Blogcritics Author: Glenn Abel

DVD Review: Cinema16 - European Short Films

Glenn Abel — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 13:42:42 EDT

From Europe comes a killer collection of short films. All have major festival awards as calling cards. Two won Oscars.
There are works from famed directors in the DVD collection Cinema16: European Short Films -- Lars Von Trier, Nanni Moretti, Ridley Scott, and Christopher Nolan -- but the best stuff comes from artists unknown to most of us.Producer Luke Morris unspooled the Cinema16 DVD series in Europe a few years back, compiling award-winning British shorts and...

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

DVD Review: Fay Grim

Glenn Abel — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 08:33:01 EDT

Hal Hartley’s Fay Grim comes off like a loopy offspring of Syriana and TV's old I Spy. The actors, including stars Parker Posey and Jeff Goldblum, seem to be living a half second ahead of the rest of the world. Every conversation becomes an arabesque; every other camera angle pulls a Caligari. It's plenty weird and oddly funny. That description suits the director, whose indie suburban dramadies earned him a cult following in the early 1990s.Fay Grim is a sequel to Hartley's Henry Fool, about a small-town bullshit artist who weaves tales of mad adventures. In Fay, those stories turn out to be true. Henry Fool is, in fact, an international man of mystery now either dead or deep in the underground. His wife Fay (Posey) is recruited by the CIA to find several notebooks of his ultra-secret "confessions." Fay races around Paris and Istanbul, outflanking the lonely spy guys and terrorists, who all fall for her.A lot of critics trashed Fay and no doubt some Hartley fans felt betrayed by the plunge into espionage. I found it a first-rate guilty pleasure -- odd, exotic, and ludicrous. (I have not seen Henry Fool.) In the extras, someone calls it Hartley's The Empire Strikes Back, probably due to its sudden bummer of a cliffhanger ending."Wouldn't it be great to have a project that never ends," the director muses in the extras, as if the series could go on for decades.The overly complex plot (part of the fun), rapid-fire dialogue, dizzying cinematography and Posey's stern but jittery performance make it tough to take in one in-your-face sitting. Plus, it's helpful to rewind here and there, to ensure you've caught this plot point or that. "It's a Hal Hartley bouillabaisse of complication," Goldblum says.The 17-minute making-of extra is smart and artsy. About half the time is spent talking about Hartley and his precise style of directing, in which the script spells out how actors should move, use their hands -- what Hartley calls “the description of activity.” “I think I get better by exercising that (amount of control),” Hartley says. One of the actors says he finds that micro-direction liberating; others seem not so sure.Repeating much of the same info as the making-of is a cable show about the film produced by Fay backer HD Net. Images (1.77:1) and audio are okay for government work.

Glenn Abel writes the blogs DVD Spin Doctor, Write for Blogs and Download Movies 101. He lives in L.A.

DVD Review: Paul Newman as The Hustler - Dark, Hip, Classic

Glenn Abel — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 10:14:58 EDT

Paul Newman has been around so long and is so extended as a personality -- we see him most frequently on salad dressing labels -- that there's a danger of forgetting his genius. Now comes news that he's out of the acting game at age 82. Ponder this: If there's anyone close to being a new Paul Newman, he's probably in the cast of Ocean's Thirteen. Yikes.Anyone in need of a refresher should queue up for Fox's double-disc re-release of The Hustler. This was Newman's breakthrough film, a startling piece of lowlife lit built around the fictional pool-shooting punk, Fast Eddy Felson. George C. Scott, Jackie Gleason, and Piper Laurie turned this 1961 drama into an actors' showcase. Every other line found its way into the nation's pool halls and stayed there for decades. Robert Rossen directed with style, daring, and street smarts, in striking black and white.This DVD appears to have the same video and audio as the last Fox release, in 2002. No big deal -- there is almost no apparent wear and the widescreen images look handsome overall, a little pale here or murky there. The DVD also ports over the extras from '02, including a group commentary in which Newman participates.New to the set are three featurettes about the movie, actors, and pool shots. Newman is interviewed on camera, sharp but hunched over and hoarsely whispering a lot. The heavy lifting is done by Piper Laurie, who has excellent recall of the New York production. (Newman and Laurie both were in their mid-30s. Rossen called them "kids.")Newman pays tribute to Gleason, who played Minnesota Fats: "He was on time, he knew what he was doing. Jackie Gleason is about as good as it gets." The TV comic already was an ace pool player. Newman claimed he'd never held a stick, but was coached up in no time by billiards legend Willie Mosconi, who often provided the hands and the trick shots for the actor.Two decades later, of course, Newman won the Oscar for reprising the role of Fast Eddie in The Color of Money. Score that one a career makegood, in large part for this brash, run-the-rack performance.Fox deserves credit for upgrading the title at a fair price, but owners of the previous disc probably should wait for re-rack on the A/V. There is a fair amount of repetition in the shotgun marriage of old and new extras.Fox also brings to market a similar treatment of The Verdict (1982).

Glenn Abel writes the blogs DVD Spin Doctor, Write for Blogs and Download Movies 101. He lives in L.A.