Authors — Brandon Harris
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2011 ZURICH FILM FESTIVAL
A few years back, the Zurich Film Festival burst onto the map, but for all the wrong reasons. In 2009, Roman Polanski, en route to the festival to receive a lifetime achievement award, was apprehended shortly after landing on Swiss soil. He was never extradited to the United States to stand trial for his mid ’70s sexual escapades with the then underaged Samatha Geimer in Jack Nicholson’s Hollywood Hills home, and now he’s free, having returned for the seventh edition of Zurich’s increasingly important film festival. He screened his “film memoir,” which I simply loathed for its canned, staged quality, […]
by Brandon Harris on Dec 16, 2011 -
ANOTHER OBSERVATION IN MARRAKECH: ON “RIO DE ORO” (“RIVER OF GOLD”)
One should always be wary of tossing the term “masterpiece” around when talking about any cultural object, especially in the cinema, this enfant artform, which feels as if it may have exhausted its formal and rhetorical possibilities much too soon. The hothouse conditions of film festivals are especially bad places to get all ebullient with praise, as well do all over again next month in Utah, the following month in Germany, Texas the one after that. Best to take one’s time, reflect on what has been seen and heard, what its possible meanings and difficulties and structuring absences are, on […]
by Brandon Harris on Dec 16, 2011 -
DAVID POMES, “COOK COUNTY”
The rapid growth of methamphetamine use in rural America has been unabated for years now, but it has just now found its definitive cinematic dramatization in David Pomes’ bittersweet crime thriller Cook County. Contemplating the final weeks in the life of an east Texas drug din as its proprietor spins out of control, Pomes’ film details the dark underbelly of addiction within an entire community that silently affirms the control meth has taken over many of its citizen’s lives. Meditating on the particularly harsh affect the drug has had on a family through three generations, Cook County is at heart […]
by Brandon Harris on Dec 15, 2011 -
AN OBSERVATION IN MARRAKECH: ON “BLACK GOLD”
Sign of the times: A big-budget internationalist action throwback of sorts, one with some of the goofiest, most downright absurd conceits you’ll find all year, Jean-Jacques Annaud’s both intentionally and unintentionally funny Or Noir (Black Gold) will probably never see the light of day in the States. Relegating it to marginal art-house material because of its odd place on the contemporary film mantle, in which it has been deemed simply too silly and conventional for the American art house crowd and too high minded and not award season-worthy enough for the big leagues, Warners is only handling the U.K., Europe and a […]
by Brandon Harris on Dec 6, 2011 -
HOSSEIN KESHAVARZ, “DOG SWEAT”
Earnest and terse, Dog Sweat is a movie that feels like it was made by the skin of its teeth, pulled together through sheer force of will; what’s at stake for the filmmaker becomes an indelible part of the experience for the audience in a way few films accomplish. A sprawling drama with multiple protagonists, tracks several young Iranian adults who in their own quiet, and in some cases not so quiet ways, are running up against the rampant oppression of an authoritarian theocracy and a older generation grown stale with compromise, who have grown complacent about lowered expectations for […]
by Brandon Harris on Nov 17, 2011 -
DANFUNG DENNIS, “HELL AND BACK AGAIN”
Originally published in the Director Interviews section on Oct. 6, 2011. Hell and Back Again is nominated for Best Documentary. Perhaps the most viscerally harrowing documentary account of the war in Afghanistan yet, Danfung Dennis‘ Hell and Back Again is an intense visual experience, one that with the dynamism and fluidity of a narrative film takes you into the heart of the conflict in this troubled corner of the globe. Dennis, who left behind a career in economics to become a war photographer in the middle of the aughts, focuses on Sargent Nathan Harris, a Marine infantryman in Echo Company […]
by Brandon Harris on Nov 15, 2011 -
25 NEW FACES: “WITHOUT”‘S MARK JACKSON
Originally published in our Summer 2011 issue. Without is nominated for Best Film Not Playing At A Theater Near You. Trained as a cinematographer in Italy, Brooklyn-based Mark Jackson says he doesn’t watch many movies. “My grandfather is the reason I make films. He introduced me to the magic of observation and that’s where the vast majority of my inspiration comes from. People watching, followed by embellishment,” says Jackson, whose feature debut Without is currently making the festival rounds. “The other bits come from reading the news.” Comprised of shots that make you feel as if you’re glimpsing the most […]
by Brandon Harris on Nov 4, 2011 -
DITO MONTIEL, “THE SON OF NO ONE”
Punk rocker turned memoirist turned auteur, Dito Montiel has lived a life that has strayed far and wide from his Astoria, Queens upbringing, but especially in his motion pictures, he can’t help but go home again time after time. In his newest film, The Son of No One, he circles around half a dozen or so New Yorkers caught in the throes of the NYPD’s culture of malfeasance and brutality, even in the aftermath of 9/11. Montiel’s film, despite having the trappings of a police procedural and a high wattage cast, has the rhythms and authenticity of a smaller scale, […]
by Brandon Harris on Nov 2, 2011 -
RASHAAD ERNESTO GREEN, “GUN HILL ROAD”
Originally posted on Aug 4, 2011 in our Director Interviews section of the website. Gun Hill Road is nominated for Breakthrough Actor. Rashaad Ernesto Green’s stirring Puerto Rican tranny drama Gun Hill Road concerns a Bronx teenager in the midst of transitioning from Latino to Latina whoseworld is turned upside down by the return of her long absent father. Green gives us a fully developed familial antagonist in Esai Morales’ patriarch, fresh out of Rikers, who is adjusting to civilian life. His masculine self-image (already assailed by sexual assaults while incarcerated) is quickly hindered by the realization that his […]
by Brandon Harris on Nov 1, 2011 -
KATIE GALLOWAY AND KELLY DUANE DE LA VEGA’S “BETTER THIS WORLD”
Originally posted as part of our 2011 SXSW coverage, Better This World is nominated for Best Documentary. Screening Times: Saturday March 12th, 11:00am (Vimeo Theater), Monday March 14th, 1:45pm (Alamo Lamar B), Friday March 18th, 2:00pm (Paramount Theatre) Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane De La Vega profile the young political radicals David McKay and Bradley Crowder in Better This World. The pair plotted to disrupt the 2008 Republic National Convention, but found themselves charged with domestic terrorism. Filmmaker: How did you first hear of David McKay and Bradley Crowder? What drove you to make a film about them? De […]
by Brandon Harris on Oct 31, 2011
