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Don't Fear the Subs: 'Sunflower' Paints Picture of Chinese Familial Unrest
Filed under: Drama, Foreign Language, New Yorker, New on DVD, Home Entertainment, Cinematical Indie  Let's face it, family dramas are universal: one generation raising the next, the young resisting the old, conflict, tears, intense feelings, "you don't let me," "why don't you," and so forth. Watching Sunflower, a Chinese film from 2005 that finally hit DVD last week, I had the feeling that director Zhang Yang (Shower, Quitting) must moonlight as an alchemist. Working with very familiar, common elements, he makes something fresh and new.
Joan Chen (The Last Emperor, Twin Peaks) may be the most familiar face in the cast; she has...
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Indies on DVD: 'Moolaadé,' 'Kurt Cobain: About a Son,' 'Terror's Advocate'
Filed under: Documentary, Drama, Foreign Language, Independent, Music & Musicals, Magnolia, New Yorker, New on DVD, Home Entertainment, Cinematical Indie  With Academy Award insanity upon us, it's a good week to catch up with several highly-acclaimed films that display the true independent spirit. Moolaadé was the last film completed by African master filmmaker Ousmane Sembene. Roger Ebert felt it was the best picture he saw at Cannes in 2004 and programmed it for his Overlooked Film Festival last year, where our own Kim Voynar caught a screening and said it was "perhaps one of...
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Review: Belle Toujours
Filed under: Foreign Language, New Releases, New Yorker, Theatrical Reviews, Cinematical Indie 
The Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira, 98 years old as of this writing, is a walking bit of cinema history. Born in Oporto (where they make port wine) he reportedly worked on a film as early as 1928 and made his official directorial debut in 1931 with a short documentary, Working on the Douro River. Even though Hollywood had implemented sound by then, many other countries had not. And so Oliveira carries the distinction of being not only the oldest movie director still active, but also the only movie director...
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Jeffrey M. Anderson's 400 Screens, 400 Blows -- Old School, Old Joy
Filed under: Foreign Language, New Yorker, Columns, 400 Screens, 400 Blows, Cinematical Indie 
By the time you read this I will be in Portugal, and so it seemed appropriate that I should take a moment to talk about Portugal's greatest cinematic export, film director Manoel de Oliveira. Oliveira holds a curious record: he's the oldest living film director, and the only living film director to have worked in the silent era. His first film, Working on the Douro River, was an 18-minute documentary made in 1931. Hollywood had converted to sound by then, but many other countries were still silent. (Reportedly,...
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Avalanche of Animated Adventures Alienates Audiences
Filed under: Animation, Disney, New Yorker, Paramount, Sony, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, Dreamworks  Have you noticed how many animated movies have been in the theater over the past few months? There have been Monster House, Open Season, The Wild, Over the Hedge, Barnyard, Cars, and The Ant Bullyto name a few, which doesn't even cover the glut of sequels and straight-to -video DVDs that have been released and re-released, including last week's The Little Mermaid: Ultimate Line Our Pockets Disney Adamantium Edition. Of those, only Monster House doesn't focus...
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Showing DVD in public can be costly
Filed under: Independent, New Yorker, Distribution, Newsstand, Politics, Cinematical Indie  Because the theaters in Bloomington-Normal, IL don't
offer much to the art house crowd, members of the Illinois State University Cinema Society rented movies that were more
their style, and got together to watch them. Unfortunately, they listed their screenings on the internet, and New Yorker
Films happened upon the list. Noticing that they happened to hold distribution rights to 20 of the films screened by the
group, they sent along a bill for $8000 in back fees.
Needless to say, the members of the ISUCS were shocked
- shocked, I tell you! - by the bill...
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