There are many ways to learn the art of constructing a compelling narrative: One can read classic novels and plays; one can watch great films and television shows; one can read ancient Greek dramas or watch professional wrestling; and one can even watch serial fiction: From old time movie serials to modern soap operas. I [...]

The last completed film of Theo Angelopoulos fails to live up to his earlier greats.

There is a difference between realistic films, such as those made by John Cassavetes, and cinema verité, or films that try to approximate realism. Realistic films know they are fiction, but nonetheless mimic reality for the sake of art, whereas cinema verité attempts to fool viewers into thinking it is real. Matteo Garrone’s 2008, 137 [...]

British film director Steve McQueen’s 2008 debut film, Hunger, is notable for many reasons: It is a great film, a great debut film, uses an innovative narrative structure, uses interesting cinematography in concert with its soundtrack, makes the best use of ambient sound to have the best non-musical soundtrack I’ve heard in a long time [...]

Relaxing at night, after a hard day at work and a few hours online, tending to emails, website modifications, correspondence, and creative things, amongst the best things to do, if too tired to read a book, is to watch a film. But, not a fictive film, but a documentary where, even if the film is [...]

Growing up in New York City, in the 1970s, painter Alice Neel (who died in 1984, at age 84) was often in the news, with a show or retrospective at this or that gallery or museum. Such was the extent of her fame and renown, locally, that it’s hard to imagine she was anything other [...]

American film director Terrence Malick’s fifth feature film release, in four decades in the business, The Tree Of Life, is a film that, in parts, has some of the greatest techniques and moments ever recorded in film history. It also has some fatal narrative flaws that prevent it from outright greatness as an overall work [...]

Marc Levin’s 2007 documentary film, Mr. Untouchable, which gives background on notorious 1970s Harlem drug kingpin LeRoy ‘Nicky’ Barnes is a flat out great documentary. It is insightful, points out things that are wrong with many people’s ideas on reality, and does very well in backgrounding Barnes’ life and times, as well as using the [...]

Why do so many documentary filmmakers decide to make films about relatives or people they know? The obvious answer is the ease of getting information. But that does not explain why they choose the subjects they choose. Andrew Neel’s portrait of his grandmother, Alice Neel, at least has the benefit of being a profile of [...]

This is my first review of a film that I first saw on Netflix, rather than in a theater or on a DVD, and I have to say the service is something of a revolution in how one watches film; or, to be more accurate, in WHAT one watches, for had it not been for [...]

The 1997 Canadian sci fi film Cube, by Vincenzo Natali, was one of the great examples of good writing, good acting, and a limited budget making for an excellent, and thought provoking little film. Unfortunately, its financial success led to two mediocre sequels, neither of which had the verve of the original, and neither of [...]

Werner Herzog is so unique as a director of films that he is as close to being uncategorizable as any filmmaker in the medium’s history. His 2009 film, Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call: New Orleans, is no exception. The film is a sort of satiric riff on the 1992 B film, Bad Lieutenant, made by [...]

I just watched Werner Herzog’s 2005 science fiction fantasy film The Wild Blue Yonder, and am left in that rare position of not having much to say of the film that could really change the opinion of a viewer, pro or con, toward it. This is not because it is good nor bad, simply because [...]

Christopher Guest’s latest film, 2006′s non-mockumentary For Your Consideration, which skewers both the Hollywood and Independent film genres, is his weakest film to date. That said, it’s still a fine little comedy. Guest, who rose to fame in the seminal 1984 mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, directed by Rob Reiner, had released three mockumentaries to [...]

Woody Allen’s 2008 film Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a film with a moral: People do not change. No, let me rephrase that: People cannot change. Films of great depth have been made with premises as simple as that. Vicky Cristina Barcelona is not a film of great depth. Great style? Yes. But not depth. Not [...]

Style over substance. That is the plaint of many a critic when they come across a film or book or any work of art they simply do not like, but which has undeniable merit, at least technically, if not in a few other measures, as well. But, the fact is that my opening words have [...]

Synecdoche, New York is a two hour long, 2008 film from screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, and was his first attempt at directing films. It is a wildly overpraised and almost as wildly derided film. The truth is that it is a formulaic and dull film whose predictability, especially after the first 45 minutes, is almost total. [...]

Most published critics are idiots. Yet again this verity was reinforced to me whilst popping in and watching one of the latest films by Woody Allen to hit DVD. Cassandra’s Dream was almost wholly ignored in this country, lasting only a couple of weeks in the theaters. Yet, it is one of the two best [...]

Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan is one of the current Big Three film giants of Europe, in that he is a throwback to the days of visionary directors like Stanley Kubrick, Michelangelo Antonioni, Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, and Andrei Tarkovskiy. Along with Greece’s Theo Angelopoulos and Hungary’s Bela Tarr, Ceylan has grown into a rarefied [...]

Sometimes a work of art is not even that artistic, it’s just merely interesting. Interesting enough, however, to be recommended, if not because it has depth but because it simply offers a bit more insight into other works of art by an artist. Such is the case with the 90 minute long 2003 documentary by [...]

Pitch to Hollywood studio stooge: “You see, I’ve got this idea to do a film about a real life event, except the film will only feature about ten minutes of the real life event, as a sort of ‘in’ to get the suckers to come and drop ten bucks. Meanwhile, what we’ll do is make [...]

Herein the primary definition of tragedy: A dramatic composition, often in verse, dealing with a serious or somber theme, typically that of a great person destined through a flaw of character or conflict with some overpowering force, as fate or society, to downfall or destruction. In many colloquial settings, the word is overused to describe [...]