In 2011, Lauren Wissot wrote about underground cinema curator Jeffrey Babcock, who programs films in theaters throughout Amsterdam. She forwarded me the below email, from his Jeffrey’s underground cinemas newsletter, and I think it captures beautifully the emotional tenor of the present moment as it pertains to film exhibition. With Babcock’s permission, we’re reprinting it here. — Editor Greetings everyone, I hope you are doing well, of course. This is one of the saddest announcements since I started the cinemas, because all the screenings have been cancelled by government orders. I hear people panicking, and others are suggesting good things […]
by Jeffrey Babcock on Mar 17, 2020Year end top 10 lists are, for some reason, an inflammatory exercise. There are those who balk at the notion of reducing 365-ish days of output to tiers, others who seem to pride themselves on plucking unreleased titles from obscurity, along with the underlying question of authority — as though a given arrangement must be the chosen one. In any event, I just think they’re fun, and few, year after year, are as pithy as John Waters’ list for Artforum. Unsurprisingly, Maps to the Stars and Nymphomaniac make the cut, but he also gives a shout-out to the more middle of the road charmer Gloria, […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Dec 1, 2014I couldn’t agree with more the top spot on Cahiers du Cinema’s naming of Leos Carax’s melancholy ode to cinematic decline and reinvention, Holy Motors as the best film of the year. At this point it’s #1 on my list too. But the other selections on their top ten…? Let’s just say it’s an eccentric list. David Cronenberg’s experiment in DeLillo adaptation, Cosmopolis, is in the second spot. Interestingly, the two films were compared to each other during Cannes as both are episodic works dealing with protagonists driven around in limousines. Number three is Francis Ford Coppola’s under-seen (including by […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 21, 2012