NYFF: A Dog Day of a Documentary in 'The Dog'

NYFF moves into its final week Here's Glenn on The Dog.

Whether you watched Dog Day Afternoon for the first time or the tenth when The Film Experience’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” series featured it one year ago, you can surely attest to it being one helluva movie. I recently caught it on the big screen and, boy, does it slay audiences. It’s always refreshing to see a film go over so well from a genre that looks comparatively tame compared to modern day equivalents. Shots remain unedited for minutes and yet the action and the tension are palpable.

Now, even if you’ve never seen Sidney Lumet’s 1975 masterpiece then it’s still hard to deny that the true life story was seemingly made for movies...

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NYFF: An Education with 'At Berkeley' and 'American Promise'

51st New York Film Festival (Sep 27-Oct 14). Here's Glenn discussing At Berkeley and American Promise.

As an Australian living in America I have had to watch quite a few movies set in US schools. Frivolous comedies or hard-hitting dramas and everything in between and I still find a lot of it entirely baffling. At this year’s NYFF I have been able to get a couple of very comprehensive looks at the system thanks to doco legend Frederick Wiseman’s At Berkeley and American Promise from husband and wife filmmaking team Joe Brewster and Michele Stephenson. Together they provide an illuminating look at the American education system from kindergarten right on through to college. As they should since together they total a gargantuan six hours!

The 83-year-old Wiseman isn’t exactly shy of long runtimes, but even compared to the recent 134-minute Crazy Horse and 159-minute La Danse his latest is quite an effort.

At a smidgen over four hours, At Berkeley is certainly comprehensive...

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NYFF Must-See: "The Square"

TFE's 51st New York Film Festival (Sep 27-Oct 14) continues with Jose discussing The Square.

Jehane Noujaim's The Square is one of those rare movies that provoke physical reactions in their audiences. Watching it in a pretty much packed room, it was strange to listen to gasps, "ohmygod"s and clenching teeth in the darkness. All of these reactions were caused by brutal images of torture and violence in which we see regular people being deprived of their freedom, their dignity and even their lives. Noujaim's documentary is a chronicle of the occupation of Tahrir Square in Cairo as seen through the eyes of key players of the revolution including a young idealist, a member of the controversial Muslim Brotherhood, a folk singer and actor Khalid Abdalla (The Kite Runner, United 93).

The filmmaker takes us through the most significant moments of the uprising and we see how with the people's sheer will and persistence three regimes are overthrown within less than a year. Noujaim cleverly structures the film so that more than being a journalistic piece, it also works as a seamless drama. "As long as there's a camera the revolution will continue" says one of the main character and we see some of the characters change political positions, suffer horribly at the hands of the military and even become enemies of sorts once they discover what might be the film's most shattering revelation: that in the end it's always the people fighting each other.

Having grown up in one of the few countries in the American continent where coups still occur, The Square hit perhaps a little too close to home; where I ought to have been inspired, I was sadly reminded that democratic changes often take decades to finalize. The film as such is a rousing call to action that ought to intimidate totalitarian regimes by simply reminding them that people will fight for what they believe in.  For me personally, it was a bittersweet experience that lifted my spirit, brought it back down and then sent me home complete pissed off. This is what political cinema should be about, right?

The Square won the Audience Awards at the Sundance and Toronto Film Festivals. It plays exclusively on 10/03 and it's a true must-see.  

NYFF: A Queer Revelation

TFE's coverage of the 51st New York Film Festival (Sep 27-Oct 14) continues with Jose discussing What Now? Remind Me and Stranger by the Lake.

At one point during Joaquim Pinto’s What Now? Remind Me his confessional style got so raw and introspective that all I wanted to do was look the other way. His story is one that I felt I should’ve been more receptive to since he is a gay filmmaker with a deep passion for the arts and culture. Listening to him talk about an ancient book he saw in Spain, how badly he wanted to inspect it, reminded me of the way I feel about certain artworks. Watching him farm with his husband Nuno (who I felt was so my type) and their dogs, inspired in me a sense of domestic bliss I sometimes crave. What made me want to look away then? The way in which Pinto tells us about his harrowing battle with HIV.

Even if we live in a world of information, where everything we might want to know is a click away, the movies - and media in general - have done so little to discuss HIV that I’m ashamed to admit sometimes I react to it the same way conservative audiences react with onscreen sex: it makes me uncomfortable. I had this very thought during the screening and was instantly reminded of the movie I’d seen the day before, Alain Guiraudie’s Stranger by the Lake.

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The Story Of Film: An Odyssey

Anne Marie here with a mixed blessing for film lovers. Turner Classic Movies is hosting the American premiere of The Story Of Film: An Odyssey, a fifteen part documentary on the history of film by documentary filmmaker Mark Cousins. Cousins, who looks like the Scottish love child of Quentin Tarantino and David Lynch, spent 6 years researching and filming for his documentary series, and his efforts paid off. The Story Of Film: An Odyssey is even more fun (and informational) than a World Film college course.

Cousins does a great job of connecting moments in film to each other. He shows how the visual language of film was formed, and builds each step in the development of modern filmmaking. For example, in the premiere episode, Cousins shows us the first example of a closeup from a 1901 short called The Little Doctor and the Sick Kitten, in which a closeup is used to show in detail a sick kitten being fed. Then, Cousins shows how the closeup has evolved into something more powerful, first with a scene from an Eisenstein film, and then with a scene from Once Upon The Time In The West. Cousins narrates each episode in his own distinct style.

While you can enjoy and take notes from Cousins's extensive knowledge of world film history (as I have; who knew Swedish silent cinema was so cool??) keep in mind that every filmmaker is biased. Cousins's bias is against Hollywood. While I understand that he's attempting to expand his viewers' perspectives outside conventional Hollywood cinema, I disagree with his methods. Last week's episode was devoted to early Hollywood, and Cousins's favorite image to repeat is a Christmas ornament shattering on the rocks near the Hollywood sign. It gets heavy-handed. He also fails to define his terms, dubbing most of Hollywood "Romantic" cinema but then failing to discuss what constitutes "Classic" or "Realist" cinema, though he throws the terms around a lot. He does, however, call Erich Von Stroheim a "Realist" director. Von Stroheim was many things - an auteur, a fetishist, an innovator, an egoist - but he definitely wasn't interested in reality. But now I'm just showing you my bias.

Turner Classic Movies shows a new segment of The Story Of Film: An Odyssey every Monday night, with an encore every Tuesday. Also on Monday nights, TCM has a lineup of some of the films discussed by Cousins. The 15 part series will run into December, so if you're looking for something to do on Mondays besides laundry, definitely check it out!