DEPTH IN A DECADE OF DISTRACTION: The Twenty Best Films
by David N. MeyerFilm
The best films of the last ten years resisted the distraction or distractedness which seems to be the decade’s signature.
When Men Were Thin
by Sarahjane BlumFilm
With little question, the screwball comedies of the 1930s represent the zenith of madcap filmmaking in America. A full 14 of the 40 films shown in the Film Forum’s current “Madcap Manhattan” series date to the decade. These films created so many of the conventions of romantic comedy and so much of the mythology of New York that it’s surprising how lively and new they remain.
BAD MOVIE, SILLY LIEUTENANT
by Malcolm WyerFilm
In the press notes for his new film, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, director Werner Herzog dismisses comparisons to Abel Ferrara’s original Bad Lieutenant.
BEYOND THE ABSURD: Roland Tavel and Andy Warhol
by Mary HanlonFilm
Andy Warhol’s 1965 film Vinyl is the lesser-known adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s novel A Clockwork Orange. It lacks the aggression of Kubrick’s interpretation, which came out in 1971. Rather, it is a meditation on pure sensation, infused with raw, homoerotic, borderline pornographic images.
CINEPHILIA: Port of Call Busan
by Christopher BourneFilm
Founded in 1996 by three film scholars—Lee Yong-kwan, Kim Ji-seok, and Jay Jeon—the Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF) has come a long way from its origins in Nampo-dong, in downtown Busan, a port city on South Korea’s east coast.
