At the first bullfight I ever went to I expected to be horrified and perhaps sickened by what I had been told would happen to the horse.” That’s the line Ernest Hemingway chose to open his 1930 masterwork, Death in … Continue reading Sunday Streams — THE MOMENT OF TRUTH
On August 1, 2019, D(onn) A(lan) Pennebaker, Penny to most, died. He was 94. A true titan of cinema, Pennebaker leaves behind a plethora of work, almost all of it falling under the category of Direct Cinema. His purpose was … Continue reading Sunday Streams — D. A. Pennebaker
Cinematographer Jack Cardiff was born for Technicolor. One of the company’s first technicians, Cardiff mastered the three-strip process in the late-1930s with industrial and instructional films before getting a chance to work as a 2nd unit cameraman on Michael Powell … Continue reading Sunday Streams — 10 from Cardiff
History, by its very nature, is reductive. There’s simply too much to consider, too many players to figure, and too many stories to remember. To the victor go the spoils the saying goes. And when the history of cinema was … Continue reading Sunday Streams — BE NATURAL
Jonathan Gold was one of a kind. He was the “belly of Los Angeles,” LA Weekly‘s Pulitzer Prize-winning restaurant critic, a chronicler of culture, and one of the best writers and thinkers about the great city of Los Angeles. His book Counter Intelligence: Where to Eat in the Real Los Angeles, is a must, as were his weekly appearances on Evan Kleinman’s KCRW show, “Good Food on the Road.” Sadly, Gold died on July 21, 2019, from pancreatic cancer. He was 57. It was a loss, not just to the writing community, but also to those who refuse to think of … Continue reading Sunday Streams — CITY OF GOLD
KCET, an independent and non-commercial Los Angeles TV station, offers stellar programming. From old Huell Howser episodes to the award-winning Lost L.A., KCET does an excellent job of exploring how past fissures inform a fractured present. Their most recent production, Broken Bread, stars L.A. chef Roy Choi (above) in a six-part series that looks at how the people of L.A. are using food to affect social change, and how the city of L.A. is providing food to its citizens. As the title suggests, Broken Bread is not one of those typical documentaries about helping hands and successful models, the kind designed … Continue reading Sunday Streams — BROKEN BREAD
As the decade comes to a close, the mind turns to the best films of the 2010s, and 2013’s Inside Llewyn Davis easily makes the shortlist. A Sisyphean story of a struggling folk musician searching for authenticity in 1961 Greenwich Village would have been enough, but filmmakers Joel & Ethan Coen drag their titular character (played magnificently by Oscar Isaac) across America’s fracturing artistic scene, crossing paths with a bevy of historical figures and mid-century archetypes. The music is outstanding, the performances are pitch perfect, and the cinematography from Bruno Delbonnel is beyond reproach. It’s one for the ages, a … Continue reading Sunday Streams — INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS
I have Varda on the mind. And not just because she passed away earlier this year at the age of 90. Or that I just wrote about one of her best films, Vagabond. Or that the Alamo Drafthouse Sloans Lake’s Femme Club is dedicating their July screenings to the great filmmaker; I have Varda on the mind because few filmmakers have occupied my mental real estate quite like the diminutive Belgian. Her final film, Varda by Agnès, has yet to make it to U.S. theaters, but I still think of her 2106 documentary, Faces Places (Visages Villages) as the perfect swan song. … Continue reading Sunday Streams — FACES PLACES
It’s funny how some movies make their way to the screen. Or don’t, as the case may be. Take Pasolini, the 84-minute biopic about notorious Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini; directed by an equally notorious filmmaker, Abel Ferrara and starring Willem Dafoe as the titular filmmaker, Pasolini debuted at the Venice International Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival in 2014. Then it disappeared, for nearly five years, before being dumped in theaters at the beginning of June 2019. But Pasolini is no hidden gem. The movie is sluggish and slow, provides little insight into the man and his works, and lacks … Continue reading Sunday Streams — MAMMA ROMA
Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. —Bob Dylan Rolling Thunder Revue is Scorsese’s second documentary about the singer/songwriter from Duluth, Minnesota. His first, No Direction Home from 2005, covered Dylan’s early years up to his motorcycle accident in 1966. Less concerned with documentation than myth-making, No Direction Home is partly how Robert Allen Zimmerman became Bob Dylan, and partly how Bob Dylan now remembers Robert Allen Zimmerman. Rolling Thunder Revue, currently streaming on Netflix, picks up ten years later, in the streets of New York City during America’s Bicentennial. What does this have to do with … Continue reading Sunday Streams — ROLLING THUNDER REVUE: A BOB DYLAN STORY BY MARTIN SCORSESE
