Authors — Vadim Rizov
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Trailer Watch: Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq
The idea of a movie about gun violence in Chicago structured as an update of Lysistrata may not make intuitive sense, but the trailer for Spike Lee’s forthcoming Chi-Raq (and Amazon Studios’ first foray into theatrical distribution) makes it immediately clear what you’re going to see. It’s a Spike Lee movie: there will be didactic politics, a people-mover shot, and a definite can-this-actually-work? factor. For more information, read this excellent recent interview with Lee.
by Vadim Rizov on Nov 3, 2015 -
Night Vision: Some Questions Posed by Lois Patiño’s Negative Image Night Without Distance
One of the best films I saw during this year’s NYFF cost nothing to access. Paired with Calum Walter’s (very strong) Terrestrial as part of a free program running on a loop for a day during the Projections weekend, Lois Patiño’s Night Without Distance is a hypnotic 21-minute experiment that immediately gets your attention for a very simple reason: all the images have been negative reversed, creating a whole new patina for what could otherwise be an overfamiliar landscape. The festival film world has seen a surplus of post-Apichatpong forest reveries, to which Night Without Distance restores a sense of mystery: the grass is purple, […]
by Vadim Rizov on Nov 3, 2015 -
On Not Seeing The Martian, 3D Lens Misprojection and the Wretchedness of the Multiplex
In 2011, Ty Burr wrote an article on the most common scourge of multiplex projection: seeing a film projected that is obviously far darker than it should be because a 2D film is being projected through a 3D lens. This is still happening, and I want to use this website to yell about it a little bit: this is a common problem that simply should not exist at this late date. The rise of digital projection is a cost-friendly win for both studios who can save money on printing and shipping prints and movie theaters, which theoretically no longer have to […]
by Vadim Rizov on Nov 2, 2015 -
Watch: Arnaud Desplechin on Notting Hill’s Perfect Metaphor for Cinema
Director Arnaud Desplechin (A Christmas Tale, the excellent forthcoming My Golden Years) is a voraciously catholic viewer in his tastes; see, for example, this recent interview where he talks up the virtues of Superbad and Dazed and Confused relative to French coming-of-age films. So it’s not necessarily surprising that he’s a Notting Hill fan, but his explanation of how one scene uses Julia Roberts’ hidden nudity as a metaphor for cinema itself (!) will definitely throw you for an interpretive loop.
by Vadim Rizov on Oct 20, 2015 -
NYFF Critics’ Notebook: Paul Thomas Anderson’s Junun
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to speculate that any director, following his second ambitious, divisive high-profile theatrical underperformer/probable money-loser (or anyone fresh off a recently completed production, really), might generally welcome a chance to get out of town. It’s unclear how far in advance Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood planned to go to Rajasthan to collaborate on an album with Israeli-born, Indian-residing Sufi convert Shye Ben Tzur, or whether Paul Thomas Anderson initially committed to tagging along; regardless, it seems to have been restorative fun. Junun is a 54-minute music doc in which Anderson shoots whatever he wants, however he wants to. There are five credited camera operators, including Anderson […]
by Vadim Rizov on Oct 8, 2015 -
NYFF Critics’ Notebook: The Sky Trembles and The Earth is Afraid and the Two Eyes are Not Brothers
The Sky Trembles and The Earth Is Afraid and the Two Eyes are Not Brothers (you can memorize the title after reciting it enough times — don’t fret) opens with a small fleet of ’80s Mercedes-Benz coupes, trailed by dune buggies, speeding across a desert. A chase scene entered in media res? The armed-escort arrival of dubious capitalists on the trail of some as-yet-underexploited resource? (Is there any more potent symbol of ostensibly removed colonialism’s lingering presence than the unkillable, diesel-fueled Mercedes that still stalk the globe?) As the sun sets and the caravan moves closer, the camera inches from a far-off, locked-down wide lens perspective to closer […]
by Vadim Rizov on Oct 2, 2015 -
NYFF Critics’ Notebook: De Palma
Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow’s De Palma is a fans-only interview session with the director. Straightforward, even staid in its construction, it consists almost entirely of two shots of a seated De Palma — one in medium close-up, the other presumably punched-in in post — and appositely illustrative clips and stills. The film currently only has two credits: the opening all-caps title “DE PALMA” scrolling left to right in lurid red, and a closing copyright credit (hard-working editors will, presumably, be thanked at a later date). Interlocutors Baumbach and Paltrow are never heard; according to this useful interview, they never even considered […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 30, 2015 -
NYFF Critics’ Notebook: Carol and The Assassin
At no point in Todd Haynes’ Carol is the word “lesbian” heard — nor “homosexual,” the now-arcane “homophile” or any other period-appropriate descriptor of the LGBTQ spectrum. This is the love that literally dare not speak its name, a conspicuous absence viewers will automatically fill in (especially after seeing dozens of headlines and articles bluntly/reductively identifing the film as a “lesbian drama”). Depending on your POV, this resistance to labeling is either an accurate depiction of period repression, or oddly up-to-the-minute given increased aversion to categorical sexual labels and regular terminological resets. As in Safe, Far From Heaven and Mildred Pierce, […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 28, 2015 -
Everyday Is Like Sunday: Soon-Mi Yoo’s Songs From the North
Soon-Mi Yoo’s Songs From the North joins a small group of recent films that attempt to understand North Korea despite a lack of readily available resources. (The Interview will not be mentioned except just this once, because c’mon.) Jim Finn’s The Juche Idea combines real North Korean footage with CCTV-level, rigorously stilted fake propaganda and musical numbers of the director’s own puckish division, attempting to define something about the nation by producing materials ostensibly following the titular gibberish ideology; Mads Brügger’s annoying and unlightening The Red Chapel sends the Danish provocateur to the DPRK along with comedians to find out What’s Really Happening, mostly by […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 18, 2015 -
Watch: $5.15/Hr., Richard Linklater’s Rejected HBO Pilot From 2004
HBO is normally very serious about making sure no commissioned and rejected pilots ever make it into public view, so I’m not sure how Richard Linklater’s rejected 2004 pilot made it to Vimeo or how long it’ll stay there. $5.15/Hr. was, per its title, intended to be an immersion into the lives of underpaid restaurant employees slacking around Austin. I recall seeing an uncharacteristically acerbic Linklater presenting the pilot at SXSW in 2004, with the words “You know how they say it’s not TV, it’s HBO? It’s TV.” If only television had been so good in those days as it reportedly […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 15, 2015
