Redacted
Before seeing Redacted, I was working myself up to write an impassioned political opinion piece on Blogcritics defending it against the Bill O’Reillys of the world. Unfortunately, Brian De Palma’s Iraqi war film is a real disappointment. Technically it is mostly impressive and rather innovative, using YouTube-like video clips taken by the (fictional) soldiers themselves, or excerpted from (also fictional) websites. But De Palma’s showy, hyperactive, elaborate camera style has always been his trademark, and he has in effect cut himself off from that sort of technique here. In addition, the pseudo-documentary feel of the film is constantly marred by actors acting – the performers all too rarely seem like real soldiers caught on video; they are professionals reading a script. The subject, drawn from the horrifying headlines about GIs raping a teenage Iraqi girl and then murdering her and her family, is a powerful one, and there are scenes that genuinely chill. But overall, Redacted falls short. And the montage of actual bloody shots of civilian casualties at the end feels exploitative and unearned.
A Girl Cut in Two
A minor effort from the great French master Claude Chabrol. He has made over 50 films, some of them sublime. Rent Le Boucher or La Rupture or La Femme Infidele instead.
The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival, 1963-65
I didn’t even know this footage existed before the film festival. This wonderful documentary is essential for fans and may be revelatory for everyone who sees it. Bob Dylan was idolized during his three annual performances at the Newport Folk Festival in the 1960s. This straightforward collection of performance clips (there are a few brief interview excerpts) is extraordinarily powerful. You hear the protest songs in the traditional folk idiom that made Dylan a cult icon. You hear the hit ballads that made him into a pop star. And finally you see two numbers from the set he played with a rock band that scandalized the Newport festival in 1965, when he was booed after what now seem like utterly brilliant performances of “Maggie’s Farm” and “Like a Rolling Stone.” Both a beautiful time capsule and an ageless collection of brilliant art, this is an indispensable document and you shouldn’t miss it. Its theatrical release is uncertain, but Sony plans to put out a DVD shortly.
Article comments
1 - Tan The Man
That's a pretty diverse slate of films you saw. Was that how the festival as a whole set up? Mix of older and newer films?
2 - handyguy
The new movies [including some higher profile ones I chose to wait and see in theaters, like the Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men and Todd Haynes's I'm Not There] get more play. They run twice each in a 1,000-plus-seat house, and opening and closing night films play in a 2,000-seat symphony hall. The revivals run once or twice in the 280-seat Walter Reade, one of the best places in the country to see a movie.