Canon Fodder

Buster Keaton: The Sound of His Obsession

[3.Sep.09] :. Bill Frisell's ambient, fuzzy, meandering guitar doodles sound like they're trying to approximate the sad stillness blowing through the corridors of Keaton's mind.

You are Living in the Golden Years of Cinema

[24.Jul.09] :. Excellent movies are so thick on the ground that we're tripping on them – but never have so many delivered so much to such an ungrateful lot.

‘The City’: The Most Seen Documentary

[6.Mar.09] :. Steiner and Van Dyke have an eye for beauty even in misery, and their compositions make this part of the movie a pleasure to visit, even if we wouldn't want to live there.

Ken Russell at the BBC

[22.Jan.09] :. Everything here is in achingly beautiful and sharply restored black and white, everything is intelligent and witty, everything is deeply felt -- everything is Russell.

Nary a Word: ‘The Last Laugh’ and ‘The General’

[4.Dec.08] :. The sound era added nothing thematically or tonally that wasn't already perfected in silent films.

DIY: Takahiko Iimura

[8.Oct.08] :. Takahiko Iimura read about the American underground film movement and began making experimental works based only on what he'd read. Soon he was a leading experimental filmmaker.

American Film Theatre

[18.Jul.08] :. In what might be called the curse of Chekhov, the common setting is a living room, the common characters a family, and the common dynamic a stew of bitter backbiting and recrimination that ultimately gives the lie to Tolstoy, because here each unhappy family seems perfectly alike.