”
