Fests and events, 8/27.

"Of Time and the City is [Terence] Davies's first documentary, and it's a brooding, passionate, and often sardonic essay film that tributes the working class Liverpool of his childhood, and charts - with rueful adult hindsight - its cultural milieu," writes Doug Cummings. "Rather than tell the story of his family, he tells the story of his place, and the sights and sounds of Liverpool offer constant markers of his status as both insider and outsider: the devout, Irish Catholic schoolboy repressing his homosexual urges; the slum resident during the lavish coronation of Queen Elizabeth II; the devotee of passé love songs during the reign of the Beatles."

The film screens today and tomorrow as part of DocuWeek Los Angeles; next stop: Toronto. Earlier: Reviews from Cannes.

"Because Mosfilm, the subject of the Museum of Fine Arts' Envisioning Russia retrospective, was the Soviet state production studio, any cross-section of its history lays out the entirety of Soviet film history — not only in its mainstream, but on its catapulting visionary fringes." A preview from Michael Atkinson in the Boston Phoenix. September 3 through October 23.

A Four-Pack of Carpenter runs Monday through Thursday next week at BAM. Scott Foundas: [T]here are two ways of seeing [John] Carpenter: as a proficient genre director or as a kind of blue-collar shaman, waking us up to the all-too-real horrors of the modern world and its many threats to individuality and consciousness. He is what the late Manny Farber deemed a termite artist, nibbling away at the borders with his seemingly innocuous, low-budget quickies, unnoticed by most - which is, after all, the best way to stage a revolution."

Also in the Voice: "Cinematic Atlas: The Triumphs of Charlton Heston, which runs Friday through September 4 at Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater, is a decidedly apolitical survey of Heston's oeuvre," writes John Anderson. "'The last thing I wanted to do was something political,' says Josh Strauss, the Film Society's programmer for the series. 'The idea had come up about three weeks before he died [in April of this year], and the concept was a week-long series of Heston films with a cult edge - Omega Man, Soylent Green."

"Break out your go-go boots for this four-day flashback to Los Angeles' 1960s experience hosted by Dominic Priore, author of Riot on Sunset Strip: Rock 'n' Roll's Last Stand in Hollywood." Dennis Harvey previews the series for the San Francisco Bay Guardian. At the Red Vic Movie House from tomorrow through Sunday.

Dennis Harvey also has a piece at SF360: "Days and Clouds by director Silvio Soldini (Bread and Tulips), which plays the SFFS Screen at the Sundance Kabuki starting August 29, is refreshing simply by virtue of approaching a subject common in the real world but too rare in fiction - that of downwardly mobile bourgeois - without condescension or melodrama. It's a quietly penetrating tale one could all too easily imagine happening to someone you know. Maybe it already has."

"Frank Borzage's masterful romance History Is Made at Night (1937) screens this evening at 8 PM at University of Chicago Doc Films," notes JR Jones in the Chicago Reader.

Toronto After Dark, running October 17 through 24, has announced its first eight titles and Mack's got 'em at Twitch.

Mike Everleth has the Atlanta Underground Film Festival award-winners.

"It's Sunday morning and Tilda Swinton is decked out in Clark Kent glasses, blue pyjamas and big fluffy slippers." For FilmInFocus, Alastair Harkness reports on the Ballerina Ballroom Cinema of Dreams.

Posted by dwhudson at August 27, 2008 3:05 PM