Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Feb 9, 2012, 7:00 am
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is somewhat notorious as a belated and unfortunate entry in Steven Spielberg's long-running adventure series. It lives up, or down, to that reputation in many ways, but it's not entirely the dismal failure it's said to be; it's deeply flawed but als...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Feb 8, 2012, 7:00 am
The third film in Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones series was Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and after the strange, overblown tone of Temple of Doom (which chronologically serves as a prequel to the series), this film continues much more directly from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Once again, Indian...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Feb 7, 2012, 7:00 am
With Raiders of the Lost Ark, Steven Spielberg established a new movie icon, a new larger-than-life hero in the tradition of the pulp adventure. The second movie in this new series, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, immediately announces itself as a very different kind of movie, a very different...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Feb 6, 2012, 6:30 am
Raiders of the Lost Ark was the movie that introduced the world to the legend of Indiana Jones, the archeologist/adventurer whose exploits — invading ancient ruins in search of treasure, trying to beat the Nazis to the mythic Ark of the Covenant — are director Steven Spielberg's tribute to pulp ...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Feb 3, 2012, 6:30 am
The Brazilian writer and poet Mario Peixoto directed his only film, Limite, when he was very young, and he never made another film. Limite thus remains as a romantic one-off artifact, an often forgotten and neglected avant-garde work. The film has a simple and iconic scenario, in which two women (Ol...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Feb 1, 2012, 6:30 am
With Stavisky..., Alain Resnais has made a film that seems to be all about appearances and surfaces, but uses its glossy, charming — but ultimately tragic — gangster story as a way of exploring questions of identity and politics. The story of the conman Stavisky (Jean-Paul Belmondo), who reinven...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Jan 30, 2012, 6:30 am
By the time Peter Watkins made his massive, four-and-a-half hour 1994 video project The Freethinker, he was thoroughly outside of most conventional media structures. Watkins originally planned to make The Freethinker in 1979, as a companion piece to his 1974 masterwork Edvard Munch, but after workin...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Jan 27, 2012, 1:15 pm
The latest conversation between me and Jason Bellamy is now live at The House Next Door. This conversation is a bit of a different approach for us, as this time we focus on the phenomenon of 3D film, discussing the technology and aesthetics of this popular and controversial format. We concentrate es...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Jan 26, 2012, 12:33 am
Stan Brakhage was always acutely aware of time in his work, even if only to disrupt it through layering and superimposition, the tools by which Brakhage frequently undercut the passage of time. Time works strangely in Brakhage's work: his editing is often fast, even frantic, and an image can last ba...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Jan 23, 2012, 6:30 am
John Ford's How Green Was My Valley is a gorgeous, achingly sad movie, a moving evocation of "the way things were" and the process by which the inexorable progress of industry and modernity slowly, steadily erodes the old ways, breaking apart the stability of family and shattering tradition. The fil...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Jan 19, 2012, 6:30 am
Olivier Assayas' Clean is a low-key, unassuming film that nevertheless accumulates great power as it traces the up-and-down trajectory of Emily Wang (Maggie Cheung), a former early-MTV-type celebrity and girlfriend of washed-up rock star Lee Hauser (James Johnston). When Lee dies of a drug overdose,...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Dec 14, 2011, 7:00 am
... and drives its plot. The war is over, and as the pseudo- ... Harry Lime. Although Harry himself is the central, unseen presence for ... Welles. Harry's first appearance is iconic and unforgettable, first as ... might have suspected as much, is simply shocked by the impact ... . His first ...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Dec 12, 2011, 6:30 am
... and the cyclic nature of violence, but it is also a compelling, taut, and ... to various European terrorist cells) is another of those Hollywood contrivances that Spielberg turns into a productive opportunity for moral inquiry. ( ... and his father (Michael Lonsdale), who run a global espiona...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Oct 24, 2011, 1:22 pm
Miles Davis - Agharta (1976) The latest Record Club discussion has now been posted. For this month's conversation, Jake Cole has selected Miles Davis' live album Agharta, from the climax of his fusion/experimental era. It's a great album and Jake has posted a wonderful and very informative piece abo...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Oct 21, 2011, 1:02 pm
The latest installment of The Conversations has now been posted at The House Next Door. For this latest discussion, Jason Bellamy and I have tackled Barry Lyndon, arguably the most overlooked film of Stanley Kubrick's mature career. We talk about the film's unforgettable visual style and its (purpos...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Oct 19, 2011, 6:30 am
Ernst Lubitsch's The Shop Around the Corner is a rich, moving love story, a very warm film despite its snowy Christmastime setting. Although the film is focused on the antagonism of the store manager Kralik (James Stewart) and new employee Klara (Margaret Sullivan) — and of course, their eventual ...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Oct 3, 2011, 9:38 am
Miles Davis - Agharta (1976) The sixth installment of the Inexhaustible Documents record club has now been announced. Jake Cole of Not Just Movies has chosen Miles Davis' live album Agharta, recorded in 1975 as one of the final statements of his infamous fusion era. Jake will be putting up a post di...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Sep 29, 2011, 7:29 am
