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Entries tagged with 'IFC'
Posted Mar. 19, 2008,
Love Songs!
By Dennis Dermody
Opening this week at the IFC Center is Love Songs. It's a bittersweet romantic tale by one of my fave French directors, Christophe Honore (Ma Mere, Dans Paris), starring his usual muse Louis Garrel (The Dreamers) as Ismael, in the middle of a prickly menage-a-trois with Julie (Ludivine Sagnier) and Alice (Clotilde Hesme) when tragedy intercedes. Love, loss, grief and the surprising way Ismael works through his pain is told by the actors who periodically break into song. Honore's films are such an acid flashback to the 1960s French new wave movies, and Love Songs particularly recalls Jacques Demy’s unconventional musicals (The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg), but it still feels new and vibrant and works thrillingly. Wildly romantic as it is inventive.
Posted Nov. 19, 2007,
It Is Fine!
By Dennis Dermody
Opening this week at http://www.ifccenter.com/ is It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine!, the second part of Crispin Hellion Glover’s “It” trilogy, which is based on the screenplay and sinister musings of the late Steven C. Stewart, who was afflicted with severe cerebral palsy and also stars in the film. Steven plays wheelchair-bound Paul, who meets a divorced mother (played by Fassbinder goddess Margit Carstensen) at a dance and then introduces him to her family (her sexy daughter takes a particular shine to him).
Paul is obsessed with long hair and The Sound Of Music, but when his offer of marriage to the mother is rejected, he reacts in homicidal rage. Leave it to Crispin Glover to remake My Left Foot as an avant-garde horror movie. Art direction by Glover’s co-director David Brothers creates streets and apartment interiors of hallucinatory luridness. That, mixed with the thunderous soundtrack of Grieg and Tchaikovsky give the movie a relentless nightmare quality resembling the Italian Giallo film that also reveled in kinky sex and murder.
Posted Aug. 20, 2007,
NY Korean Film Fest Starts Tomorrow
By Carol Lee
Here I'm treading on Cinemaniac's territory (sorry, Dennis!) but I'm going there anyway. The New York Korean Film Festival 2007, which celebrates its seventh year, kicks off tomorrow (August 21) and it will run through September 2. And you know what, I'm going! This year's fest features a hodgepodge of K-flicks from sappy love stories to crazy horrors and a retrospective of Kwon-Taek Im who directed Chunhyang. The screenings will be at Cinema Village, IFC Center and BAM.
If you're a Korean movie novice, King and the Clown is a good place to start. This period dramedy is called Korea's Brokeback Mountain and was a monster blockbuster when it first came out. (Side note: I rented this one for Mr. Mickey from K-town. He hasn't watched it yet but you can borrow it when he's done.) The one I really want to see is Whispering Corridors, which according to Dennis Dermody, is totally retarded and scary. Others worth checking out are Between, Red Shoes, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and A Tale of Two Sisters. See you at the movies!!
Posted Aug. 20, 2007,
Calling All Mike Mills Fans
By Kim Hastreiter
I just finished watching a preview of Mike Mills' new documentary called Does Your Soul Have a Cold? that will debut on the IFC Channel in October. It was a fairly disturbing film about depression in Japan, which until quite recently has been a fairly taboo subject. I have always loved Mills' work, which I have collected for years since I saw his first graphic posters he did for Kim Gordon's X-Girl clothing line in the '90s and his shows at Alleged Gallery when it used to be in New York City. His graphic sensibility translates amazingly into film and this movie is unlike most docs I've seen, as its layered with Mills' signature graphic and color aesthetic.