COLOMBIANA Can’t Stop
As CONAN THE BARBARIAN represents the nadir of chaos cinema with its unfocused camerawork evoking nothing but a lazy director, Olivier Megaton’s COLOMBIANA represents its potential, finding purpose in the rapid cutting and manic energy that defines the End of Cinema.
Carlos Reygadas, BATTLE IN HEAVEN and the Sound of Silence
The Film Talk’s magnificent JumboChat5000 operating system, which also coughs up my lottery numbers, recently flagged up a months-old post by my comrade Tony Youngblood about cinema anima.
Survival of the Shiftiest: Richard Stanley and the Deep Magic of DUST DEVIL
Jett here: I’m excited to introduce a new contributor to the site – Tim Hayes. Tim’s a freelance writer based in the UK, who earns his living writing about business, science, art, and other topics in a land where, according to legend, the work of the journalist is respected and rewarded.
Episode 160 – John Barry Remembered / SOMEWHERE / THE GREY ZONE
Here it is – our tribute to the great John Barry as well as an investigation of the new Sofia Coppola film SOMEWHERE and a look back at Tim Blake Nelson’s THE GREY ZONE.
A Slasher Halloween: CALIGARI, THE LEOPARD MAN, & HOUSE OF WAX
I know, I know, Halloween’s over and you’re all ready to start celebrating Election Day or Guy Fawkes Day or The Holiday Formerly Known as Armistice Day or something, but I could hardly have told you how I spent my Halloween before Halloween. So, without further ado, brief thoughts on the evolution of the film [...]
Episode 148: THE SOCIAL NETWORK / ENTER THE VOID / David Nadelberg Interviewed on MORTIFIED
On this week’s podcast Gareth and Jett discuss in-depth the film THE SOCIAL NETWORK and the extraordinary new work ENTER THE VOID as well as interview David Nadelberg of MORTIFIED
THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE: The Body Politic
When I’m not carving topical jack-o-lanterns and funding my dentist’s third home, I treat Halloween as an opportunity to catch up with the horror greats I spent my adolescence cowering from (thanks to vividly traumatic childhood experiences with The Shining and The Exorcist that may or may not have involved pants-peeing). No longer new to [...]
Tomorrow's Show: PRINCE OF PERSIA, Some Thoughts on F FOR FAKE and We Say Goodbye to Dennis Hopper
Update – June 3rd: We’ve recorded the show – but it’s over two hours long – as always I’ll my best to tighten it up folks – the eps should online by tomorrow at the latest – really. UPDATE – June 2nd: A thousand apologies TFT fans – I completely forgot that yours truly is spending today [...]
Dennis Hopper – Peace at Last in Oblivion
He was a genuine artist. How was he as a human being? I’ve heard all the stories and I get where people are coming from – but you know Newton was an a*****e too – but when he published the Principia Mathematica people said no more books on the Natural Sciences needed to be written. As [...]
Better the Devil You Know: What I Learned from Satan in the Movies
I’ve spent a monumentally pleasurable afternoon in the presence of Satan; in the form of the ridiculous and wonderful performance that Walter Huston (above) gives in ‘The Devil and Daniel Webster’, a film about American history and the mythopoetics of the Yankee soul that deserves to be compared with ‘Citizen Kane’ (and not just because [...]
The Only Film That Has Everything?
Tarkovsky’s ‘Andrei Rublev’, anointed weekly by Jett as the ‘best film ever made’ seems to me to be one of the few films guaranteed to be watched centuries from now, if the art form that captured my heart (and so often betrays it – which means that movies are, in the end, very much like [...]
'Unforgiven' and the Roots of Violence
I took another look at ‘Unforgiven‘ the other day – one of those films whose original impact was muted by the fact that I saw it amidst hype, and, precisely half a lifetime ago, when I didn’t know that I had no idea what I was talking about. The difference today, I suppose is twofold; [...]
'The Hurt Locker' – The Myth of Chaos Into Order Through Violence
Let’s get one thing straight: I have no idea what war is really like. I’ve seen ‘Saving Private Ryan’ and ‘The Thin Red Line’, and I grew up in a place colonised by a long-running civil conflict, and I’ve been to Jerusalem and Bethlehem and all kinds of other places where people inhabit the false [...]
Re-visiting 'Hunger', the Most Important Film I've Seen this Year
In April we presented Episode 62 of TFT, focusing on ‘Hunger’, the astonishing feature film debut of the visual artist Steve McQueen, which compelled audiences on its release last Autumn, and is now available on DVD. I’m still reeling from my experience of watching this movie and wanted to revisit it; thoughts below. The political [...]
Films I Saw And Were Great At The Time But On A Second Or Third Viewing Are Even Better #1: 'The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada'
I took another look at Tommy Lee Jones’ directorial debut ‘The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada’ at the weekend – I was struck on my first viewing three years ago at the level of craft and understanding of how to tell a story, not to mention the meaning of the story it’s trying to tell: [...]
Roger Ebert's Death. Mine, too. And, if you don't want to feel left out: Yours as well.
Watch this before reading. Trust me: It will make you feel better. Roger Ebert is more than a writer about film – a good critic realises that understanding any art form requires more than a technical proficiency in explaining cinematography or editing or acting. The best critics know a little bit about everything – or [...]
