Brooklyn Rail. Dec 07 / Jan 08.

"It would seem a safe bet to dismiss Alex McQuilkin's Joan of Arc out of hand," writes Thomas Micchelli. "Regarded in passing, the 27-year-old artist's short video, a mirrored homage to Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1928 masterwork, La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc, appears to mark a disappointing backslide into the stewpot of cultural cannibalism.... The cut-granite purity of Dreyer's images and the spiritual obsession incarnated by Maria Falconetti in the role of Jeanne should by all rights overwhelm whatever context they're boxed into. That McQuilkin's project manages to avoid these pitfalls is an accomplishment in itself; that it fails to strike a single false note, and is in fact quite moving, is another story altogether."

DA Pennebaker's 65 Revisited "gives insight into how unhinged and strangely enchanting Dylan's world could be," writes Sophie Gilbert. As for I'm Not There, "the kooky collage effect and obvious symbolism jars. Hyper-naturalism is what Haynes does best, and that mixes poorly with his psychedelia and heightened realism. As a portrait of Dylan, the film is an accurately fragmented jumble of ideas that doesn't quite make sense."

Sarahjane Blum on The Future is Unwritten: "The surprise here is not that a rock documentary trades in clichés, it's that director [Julien] Temple trades in such uninspired ones.... Temple has taken on punk before, and with different emphasis, most notably in The Great Rock 'N' Roll Swindle and The Filth and the Fury. He's made a career (and a number of enemies) re-envisioning the story of punk rock and its antiheroes. Here, he relegates the movement to irrelevancy because few of the relevant parties had anything to say which fit into Temple's revisionist take on [Joe] Strummer."

"Caligula could have been a contender," writes Sarah Kessler. "A description of its storyline makes the film sound campy, sexy, tragic and, best of all, perverse. Unfortunately, Caligula's attempts at depravity are not polymorphous enough to remain captivating."

"If... remains a riotous pleasure, but plays too farcical for someone of my generation to find foreboding," writes Ben Popper.

"The combination of media drama and political impact determines the winner." Theodore Hamm explains why Larry Craig is the Brooklyn Rail's Person of the Year for 2007:

Throughout his three terms in office, Craig, of course, has been an ardent foe of gay rights; in 2004, he received a rating of zero from the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT advocacy group. Yet the ongoing revelations about his proclivities have made it difficult for the Republicans to renew the gay-bashing agenda that worked so well for them in 2004. True to form, Republicans have since moved on to demonize a new group, undocumented immigrants, or a constituency unable to vote. Shifting his party's focal point of hatred was certainly not on Craig's mind at the Northstar Crossing that fateful day. But the genius of American politics is that even a visit to the airport john can transform our national debate.

And then, also not particularly film-related but nonetheless interesting are Jed Lipinski's thoughts after hearing David Byrne and Geoffrey Miller in conversation: "Connections between biology and culture, sex and beauty, genes and creativity."

Posted by dwhudson at December 17, 2007 12:34 AM