Filmmaker Albert Serra specifically conceived the series The Names of Christ (2010) for the exhibition Are You Ready for TV? It consists of 14 episodes, with a total duration of 193 minutes, and is based on the book The Names of Christ (1572-1586), by Friar Luis de León. Serra constructs a narrative based on a free, poetic structure, which ironically deconstructs the conventions and grammars of the film, art and television worlds.Read More »
SYNOPSIS
Reading the other comments on this film I have to say I might view this film differently if I understood the current socio-political climate in Serbia or the mindsets of the peoples living there. While it had definite moments of social commentary and a few political digs thrown in, I watched this movie primarily as a commentary on what people are willing to go through to fit in and to stand up for the people whom they love.Read More »
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One of the most influential and iconoclastic figures of the 20th century, French philosopher and father of “deconstruction” Jacques Derrida has single-handedly altered the way we look at history, language, art, and film. In the spirit of Derrida’s work, acclaimed filmmakers Kirby Dick (SICK: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF BOB FLANAGAN, SUPERMASOCHIST [torrent available here]) and Amy Ziering Kofman have created an innovative and entertaining portrait by questioning the very concept of biography itself. Featuring a mesmerizing score by Oscar-winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto (THE LAST EMPEROR), DERRIDA is a playful and provocative glimpse at a visionary thinker as he ruminates on everything from SEINFELD to the sex lives of ancient philosophers.Read More »
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This intelligent and current picture about childhood fears and understandings also serves as a damning indictment of French immigration policy under Sarkozy. Narrated retrospectively from the year 2067 by central protagonist Milana, she tells the story of her near-deportation from France at the age of ten and the plan her young classmates hatched to save her. Milana (Linda Doudaeva) lives with her Chechen family in Paris and attends the same school as her friend Blaise (Jules Ritmanic) and his younger sister Alice (Louna Klanit). After their friend Youssef is deported along with his family, Blaise’s mother (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi) takes Milana into their home, hoping to protect her from the police, busy chasing deportation targets. Read More »
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Dream (or Bi-mong, as is the Korean title) is already Ki-duk’s 15th film. It’s also the 15th Ki-duk film I watched so obviously you can consider me a fan. Ki-duk is a director who’s known to stay pretty close to what he does best, so even though the differences between Dream and his earlier films might not seem stellar, they do present a big deviation for Ki-duk standards. Yet in the end, Dream is still 100% Ki-duk and couldn’t have been made by any other.Read More »
Review from DVDTalk
THE FILM
For his 17th film, Pedro Almodovar doesn’t exactly break new ground with “Broken Embraces,” instead fine-tuning his gifts and decadent cinematic appetites to a satisfying routine. A spiraling, sensual story of noirish obsession and paranoia, “Embraces” is a riveting sit, due in great part to the filmmaker’s incredible storytelling gifts, and the cast, who articulate a dreamy series of toxic encounters with sniper-like precision, tightening Almodovar’s noose with exceptional skill.Read More »
AMG: One couple’s rocky road toward togetherness is mapped in this comedy drama which melds elements of documentary and fiction. Arin (Arin Crumley) is a struggling independent filmmaker who pays the rent by shooting and editing wedding videos; he loathes the “four-eyed, two-mouthed, eight-limbed” beasts known as couples in love, but he would also prefer to be less lonely than he is. However, Arin is terrified of talking to women, and has a borderline phobia about sexually transmitted disease. On an Internet dating site, Arin meets Susan, (Susan Buice), an artist who wants to pursue a career in painting but in the meantime supports herself by waiting tables at a coffee shop. Susan’s attitudes about romance are only slightly more optimistic than Arin’s, but after exchanging photos and messages, the two sense they have something in common.Read More »
From the Buddhist Film Foundation’s website:
Pema Tseden (The Search, Old Dog) is the first Tibetan graduate of the Beijing Film Academy, and this is his dramatic feature debut. Made on location in a village in the Amdo region, the film follows a young lama assigned for Tibetan New Year to attend to the seven-year-old Living Buddha (tulku) of a mountain monastery. The young lamas try to balance their strict training with explorations of the outside world through the novelty of television, and make some surprising choices. Like all great neo-realist films, The Silent Holy Stones has the immediacy of a documentary, and Tseden delivers a compelling and intimate insider’s view of everyday life in his home town.Read More »
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Three bothers live together with a father who treats them as a dog in the house. The first son desires for food and the son lost his face after he got burned by fire. He desires for sex. All he does is masturbation and painting in his cooped room. The second son is the normal one in the house where the Chinese stranger comes in and he starts living with them. The boy is father’;s lover and has sex with a father in the presence of three sons. One day, a crazy girl gets into the house, the house is full of sexual desire and lust.Read More »