Jun
30
Before everyone larks out for the long, long weekend, I just wanted to let NY’ers know that Marc Singer’s debut documentary, DARK DAYS is having it’s re-release at the Cinema Village starting July 1. The film will be out on homevid in a couple of weeks, but for those of us in Manhattan, seeing a …
Jun
24
I tend to lose patience with people who go the “words cannot describe…” route when they’re talking about something. There are always words, if you know how to use them. I gotta admit, though, GENERAL ORDERS NO. 9, the enigmatic debut work of filmmaker Robert Persons (no relation), is something of a challenge. A meditation …
May
20
I’m basically down with anything that celebrates language, but LOUDER THAN A BOMB is something special. Based around the 2008 Louder Than a Bomb youth poetry slam that took place in Chicago, the film focuses on four high school teams as they face the difficulties of prepping and competing in the event. In the midst …
Apr
29
Director Clio Barnard uses what was originally a theatrical technique in her hybrid documentary/drama THE ARBOR: She interviewed the friends, family, and acquaintances of the late playwright Andrea Dunbar and her troubled daughter Lorraine, then brought in actors to lip-synch to the resulting soundtrack. The process, shot partly in the working-class housing project that Dunbar …
Feb
25
For those of you who wanted to actually see the generational divide in living, breathing action, here’s the video capture of me & critic Ben Lyons in conversation: embedded by Embedded Video So the people over at Yellow Tail wines were in touch with me again with an offer to talk with critic Ben Lyons. …
Feb
12
And you thought Restless Leg Syndrome was a boondoggle. Undaunted by the tsunami of ridicule that greeted such a dodgy prognosis, the pharmaceutical industry is at it again, floating a new disease — female sexual dysfunction, or FSD — and proposing a dazzling array of costly pills, creams, inserts, and worse — much, much worse …
Feb
03
It is truly the gift that keeps on giving: The stockpile of nuclear waste that we continue to generate, year in and year out, useless for any practical purpose, but still deadly. In Finland, they think they’ve come up with a solution — it’s called Onkalo (literally Finnish for “hiding place”), a massive, man-made cave …
Dec
27
So, in the place of a CINEFANTASTIQUE PODCAST in which we discuss our top ten lists for 2010, we give you a CINEFANTASTIQUE POST-MORTEM in which we discuss doing a show in which we discuss our top ten lists for 2010. Who knew a little thing like a holiday weekend was going to interfere with …
Oct
29
A songwriter who can dream up lyrics like, “When we kiss, it feels like a flying saucer landing,” can score those lyrics in any one of a thousand, infectious styles, and as a result command praises from the likes of Peter Gabriel, Neil Gaiman, and Sarah Silverman definitely deserves his own documentary. Co-directors Kerthy Fix …
Sep
15
So how about a little break from the filmmaker interviews? Yellow Tail — the wine people — have started up a new website that recruits film critics to pair wines with movies, and in connection with that got in touch with me about talking with critic and journalist Ben Lyons. Since I’ve recently been involved …
