Brooklyn Rail. July 08.

"With his most recent theoretical construction, Eyes Upside Down, P Adams Sitney, author of Visionary Film, reveals an intricate matrix of aesthetic attributes with Ralph Waldo Emerson as its core source," writes Marcela Silva. "Sitney's power as a theoretician lies in his ability to translate the fluctuations of images into a language which is both as singular and poetic as the films they discuss."

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr Hunter S Thompson "isn't a biographical picture in the strict sense - it is a vehicle to explore Thompson's insights as written and lived," writes Brian J Carreira. "Although covering the journalist's writing zenith from the mid-1960s through mid-70s, the documentary is not as much an exploration of that time as a meditation on this one. What happened then, through Thompson's aviator-framed eyes, serves as a springboard for discussion of what is happening now."

"The American Ruling Class is a self-proclaimed 'dramatic-documentary-musical' featuring ex-Harper's editor Lewis Lapham as guide on a voyage of discovery," writes Williams Cole, introducing his interview with director John Kirby and producer Libby Handros. "Part of the conceit involves following two Yale grads, one coming from a wealthy family and the other coming from more modest means, as they consider their career choices or 'inevitabilities.'... [O]ne memorable segment has Lapham bring the guys into a diner where, lo and behold, the immersion journalist Barbara Ehrenreich is waiting the tables, thus starting a musical number called 'Nickel and Dimed that various low-wage workers sing in their real places of employment.'"

David Wilentz reviews a few highlights of the recent Japan Cuts festival and looks back on the Tatsuya Nakadai Retrospective.

David N Meyer picks it up from there: "No character in the history of cinema suffers as much as Nakadai's Kaji in The Human Condition." Earlier: Last week's reviews.

Also: "Clearly derived from Italian Neo-Realist classics like Rome, Open City, John Cassavetes's groundbreaking Shadows (1959) and the Beat-influenced work of street photographers such as Gary Winogrand, [The Exiles'] power and flaws spring from the rigor of the filmmaker's naturalist approach."

Cyd Charisse "danced in three dimensions, sometimes appearing to torpedo from the screen toward the audience, others floating in the arms of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, both of whom treated her weightlessness as reverie," writes Sarahjane Blum. "Charisse might be regarded as the supernova that brought down the studio musical. As early as her premiere break out performance in Singing In the Rain it was clear that no one would dance on screen better than this transcendent beauty, whose ethereal calm made her seem to be from another planet. No one has even tried."

"[Bahman] Ghobadi creates an exchange," argues Camila de Onís. "He gives and takes; he makes Kurdish people real by presenting their lives in his own fashion. But his films transcend the ethnographic. They are humanist stories formed to make analogies between people and place, joy and despair, documentary and fiction. And they are funny. The situations are catastrophic, yet life goes on as it would and as it must."

"Savage Grace is, like its central characters, a pretty but poisonous piece of work," writes Tessa DeCarlo. "The film’s a disappointment in many respects, but it does offer the solace, sweet during these difficult economic times, of watching the sufferings and sins of people whose responsibility-sapping wealth hasn’t spared them from going deeply, horribly crazy. And [Julianne] Moore is terrific."

Mary Hanlon: "[I]n a nutshell The Happening is God-awful."

"The Wackness may be one of the best coming-of-age stories so far this decade," dares Makenna Goodman; "think Reality Bites meets Good Will Hunting. Which is to say, if there's only one film you see this summer, see The Wackness." Related: Jonathan Levine in MovieMaker on, yes, making the movie.

Posted by dwhudson at July 24, 2008 6:09 AM