The One-Line Review (Free subscription) | 24/11/2009
UK/USA/France/Japan Feature Film Director: Harmony Korine Writers: Avi Korine, Harmony Korine Cinematographer: Marcel Zyskind Cast: Diego Luna, Samantha Morton, Denis Lavant, James Fox, Werner Herzog, Leos Carax, Richard Strange A lonely Michael Jackson impersonator, barely scratching a living in Paris, meets a friendly Marilyn Monroe impersonator, who convinces him to join her at an impersonators...
SHADOWPLAY (Free subscription) | 16/11/2009
A bite-sized morsel from Leos Carax’s episode of TOKYO! — a compendium film that’s better than these things usually are. Denis Lavant on the rampage in the megalopolis, to the tune of the Godzilla theme, makes for arresting entertainment, in a fairly puzzling little film which veers between the hilarious, the sick, and the fairly [...]
Fin de Cinema (Free subscription) | 02/11/2009
Le voyage du ballon rouge [ Flight of the Red Balloon ] – dir. Hou Hsiao-hsien [Edited together from previous entries] There are so many singular aspects of Flight of the Red Balloon , Hou Hsiao-hsien’s first film made outside of Asia, to marvel at that it's almost stupefying that the film encompasses them with such ease. Firstly, there's Mark Lee Pin Bing's cinematography, with is so ravishing...
The House Next Door (Free subscription) | 14/09/2009
By Dan Callahan I first saw Juliette Binoche in Philip Kaufman’s adaptation of Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988), surely one of the most erotic mainstream films ever made. She seemed like a furtive-eyed little animal, bold but somehow hidden, even rigid, fiercely holding down Daniel Day-Lewis’ amusing womanizer Tomas until they achieve a brief moment of domestic...
Terry Malick's son (Free subscription) | 05/09/2009
Leos Carax has swiftly entered my list of favourite directors. Last year I purchased a boxset of 3 of the French auteur's films, on a whim. I'd never heard of him before, but the descriptions were intriguing. Godardian, visually striking, poetic- yup, I was sold. Les Amants du Pont-Neuf was the film that the boxset didn't include. The 1991 film could easily be seen as a companion piece to 'Boy meets...
Terry Malick's son (Free subscription) | 05/09/2009
Beau Travail is Claire Denis's film about a troop of Legionnaires training in Djibouti. The film is apparently a retelling of Herman Melville's 'Billy Rudd'. Denis Lavant stars as officer Galoup, who narrates his own downfall through a series of flashbacks. Michel Subor plays the watchful commander, Galoup's boss, while Gregoire Colin plays Sentain, the young Legionnaire who acts as the trigger for...
Fin de Cinema (Free subscription) | 25/08/2009
Cinema St. Louis and Washington University's Program in Film and Media Studies are presenting their first French Film Festival this coming weekend, 28-30 August. Screening this year are Rialto's restored prints of Jean-Luc Godard's Made in U.S.A. and Max Ophüls' Lola Montès , as well as a trio of contemporary films: Phlippe Ramos' Captain Ahab [ Capitaine Achab ], with Denis Lavant, Jacques...
dark eye socket (Free subscription) | 24/08/2009
Female Performances: 01. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as Donna De Angelo in Limbo 02. Maggie Cheung as Su Li-zhen/Mrs. Chan in In the Mood for Love 03. Kerry Washington as Lanisha Brown in Our Song 04. Melora Walters as Claudia Wilson Gator in Magnolia 05. Julianne Moore as Sarah Miles in The End of the Affair 06. Carrie-Anne Moss as Natalie in Memento 07. Catherine Keener as Maxine Lund in Being John...
Film Junk (Free subscription) | 16/08/2009
Tokyo! Directed by: Michel Gondry, Leos Carax, Bong Joon-ho Written by: Gabrielle Bell, Michel Gondry, Leos Carax, Bong Joon-ho Starring: Ayako Fujitani, Ayumi Ito, Ryo Kase, Denis Lavant, Jean-François Balmer, Teruyuki Kagawa, Yû Aoi Historically, short films have never really received much mainstream attention because, let's face it, you can't exactly put them in a movie theatre and...
Fin de Cinema (Free subscription) | 20/07/2009
Slowly, I'm crawling out of my grim movie-watching blackout, and it's been with surprisingly pleasant results. I bucked up and watched the HBO Grey Gardens with Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange as the imitable Beales thanks to a Facebook recommendation from Bruce LaBruce. And quickly, all of my reservations about the project evaporated quickly. In addition to Grey Gardens , I found myself wildly amused...
Moon in the Gutter (Free subscription) | 27/06/2009
One of the year's most interesting discs is the soon to be released Tokyo! from Liberation Entertainment. This anthology film from iconic directors Michel Gondry, Leos Carax and Bong Joon-ho received a great deal of acclaim this past year during its theatrical and festival run, and it's arrival on DVD on June 30th is a welcome one. Joon-ho's segment "Shaking Tokyo" offers up his first work...
The Guardian (Free subscription) | 15/06/2009
Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, the charismatic amigos from Y Tu Mamá También, are together again in Rudo & Cursi. They're good, but whose onscreen reunion would be even better? Cinema history is not exactly littered with great screen partnerships, platonic or otherwise, so no wonder viewers and film-makers alike tend to leap hungrily on one when it comes along. In an industry...
Christopher Fowlers Blog (Free subscription) | 01/06/2009
A reminder of the powerful Jonathan Glazer music video for UNKLE’s ‘Rabbit In Your Headlights’,starring Denis Lavant. Glazer’s an interesting British director who seems to have vanished…
In Theaters This Week (Free subscription) | 01/12/2008
Starring Ayako Fujitani, Ryo Kase, Ayumi Ito, Denis Lavant, Jean-Francois Balmer
Philadelphia Inquirer (Free subscription) | 08/05/2008
Directed by Harmony Korine. With Diego Luna, Samantha Morton, Denis Lavant, James Fox and Melita Morgan. Distributed by IFC First Take. 1 hour, 52 mins. No MPAA rating (adult themes). Playing at:
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