Category: Uncategorized
Hot Docs 2013, Days Two to Five: Fascist Regimes, Hellish Conditions, and Shanghai Jazz + Saul Bass at 93
Uploaded are a quartet of documentary film reviews from Hot Docs, including the world’s oldest jazz band in As Time Goes By in Shanghai, the hellish world of asbestos mining in remote China in Cloudy Mountains, film school students in The Great North Korean Picture Show, and Russia’s tsarist President in the feature doc Winter, Go Away! shot during the 2012 elections + the short film Vladimir Putin in Deep Concentration. Also embedded within the Editor’s Blog: extyra blather on Saul Bass’ 93rd birthday, Kubrick at the Bloor, and upcoming goodies at KQEK.com and Big Head Amusements.
Documenting George Romero’s Dead Cycle
Uploaded is a review of Synapse’s new DVD release of Document of the Dead, Mark Frumkes’ finale and ‘definitive’ edition of his important documentary on the making of an independent film production – George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. Also up is an expanded review of Twilight Time’s limited Blu-ray edition of Night of the Living Dead, the underrated Tom Savini remake from 1990, plus mobile reviews of several Romero-related docs, films, and soundtrack releases you may not know exist. Also: an illustration of what “frozen shoulder” looks like when pen hits paper and imagination does *not* run wild.
Soundtrack Reviews: Renewed Franchises
Franchises are both a boon for the studios wanting to expand the lifespan of an existing franchises, as well as composers who get a crack at tackling an iconic series, remake, or re-imagining. Just uploaded is a review of Bear McCreary’s Battlestar Galactia: Blood & Chrome, and Roque Banos’ superb Evil Dead (both from La-La Land Records).
Hot Docs 2013, Day One: Terms and Conditions May Apply
The 20th Hot Docs Film Festival is underway, and uploaded is a capsule review of Cullen Hoback’s Terms and Conditions May Apply (2013), a chronology of how we’ve pretty much lost any sense of privacy by clicking on that “Accept” button found on every software, purchase and user aggreement to use free online services like Facebook and Google.
Borgen: Season 2
Just uploaded is a review of Borgen: Season 2, Denmark’s excellent political drama recently released in the UK on DVD and Blu via Spirit Entertainment / Arrow Films.
Nikkatsu Naughties, Part 4: Caged Fairies & the Dewey Fetishes of Koyu Ohara
In Part 4 of our ongoing series of Wrong Erotica on video, we look at a trio of films by Koyu Ohara, the diretor of Fairy in a Cage / Ori no naka no yôsei (1977), True Story of a Woman in Jail: Sex Hell / Jitsuroku onna kanbetsusho: sei-jigoku (1975), and the sequel True Story of a Woman in Jail: Continues / Zoku jitsuroku onna kanbetsusho (1975), all released by Impulse Pictures / Synapse Films.
And Justice for All: The Films of Norman Jewison, Part II
Follow-up Editor’s Blog on the current Norman Jewison retrospective at the TIF Bell Lightbox, with a review of his pastry puff, fluff-tart confection (say that line fast) The Thomas Crown Affair (1968).
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