Manic Street Preachers - The Holy Bible (1994) The fifth discussion for the Record Club takes place today, and it is hosted by Jamie Uhler at the multi-author blog Wonders in the Dark. Jamie has picked the album The Holy Bible by the Manic Street Preachers, and he has written a fine introductory pos...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Sep 21, 2011, 11:13 am
The neat trick of Gore Verbinski's Rango is the way it wraps some rather adult themes (and adult references) around a pretty basic kids' movie structure. The film follows the titular chameleon, voiced by Johnny Depp, as he falls out of a moving car and stumbles into the desert, where he encounters a...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Sep 15, 2011, 6:35 am
Following up on last week's post about the first week of DC's New 52 comics, I'm starting a new comics blog that will host my week-by-week thoughts on the new DC comics and any other comics that I'm reading every week. The new blog is called Thinking in Panels, and will be my forum for these weekly ...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Sep 9, 2011, 6:25 pm
... 's really infectious, and makes her seem like a girl who's just happy to be out kicking ass. ... but not especially interesting either. And the Joker isn't funny, which is always a bad sign. The last page ... I guess this is supposed to be the lightweight, fun, funny book where a bunch of D-...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Sep 5, 2011, 7:00 am
One of the signature themes of David Simon's TV series The Wire is the idea that where you come from matters, that class and race are, to a large degree, destiny. The first season mostly framed this idea in terms of race, with black drug dealers from the projects often lamenting the fact that being ...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Aug 31, 2011, 9:50 pm
Manic Street Preachers - The Holy Bible (1994) The fifth installment of the Inexhaustible Documents record club has now been announced. Jamie Uhler, who writes for the multi-author blog Wonders in the Dark has selected the 1994 album The Holy Bible by Manic Street Preachers. The discussion will be t...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Aug 29, 2011, 11:22 am
Drive-By Truckers - The Dirty South (2004) The fourth discussion for the Inexhaustible Documents Record Club takes place today, over at Troy Olson's blog Elusive As Robert Denby. He's chosen the album The Dirty South by country/rockers the Drive-By Truckers. Troy has written an excellent introductor...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Aug 23, 2011, 6:30 am
David Simon's The Wire is quite possibly the most acclaimed and respected TV show of all time. After watching the first season in the condensed period of a week, I'm starting to understand why. The show's first season is a sweeping chronicle of a Baltimore police drug investigation that expands far ...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Aug 19, 2011, 2:04 pm
Jason Bellamy and I have posted our latest conversation, this time turning our attention, at the heart of summer blockbuster season, to one of the first summer blockbusters, Steven Spielberg's classic Jaws. We talk about the film's reception at the time, its legendary status, and how it holds up now...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Aug 15, 2011, 6:30 am
Let Me In is Matt Reeves' remake of Tomas Alfredson's Swedish vampire movie Let the Right One In, which was itself based on John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel. Reeves' film is part of a not-so-honorable tradition of remaking foreign movies — particularly foreign horror movies, and particularly Japanese...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Aug 10, 2011, 7:00 am
In White Material, Claire Denis returns to colonial Africa, the site of her debut feature Chocolat and her sensual masterpiece Beau Travail. Building upon the foundation of those earlier visits to the continent, White Material is dark and strange, overflowing with violence and foreboding. It's also ...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Aug 8, 2011, 6:30 am
Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind perfectly captures the fear and the fascination that the unknown holds for humanity. The film focuses on the utility worker Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss), who's sent out into a remote country area to investigate a rash of mysterious power outages ...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Aug 3, 2011, 7:00 am
Joseph Losey's Mr. Klein, made in France during the director's long post-blacklist exile from the US, is a chilling (and chilly) parable about identity, fascism, exploitation and oppression. Set during World War II in occupied France, the film centers around the titular Robert Klein (Alain Delon), a...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Aug 1, 2011, 6:30 am
In 1978, Martin Scorsese followed up Taxi Driver and New York, New York by making American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince, a short documentary about a man who had appeared as an actor in small parts in both of Scorsese's previous fiction films. Prince had had an active life: he was a road manager f...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Jul 29, 2011, 2:09 pm
Drive-By Truckers - The Dirty South (2004) The fourth installment of the Inexhaustible Documents record club has now been announced. Troy Olson of Elusive As Robert Denby has selected the 2004 album The Dirty South by Southern rock band Drive-By Truckers. The discussion will be taking place at his b...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Jul 27, 2011, 7:00 am
Joseph Losey's noir The Prowler opens with a shot that immediately tweaks the audience by placing the viewer in the voyeuristic position of a creeping pervert. The first shot of the film gazes through a woman's bathroom window as, inside, she dries herself off after a bath, putting on a robe. Her bo...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Jul 25, 2011, 11:53 am
