Saturday, January 10, 2015
I probably deserve a good cinematic slap in the face for such obnoxiousness, but there's a hefty dollop of truth in that response. What excites me about certain works of cinema is not just their artistic brilliance, but their historical importance.
Tags: film , movie , what i'm watching , gus visser and his singing duck , duck , vaudeville , silent film , early film , theodore case , Image , Video , Web Only
Friday, January 9, 2015
Mungiu's next film, Beyond the Hills, was heavily lauded at Cannes in 2012. It didn't appear in Vermont multiplexes, but locals had a chance to see it at a Burlington Film Society and Vermont International Film Foundation screening last June.
I recently caught up with Beyond the Hills on Netflix. Normally I don't notice (or give) Netflix star ratings, because I hate star ratings with a passion. (Yes, even the ones I have to give for this paper. Star ratings are dumb.)
But I couldn't help seeing that users of the streaming service had awarded the art film a whole 1.5 stars. My question: Would I like it any better?
Tags: movies , film , beyond the hills , cristian mungiu , netflix , Movies you missed , Image , Video , Web Only
This week's terrorist attack on French satirical publication Charlie Hebdo sent shockwaves throughout France and the world. And while any massacre of any humans is horrific and terrifying, this one particularly hit home with cartoonists, satirists and journalists worldwide. The defiant demonstration of solidarity on the streets of Paris, and the electronic reverberations in tens of thousands of "Je suis Charlie" (I am Charlie) posts, are the only heartening aspects of this sad event.
Not surprisingly, cartoonists have responded in force the way they do best: by putting pen to paper. Vermont cartoonist laureate and New Yorker cartoonist Ed Koren shared the drawing above with Seven Days. The reference is to a lithograph by French satirist Honoré Daumier (1808-79), who was the chief draftsman at a magazine called La Caricature. The event to which the drawing referred was a brutal governmental repression that resulted in the killing of a working-class family by government troops.
This time, terrorist-censors massacred 12 at a satirical magazine, and now the Paris police have killed two suspects in turn, and another militant.
In a statement Koren sent to the New Yorker, he wrote in part:
The work of our French colleagues, who were regarded as public intellectuals contributing to the civic discourse, drew on a long tradition of graphic provocateurs and observers, holding the feet of authority and dogma to the fire of high standards and reason. My heart is broken by the loss of so many comrades who fearlessly continued that tradition, whose huge talents are lost to us by such laughless and brutal and ignorant censors.
May we all stand with them — Cabu, Wolinsky, Charb, Tignous — mourning and honoring their genius, next to our drawing boards, reaffirming and continuing their work.
Added Koren, "The pen — drawing and writing — will continue to be mightier than the semi-automatic weapon."
Nous sommes Charlie.
Tags: Ed Koren , cartoonists , cartoons , charlie heb do , paris , france , terrorism , censorship , Image , Web Only
Thursday, January 8, 2015
For the second time — the first was in 2008 — Burlington City Arts is thrilled to receive a substantial grant from the New York City-based Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The grant, for $100,000 over two years, is intended to support the creation and exhibition of new artwork, according to BCA communication director Eric Ford. "It's for exhibition-specific work," he says. "Artists will make work here and then show it."
Receiving such an award twice from AWF, he adds, is "unprecedented in Vermont." The Foundation does not otherwise put any restrictions or parameters on what BCA does with the funding. "The grant is really open ended," says Ford, calling it "very freeing" and a rare opportunity. "It really gets back to the importance of contemporary art, to making it and showing it in Vermont."
Ford credits BCA curator DJ Hellerman's vision for winning the grant.
Next steps will involve finding ways, and places, for selected artists to work. The fourth floor of the BCA Center, formerly a space for artists-in-residence, was transformed into the Vermont Metro Gallery more than a year ago. Ford reveals that one site will likely be in quarters the city already owns, but has not yet renovated, on Pine Street (current studio artists elsewhere in the building do not have to move, he clarifies). In addition, BCA is planning artist residencies in state parks during this year's "Of Land and Local" multi-location exhibit.
Ford says more information and RFPs will soon be announced.
BCA's news comes on the heels of Middlebury College Museum of Art receiving a donation of 10 Warhol prints from the Foundation, including the pictured portrait of Chairman Mao Zedong. Those works are on exhibit now through April 19.
By coincidence, the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts is currently hosting "Warhol Mania," an exhibition of the artist's early illustration work for magazines and posters and celebrity portraits. That's further validation of New York Times writer Ted Loos' forecast of 40 new exhibitions — including Midd's — this year of Warhol's seemingly endless supply of work. The title of his January 4 article? "For Warhol, ’15 Brings More Fame." It has to be said, the late artist's Foundation also seems to have an endless supply of generosity.
Tags: andy warhol foundation , burlington city arts , vermont , middlebury college museum of art , Image , Web Only
Monday, January 5, 2015
The nine films in the "Hear Me Roar" series, which screen every Sunday for the next two months at the Hopkins Center for the Arts in Hanover, N.H., highlight a wide variety of "independent, clever and brave" women of cinema. While it does not appear that Helen Reddy was a consultant for the series, the boldness and confidence of her biggest hit has clearly provided the Hop's programmers with thematic and titular guidance.
The series conceives of the "strong women" theme fairly broadly, and across a wide variety of films. Recent American fiction films are well represented: Tommy Lee Jones' third directorial effort, The Homesman (in which Hilary Swank gives a highly praised performance), and the Reese Witherspoon vehicle Wild join Gone Girl on the slate. Also featured are lesser-known films of recent vintage, including Beyond the Lights and the documentary She's Beautiful When She's Angry, about the origins of the modern women's movement.
Some classic films fit the series' theme, too, including The Lion in Winter (starring the famously independent Katherine Hepburn), 1950's All About Eve and, perhaps most intriguingly, Carl-Theodor Dreyer's monumental 1928 masterpiece, The Passion of Joan of Arc. The chance to see this great film on a large screen is always a noteworthy event.
"Hear Me Roar" runs through March 8. For more information, visit hop.dartmouth.edu.
Tags: film , movies , hop , hopkins center , hear me roar , women in film , gone girl , wild , all about eve , passion of joan of arc , helen reddy , Image , Video , Web Only
Saturday, January 3, 2015
Ned Kelly, made in 1970, was Mick Jagger's film début, so of course high school me had to see it. Though I had generally positive memories of watching it Back In The Day, I recalled very little detail about the movie. When I found a used DVD of Ned Kelly at a recent shelf-clearing sale, I pounced on it. Having just watched it for a second time, I can only assume that, back in high school, I must have seen the world through Stones-colored glasses. Ned Kelly is really not much good at all.
Tags: film , movie , what i'm watching , ned kelly , mick jagger , flashforward , tony richardson , rolling stones , Image , Web Only
Friday, January 2, 2015
What You Missed
Britain's beloved Princess Susannah has been kidnapped. In a viral YouTube video, her abductor promises to kill her unless the prime minister performs an unspeakable act — on live television.
A woman wakes with no memory to see a mysterious symbol blinking on her TV screen. Everyone she asks for help ignores her pleas and holds up a cellphone to film her.
Tags: black mirror , charlie brooker , movies , film , Movies you missed , Image , Web Only , Video