http://parallax-view.org Smart Words About Cinema Wed, 07 Jan 2009 08:42:47 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en [This was written on May 15, 2001, for the Northwest Film Forum newsletter.] Michael Powell worked uncredited as a set designer and title writer on Alfred Hitchcock's 1929 movie Blackmail. Which is neither here nor there, but does serve to mark the accidental convergence of England's two most exciting directorial ... http://parallax-view.org/2009/01/07/powell-and-hitchcock/ [caption id="" align="alignleft" width="246" caption="The Collector's Choice presents "A Matter of Life and Death""][/caption] I'm starting the new year with something old and something new. I've imported my "DVD of the Week" feature from my blog, www.seanax.com, and reworked it into a focus on a single release, with links to further ... http://parallax-view.org/2009/01/06/a-matter-of-life-and-death-the-films-of-michael-powell-dvd/ [Editor's Note: The House Next Door is currently reissuing a series of articles developed at 24LiesASecond, a now-defunct platform for provocative criticism with an underdog bite. Author Robert Cumbow is a member of the Parallax View collective and his essays are being published simultaneously on Parallax View. The essay below ... http://parallax-view.org/2009/01/05/there-will-be-choice-why-gone-baby-gone-is-the-best-film-of-2007/ Tis the season. Oscar bait season, that is, when the studios line up the major releases jockeying for spots on Top Ten lists and critics groups awards on the way to the Oscar nominations in January. Unlike the superhero movies and fantasy blockbusters and comedy vehicles that are crammed into ... http://parallax-view.org/2009/01/01/revolutionary-road-and-the-reader-on-the-oscar-run/ I've done the best DVD releases of the year in some incarnation or another for years. This one is a little different. This is not a celebration of the most impressive special editions, the most stunning transfers or the best supplements. This is my list of what I consider the ... http://parallax-view.org/2008/12/29/the-essential-dvd-debuts-of-2008/ "… I piped up with my own theories about the relationship between comic books and movies. Without realizing it, I'd essentially characterized comics as the poor man's film, thinking each panel the equivalent of a frozen frame of celluloid. Will [Eisner] ripped me to pieces…. What counts, he told me, ... http://parallax-view.org/2008/12/24/will-eisner-frank-miller-and-the-spirit/ With every review I read of Doubt, I get the nagging feeling that I've seen a different film. It's certain that I've had a different experience. Doubt, John Patrick Shanley's screen adaptation of his own play and the first film he has directed since Joe Versus the Volcano, continues to ... http://parallax-view.org/2008/12/22/in-praise-of-doubt-in-the-certainty-of-cinema/ [This essay was originally published in an issue of Steadycam magazine devoted to the cinema of Frank Borzage.] Quentin Tarantino once warned a movie palace full of his fans not to "sophisticate yourselves out of feeling." It's a good credo to bear in mind while watching movies by Frank Borzage. When ... http://parallax-view.org/2008/12/09/pilgrims-progress-on-the-road-with-frank-borzages-earth-angels/ [Editor's Note: The House Next Door is currently reissuing a series of articles developed at 24LiesASecond, a now-defunct platform for provocative criticism with an underdog bite. Author Robert C. Cumbow is a member of the Parallax View collective and his essays are being published simultaneously on Parallax View. The essay ... http://parallax-view.org/2008/11/24/david-lynch-folds-space-because-he-is-the-kwisatz-haderach/ "We're in the middle of a midst of a myth and I don't know what myth it is." - Henri (Mathieu Amalric) In the opening of Arnaud Desplechin's Un Conte De Noel (A Christmas Tale), a wily and knotty and unendingly inventive drama of family dysfunction stirred up over a Christmas gathering, ... http://parallax-view.org/2008/11/20/un-conte-de-noel-a-christmas-tale/