Julie Dash’s The Great Migration observes the closing of one chapter of history for many African Americans–life in the unforgiving South–and the beginning of another–an arduous journey North towards an uncertain future. The opening scene of the film, a beach at first light shot in soft muted color, is a fitting metaphor for this transition. A solitary suitcase sits on the sand, a totem for countless histories both individual and communal. At this point of departure where land ends and sea begins, the memories of these emigrants bridge all physical borders, and as the sole remaining traveler, the suitcase is our window into a narrative whose roots run deep and whose branches continue to grow.
Read More“Maggie’s Plan” is a pleasant, intriguing film. Greta Gerwig stars as the Greta Gerwig we met in “Frances Ha.” But the other two actors, Ethan Hawke and Julianne Moore, play abstruse academics as successful writers. The film postulates that their characters are more intelligent than the Gerwig character. Moore with her Danish accent might be based on writer/director Rebecca Miller’s mother Inge Morath. Hawke might be said to resemble her father Arthur Miller. Who, ergo, is Greta Gerwig but–Marilyn Monroe? She’s no Greta Garbo. The film’s a screwball comedy that makes me speculate. And of course Miller is married to–Daniel Day-Lewis.
Read More“I did it because I could,” says Rocky 184, the one woman graffiti writer who gets a deep look in the movie. The self-proclaimed tomboy from Washington Heights is not alone in her unfocused motivation. “I was bored,” says Snake 1. It was not political, say a number of the others. The best, nuanced comment is from Cool Earl, who says “It was a sign of the times, a sign of our youth, our lack of funds and perhaps our lack of paternal guidance.”
Read MoreThe film, about a talented, articulate and ambitious artist, raises an important question. Why is an artist overlooked? A movie can’t answer definitively, but in 84 fast-paced and colorful minutes Art Bastard delivers a hint of why a rebellious yet loveable personality and his rollicking, politically-charged and mostly humorous paintings are under the New York art world radar. In the words of the movie’s smartest commentator, the oracular Richard Armstrong, Director of the Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, “It’s about chance and geography.”
Read MoreSome of the most compelling sequences in Wright’s documentary consist of the artist’s reflections on perception, perspective, and space. After a painful breakup with his longtime partner, Peter Schlesinger, Hockney made a series of etchings based on Wallace Steven’s poem, “The Man With the Blue Guitar,” which was in turn based on Pablo Picasso’s famous 1903-04 Blue-period painting, “The Old Guitarist.” Hockney was drawn to the poet’s insistence on “things exactly as they are,” using his etchings to play with realistic and illusionistic depictions of space, all within the emotional frame of the artist’s life and relationships with others.
Read MoreThe film has been widely described as a Nigerien remake of Prince’s iconic 1984 film, “Purple Rain,” shot in Tuareg and French with English subtitles. The music is intoxicatingly groovy. The visuals are dreamy and striking. And my feelings after seeing the film are absolutely electric–like the guitars.
Read MoreCertainly these films are not representative of the wider world of present-day animation—Disney, Dreamworks and Studio Ghibli, monoliths of optimistic children’s entertainment, can attest to that. But, they do present an interesting question: can animation transition to the world of adult films?
Read MoreAmong other things, and perhaps these are for another movie, I’d like to know what the role of DIA Art Foundation is in Land art — they have a big commitment to the works of Walter De Maria. How did they get involved? How about Gagosian Gallery, which shows (and sells) Michael Heizer’s works today? And it would be nice to hear from Michael Govan, who championed Heizer’s works when he ran DIA and continues to do so as Director of LACMA.
Read MoreWhat stands out are the photos of Peggy — with her artists, with their art, in her galleries and her museum. And what makes this biographical film really special, like I said at the top, is the smart, sassy commentary of the woman, her voice strong, even at age 80, giving the hint of the incredible drive of her personality.
Read MoreViewed post-Paris, post 9/11, “White Homeland Commando,” for all its formal wizardry, seems both too long and almost offensively cool.
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