Most seem to agree at this point that the Cannes Film Festival’s competition line-up was not good this year. While the New York Film Festival’s main slate includes more than a few of the same selections, the films that didn’t make the cut are especially noteworthy: Michael Haneke’s cynical, typically mean-spirited career rehash Happy End; Sergei Loznitsa’s miserablist slog through Russian bureaucracy, A Gentle Creature; Michel Hazanavicius’s insulting Jean-Luc Godard biopic Redoubtable; and Fatih Akin’s flat-out offensive jihadist commentary-cum-revenge flick, In the Fade.…
All one need do is look at the many and varied riches cinema had to offer in 2012 to disprove the crowing — yes, once again this year — from certain quarters about the “death of cinema.” Digital may be overtaking celluloid as the medium of choice for many filmmakers, but films like Ang Lee’s 3D spectacle Life of Pi demonstrate…
Luke Gorham’s Top 10 Films of 2008 (So Far)
July 1, 2008To begin, what you are about to read will not be commonplace – Sam will generally be the more cynical, the more unpredictable, and the slightly harder to please. However, for the moment I’m going to borrow the tough critic hat from Sam and just throw this out there: 2008 films suck…so far. That said, I’ll validate and excuse that claim a bit. First off, I expect big things from the rest of the year; it’s not looking like another 2007,…
Sam C. Mac’s Top 10 Films of 2008 (So Far)
July 1, 2008Looking over my list from around this time last year, it seems 2008 has not been quite as striking (though few years have been). Even so, I’m quite happy with this list, and I feel that all of these films deserve the mention they’re receiving. Also, I’m thrilled with the variety of genres represented here (horror, action, comedy, etc.). At this point in the year, I’ve seen well over 100 films, one of which deserves to be called a classic,…