movie reviews
Business genius and hippie, Steve Jobs – The Lost Interview
In 1995 Robert Cringeley, a tech expert and writer who once worked for Steve Jobs interviewed the Apple-co-founder and other Silicon Valley pioneers for a PBS miniseries, Triumph of the Nerds. He spent more than 60 minutes with Jobs, who at that time was ten years out from his wrenching ouster from Apple. But less than ten minutes of the wide-ranging and provocative interview made it into the PBS show. That ten minute clip is considered one of the best TV interviews Jobs ever gave. The master tapes for the other 59 minutes went missing until recently and now, dusted ... More » »
Quay Brothers’ Mutter movie misses
by Dennis D’Alesandro Upstairs in a large, fancy chamber of the storied Mutter Museum, the sold out crowd eagerly buzzed in anticipation of the world premier of the Quay Brothers‘ latest film, titled Through the Weeping Glass: On the Consolations of Life Everlasting (Limbos and Afterbreezes in the Mutter Museum). Billed as the greatest coupling of subject matter and filmmaker that has ever been proposed in the history of art, surely the Quay’s dark-macabre style would present the strange and gruesome collections of the museum in a perfect mysterious pitch!
Resurrect Dead – a surprising, beautiful road movie
We’ve all seen the message embedded in the roadways of Center City, usually in crosswalks. I actually saw one embedded in the left lane of the westbound 676 ramp to the Schuylkill expressway! I was stuck in bumper to bumper traffic and there it was just a half a car length ahead of me. How on earth did it get there? How do they all get there? What does it mean? Who’s doing it?
Filming Breugel: Lech Majewski’s “The Mill and the Cross”
Films about artists tend to focus on the unruly details of their lives, which is no great surprise, since showing them painting is about as interesting as … well, you know the old saw about watching paint dry. The Mill and the Cross is a rare film about an artist that includes neither angst, intrigue, nor sexual dalliance, although the Spanish soldiers who occupied Flanders d uring Bruegel’s day provide some rather explicit violence.
Tragedy, triumph and exploitation – Marwencol, a movie review, and Never Let Me Go, a book review
Beaten almost to death by thugs in 2000 and left with permanent brain damage, Mark Hogancamp’s post-recovery story, told in the new documentary movie Marwencol, is a survivor’s tale in which art plays a pivotal role. The movie is a great, empathetic look at the microcosm of Hogancamp’s life. He’s an odd duck to be sure, but very talented, and, miraculously, a survivor.
Movie review–Exit Through the Gift Shop
email from phil: you gals ever do film reviews? saw “exit through the gift shop” at the ritz the other night. i haven’t seen such a bummer movie since requiem for a dream! if you get a chance go see that one with love,
Movie review: (untitled)
The movie (untitled) mocks everything you love to hate about contemporary art and how it’s marketed. The movie also pokes fun at the pretensions in the atonal music scene (one of my fave lines–melody “is a capitalist plot to sell pianos.”
Herb and Dorothy in art wonderland–a movie review
Two art movies I saw this weekend have very little in common except for their smart storytelling and their reverence for art, artists and, in the case of Herb and Dorothy, art collectors. Both movies are great and here’s my take on the documentary about the amazing art collectors, the Vogels. I’ll tell you about Seraphine, a movie about a 19th Century self-taught cleaning lady, in another post. You will not spend a sweeter 89 minutes this summer than in the company of Herb and Dorothy. The story of the postal worker and his wife, the reference librarian, who quietly and ... More » »
