A key passage in Tom Wolfe’s blistering architectural critique, From Bauhaus to Our House, recounts a tumultuous public meeting attended by the residents St. Louis’ Pruitt-Igoe housing project, called by the city to get input on how to salvage the seriously deteriorating facility and notable for ending with the assembled tenants joining in on the …
Category Archive: Trailer
Jan
18
Trailer for INTRUDERS (Sponsored)
In the spirit of international cooperation comes INTRUDERS, a new film that kicks it old school in its tale about two children — a boy and a girl — in two, different countries who find themselves menaced by… ssssssomething… that visits them in the middle of the night with intentions that extend well beyond just …
Dec
02
Julia Leigh on SLEEPING BEAUTY
Award-winning novelist Julia Leigh makes a hell of a directorial debut with her quiet fantasia, SLEEPING BEAUTY, the story of a young college student (Emily Browning) who becomes immersed in a strange world of desire when she signs on as employee of a service that drugs women and allows men — frequently much older — …
Nov
30
Cyril Tuschi on KHODORKOVSKY
“World’s richest political prisoner,” now there’s a term you don’t hear much. And while OWS can make a case that there are select representatives of the 1% that deserve to see the inside of jail cell, in the case of Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, now serving time in his home country for charges of tax …
Nov
25
Edmon Roch on GARBO THE SPY
Of all the film clips director Edmon Roch uses to compose his WW II documentary, GARBO THE SPY — and they include such eclectic sources as documentaries, dramas, both Allied and Nazi propaganda, and cartoons — the ones that he seems to rely on most come from Carol Reed’s OUR MAN IN HAVANA, the film …
Oct
01
Jeff Nichols on TAKE SHELTER
Roland Emmerich can bite me. The guy’s been making disaster films since time can remember, yet for all his besetting humans with floods, fires, and earthquakes (and the occasional alien invasion), he’s never managed to make something as resonant, affecting, and powerful as TAKE SHELTER. A film that skirts the line between vivid fantasy and …
Sep
16
Nicolas Winding Refn on DRIVE
Somehow, it seems like it was only a matter of time before director Nicolas Winding Refn hitched his camera to a hurtling piece of American metal and did a full-on car chase film. In DRIVE, Ryan Gosling plays a guy named… wait for it… Driver, a stunt man with a freelance career in piloting getaway …
Sep
11
Pamela Yates on GRANITO: HOW TO NAIL A DICTATOR
Listen, there’s nothing particularly wrong with a documentary about the war between two Donkey Kong champions; it’s very good, actually (it’s KING OF KONG, in fact). It’s just that you have to admit that there’s a considerable span between that and a film that has a tangible effect in seeing a man responsible for genocide …
Aug
24
Steve James and Alex Kotlowitz on THE INTERRUPTERS
In the movies, one man and one gun is all it takes to keep the peace. In reality, when you’re talking about the fear, anger, and frustration generated from poverty and exacerbated by drugs, territorial conflict, and just plain ego, a more empathetic approach is probably better. In the new documentary, THE INTERRUPTERS, director Steve …
Aug
19
John Sayles on AMIGO
Director John Sayles is delving into history again, and this time it’s a little bit of American adventurism in the early twentieth century that’s frequently glossed over in the history books: the Philippine-American War. In AMIGO, Filipino actor Joel Torre plays Rafael, the mayor of a small village who’s forced to accommodate a troop of …
