Authors — Brandon Harris
-
BEN CHACE AND SAM FLEISCHNER, “WAH DO DEM”
With Jamaica in the American news again (just barely) due to the ongoing siege and popular counter resistance taking place surrounding the attempted U.S. extradition of alleged Jamaican drug kingpin and folk hero Christopher Coke, perhaps there is something timely about the release of Ben Chace and Sam Fleischner’s Wah Do Dem. A winner at last year’s Los Angeles Film Festival, it stars Sean Bones, a first time actor, as Max, an archetypal Williamsburg Hipster – he’s a skinny, aloof, very pale, self-consciously smug, skateboard riding dufus who attempts to take his girlfriend (Norah Jones) on a cruise to Jamaica. […]
by Brandon Harris on Jun 16, 2010 -
Barbara Bancaccio And Josh Zeman, Cropsey
Part personal history remembrance, part time capsule of a place, part true crime thriller, Cropsey is an absorbing and terrifying piece of filmmaking. A rough hewn, nine years in the making feature directorial debut for narrative film producer turned documentarian Joshua Zeman and NYC Human Resources Administration’s Deputy Commissioner Barbara Brancaccio, it delves into the disappearances of several handicapped children in their native borough of Staten Island during the ’70s and ’80s. The filmmaker trace their distinctive childhood memories of the events as well as those of dozens of Staten Island residents who live on with this disturbing mystery, many unconvinced—even though […]
by Brandon Harris on Jun 2, 2010 -
Brian Koppelman And David Levien, Solitary Man
We only get so many chances in life. Perhaps getting more than one, whether it be to achieve your financial goals or to grow into a mature and loving relationship, could be considered extremely fortunate. For Ben Kalmen (played by a pitch perfect Michael Douglas) in Brian Koppelman and David Levien’s new film Solitary Man, no matter how many chances he’s given and despite his bountiful charm, he’ll find a way to make the worst of his circumstances. He’s the type of well to do, emotional self-saboteur that never realizes until it is much too late how his personal behavior […]
by Brandon Harris on May 19, 2010 -
Shirin Neshat, Women Without Men
Shirin Neshat doesn’t shy away from complexity. Her internationally lauded photography and video installation work takes as its primary subject matter the epistemology that informs how we view Muslim women and the real world forces which shape there lived experiences. She challenges stereotypes and received knowledge in all of her works, a quality that has not gone unnoticed by the international art world. A pair of major installations in the late 1990’s, Turbulent (1998) and Rapture (1999), both of which received prizes at the Biennial of Venice, long ago cemented her place as one of the world’s most compelling visuals artists. That claim […]
by Brandon Harris on May 5, 2010 -
MICHELE AND KIERAN MULRONEY, PAPER MAN
In Michele and Kieran Mulroney’s debut feature Paper Man, Richard (Jeff Daniels) is a sweet natured, struggling author who’s unlikely friendship with an alienated teenager named Abby (Emma Stone) grows increasingly tender and strange during an extended stay in Sag Harbor to work on his latest book. Although his marriage to Claire (Lisa Kundrow) is fading, his imaginary interlocutor, a caped superhero named Captain Excellent (Ryan Reynolds) keeps him plenty busy when he’s not trying to avoid working on his book or inventing new ways to keep Abby dropping by. The married writing and directing duo, having long toiled as […]
by Brandon Harris on Apr 21, 2010 -
JENNIFER KROOT, “IT CAME FROM KUCHAR”
George and Mike Kuchar are two of the great camp experimental filmmakers of all time. They represented a pastiche heavy, less self-serious strand of the New American Cinema’s downtown explosion in the early 1960s. Evangelized by Jonas Mekas in the pages of The Village Voice, their work spans over 700 short and feature films, almost all of the executed on the flimsiest of budgets, many of them made in an almost artisanal, fiercely individualistic mode. In a Critics’ Poll of the 100 best films of the 20th century, appearing originally in the January 4, 2000 edition of The Village Voice, […]
by Brandon Harris on Apr 7, 2010 -
BILL GUNN SURFACES AT BAM
You could say that Bill Gunn was a man who came before his time, but that leaves you working under the flimsy assumption that a time more hospitable to this man of undeniable talents and mercurial preoccupations would some day come. If you don’t already know this is a weak proposition, you’re not paying attention to the tenor of the times we live in. One can be forgiven for being unable to relate to the struggles of an unorthodox black artist to find proper patrons and an appreciative audience I suppose. Still, it is better to say that Bill Gunn, […]
by Brandon Harris on Mar 31, 2010 -
CINEMA’S INVISIBLE ART
Over at the website for Cambridge’s famed literary journal Granta, Jeremy Sheldon has a remarkable post about screenwriting titled Cinema’s Invisible Art. In it he discusses the often overlooked literary qualities of screenwriting. While writing scripts is more commonly referred to as a craft than it is an art, for Mr. Sheldon deftly written descriptive scene action has literary qualities very few people give proper acknowledgement to. Despite the prevalence of accepted screenwriting truisms like “show, don’t tell” and “Film is a visual medium”, Mr. Sheldon celebrates stylish, rule breaking screenwriters from the Coen Brothers to Shane Black and indentifies […]
by Brandon Harris on Mar 25, 2010 -
Marco Bellocchio, Vincere
An operatic look at the largely forgotten life and times of Benito Mussolini’s first wife Ida Dalser (Giovanna Mezzogiorno), veteran Italian helmer Marco Bellocchio’s Vincere is a tragedy on scales both intimate and national. Il Duce’s transformation from a anti-war journalist to socialist rebel rouser to brutal fascist dictator is glimpsed through the lens of his misbegotten first marriage to Dalser, a beautiful and politically conscious Milano hair dresser who, enraptured by his charms and ideals, sells off her business and belongings to fund his early publishing efforts. However, in the wake of their marriage and the birth of their […]
by Brandon Harris on Mar 17, 2010 -
Bill Jennings, Harlem Aria
The desire to be an opera singer is a career path that the broad majority of Americans would probably treat with some skepticism. If you come from Harlem, that skepticism is probably more palpable than most places. Yet the protagonist of Bill Jennings’ winning first feature Harlem Aria finds himself in just such a predicament. Anton (Gabriel Casseus), a dim-witted, twentysomething Harlemite who launders clothes for a living and resides with his overbearing grandmother, is determined to do just that. Despite the bullying of local teens and the entreaties from a local drug dealer (Malik Yoba) to work for him, […]
by Brandon Harris on Mar 3, 2010