Sam Amidon - All Is Well (2007) The third discussion for the Inexhaustible Documents Record Club takes place today, over at Carson Lund's blog Are the Hills Going To March Off?. The conversation this time revolves around the album All Is Well by modern folk singer Sam Amidon. Carson has started thin...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Jul 21, 2011, 7:00 am
Out of Sight is the way sexy, charming, steamy star power movies are supposed to be. Steven Soderbergh's witty, beautifully filmed adaptation of an Elmore Leonard pulp novel is a throwback to classic Hollywood's casual stylishness and verbal sparkle, the kind of film that Hollywood isn't supposed to...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Jul 20, 2011, 7:00 am
Stan Brakhage made The Wonder Ring at the request of fellow avant-garde filmmaker Joseph Cornell, who wanted to document the Third Avenue elevated train in Manhattan before it was torn down. The resulting film is a silent testimony to the strange beauty to be found in even the most blighted urban re...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Jul 18, 2011, 6:30 am
In 35 Shots of Rum, Claire Denis captures the slow, quotidian rhythms of life for the working class people living in a particular apartment block in Paris, especially the train conductor Lionel (Alex Descas) and his student daughter Jo (Mati Diop). There are dramas in these people's lives, but they ...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Jul 14, 2011, 7:00 am
Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers, the documentarian Les Blank's goofy, eccentric ode to garlic in all its forms, isn't quite an informational piece about garlic, though it does include some history and scientific info about the "stinking rose," nor is it a how-to-cook-with-garlic feature, though the...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Jul 13, 2011, 7:00 am
Howard Hawks' Paid To Love is one of the director's early silent films, made before his style really crystallized during the transition to talkies. The film revolves around an utterly silly plot: the poverty-stricken imaginary kingdom of San Savona is trying to get a loan from the American banker Pe...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Jul 11, 2011, 6:30 am
The Traveler was one of Abbas Kiarostami's earliest features; the director himself considers it his first true feature. In a direct, pseudo-documentary style, the film chronicles the adventures of the young schoolboy Qassem (Hassan Darabi), an undisciplined kid who plots to run away to Tehran to see...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Jul 7, 2011, 7:00 am
Martin Scorsese's Italianamerican is a charmingly off-the-cuff documentary that captures the director's parents, Catherine and Charles, talking about their lives and the lives of their own immigrant parents. The film is an utter delight from start to finish, full of the wit and vitality and obvious ...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Jul 5, 2011, 6:00 am
Jean Renoir apparently left Partie de campagne unfinished, but to watch the film as it exists, assembled into a 38-minute short from the footage he shot before abandoning the project, one would never guess. Based on a Guy de Maupassant story, it is a sumptuous, sensual, subtly moving film that extra...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Jul 1, 2011, 11:54 pm
Sam Amidon - All Is Well (2007) The third installment of the Inexhaustible Documents Record Club has now been announced. Carson Lund of Are the Hills Going to March Off? has selected the 2007 album All Is Well by the indie/folk singer Sam Amidon. The discussion will be taking place at Carson's site ...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Jun 29, 2011, 11:28 am
Claude Chabrol's second feature, Les Cousins, is, like his first film Le beau Serge, a study of opposites and dichotomies: urban/rural, innocent/worldly, intellectual/physical, sheltered/experienced. In Chabrol's first film, a bookish young man returns home to the small town where he grew up and fin...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Jun 28, 2011, 8:30 am
Eric Rohmer's final film, The Romance of Astrea and Celadon, is a charming, deeply felt ode to the follies and pleasures of devoted love, a fitting subject for this last statement from a director who always concerned himself with both the emotions and the philosophies of love. The film opens with so...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Jun 27, 2011, 10:42 am
It's time for the second discussion of the Inexhaustible Documents Record Club, which hosts monthly music conversations about albums chosen by various club members. This month, Kevin J. Olson of Hugo Stiglitz Makes Movies has chosen Brand New's album The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me. He has no...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Jun 24, 2011, 7:00 am
If you've seen Terrence Malick's latest film, The Tree of Life, chances are that you're as eager as Jason Bellamy and I have been to discuss, dissect and analyze this rich, dense, sometimes frustrating but always fascinating movie. In part 2 of our discussion of Malick, following up on our previous ...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Jun 23, 2011, 7:00 am
Wojciech Has' The Saragossa Manuscript, based on the novel by Jan Potocki, is a delightful, dizzying film that, over the course of three rapidly paced hours, unfurls a series of interconnected stories in which truth, fiction and fantasy deftly change places over and over again. It's a story of magic...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Jun 22, 2011, 7:00 am
He Ran All the Way is an emotionally and narratively incoherent film that is, nevertheless, compelling in its raw examination of a family under pressure and a man without a family falling to pieces as he realizes just how unloved he really is. Nick Robey (John Garfield) is a loser with no real conne...
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Edward H. posted an article on Only the Cinema - Jun 20, 2011, 6:30 am
It's usually taken for granted, but it's a little amazing that Woody Allen, well over 40 years into his career as a writer-director, continues to be so prolific, to work at the fevered pace of a young man, delivering a film, almost without fail, every year. Granted, not every one of those films is a...
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