“Lost” keeps Redford afloat
This is the season for critics going all nutty, overrating what’s not so good (“12 Years a Slave”) as great, and what’s good—like writer-director J.C. Chandor’s second feature, “All is Lost”—into something amazing. Some critics, such as Mary Corliss, have suggested that “Lost,” given its near-absence of dialogue and focus on a single character, is ...
Strange body art of “12 Years a Slave” 2
Unlike his socially and racially acute art, Steve McQueen’s movies bring out something strange in him. His first film, “Hunger,” carried an overwhelming emotional wallop in its graphic depiction of imprisoned IRA fighter Bobby Sands’ 1982 hunger strike. It went too far, but in good ways—the ways strong art always goes too far. His next, ...
Koehler on Cinema: Clips
It may well be, as one Los Angeles cinephile said to me last week, “the year’s most important film series.” UCLA Film Archive’s “A Century of Chinese Cinema,” unlike the archive’s recent survey of contemporary Chinese cinema curated by former archive programmer Cheng-Sim Lim and REDCAT film series co-director Berenice Reynaud, takes a more historical ...
Koehler on Cinema: The Jia “touch”
The Fifth Generation of Mainland Chinese filmmakers who emerged in the 1980s, such as Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige, began their careers as rebellious independents, but have settled for roles as state-approved makers of harmless epic period pieces like Zhang’s “The Flowers of War.” (To seal his official bona fides, Zhang masterminded the ultra-nationalist Beijing ...
Koehler on Cinema: Anti-piracy finds a hero in “Captain Phillips”
It had to happen. Sooner or later, Hollywood’s breathless, unending campaign against piracy was sure to find movie expression, its ideally useful metaphor. Coinciding roughly with the industry’s propaganda war against the netherworld of downloaders and other ne’er-do-wells, pirates of the classic seafaring variety from Somalia have raided and taken ransom commercial freighters. Sometimes, they’ve ...
Koehler on Cinema: Clips
African cinema is the most commonly overlooked in almost every corner of the world except France and Italy, where a combination of a tradition of cinephilia along with cultural and colonial ties make these movies a real presence. Here in the U.S., African movies are often treated as beyond exotic, which is ridiculous. The new ...
“Gravity” and the Spirit of Sandra Bullock 1
For all of its ominous forecasts of artificial intelligence run amok, Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” was a response to an era of great optimism for the prospects of manned space flight and exploration. There was no reason to feel otherwise: the U.S. Apollo missions, ongoing during the making and release of “2001,” and ...
Koehler on Cinema: Clips
Two of the year’s most interesting film series are either underway or just about to launch, and for no clear reason, the local Los Angeles arts media is ignoring both. Already underway since last weekend is LACMA’s “The Golden Age of Mexican Cinema,” a 13-film survey of the work of the great Mexican cinematographer Gabriel ...
Koehler on Cinema: Porn Yesterday
I’m told that Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s 2009 short, “Sparks,” based on Elmore Leonard’s brilliant short story of cat-and-mouse-as-dialogue, is terrific and sharply cast. Gordon-Levitt’s feature debut, “Don Jon,” (The Landmark, Laemmle NoHo 7, Laemmle Claremont 5) lacks a writer of Leonard’s mastery (because the director made the mistake of writing his own script) but confirms that ...
Koehler on Cinema: The Big Idea Movie, Robert Reich Edition
When it comes to big ideas, movies are usually a poor substitute for books. A few movies are able to put them across in new and meaningful ways; the best in the past decade are David Barison’s and Daniel Ross’ astounding essay film, “The Ister,” on the cultural and intellectual history of the Danube river, ...