dennis lim Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Werner Herzog and Jonathan Demme Talk About Life, Cinema
Filed under: Documentary », Drama », Foreign Language », Independent », Thrillers », New Releases », Noir », Mystery & Suspense », ThinkFilm », Celebrities and Controversy », Fandom », Distribution », DIY/Filmmaking », Cinematical Indie », Stars in Rewind »
It's hard to say which event in midtown Manhattan on Thursday night was cooler: New German Cinema legend Werner Herzog in conversation with director Jonathan Demme at the Times Center, or the two crazed climbers who attempted to scale the New York Times building right next door just a few hours earlier. In some ways, the two occurrences worked together: It was later announced that one of the climbers did it in order to raise awareness about global warming, a relevant issue for anyone interested in Herzog's latest film, the remarkable Antarctica odyssey Encounters at the End of the World. Like most of Herzog's documentary work, it's a brilliant amalgam of gorgeous imagery and Herzog's personal philosophies. Not a scientist himself, he spends time in their company down south, seeking to understand their behavior ("Is this a big moment?" he asks when they nonchalantly announce the discovery of a new bacterium).
Demme, admitting that he and Herzog had just met earlier in the evening, opened the conversation by reading an effusive letter to Herzog written by Roger Ebert after the critic discovered that the director dedicated Encounters to him. Herzog seemed displeased that Ebert printed the letter ("Those things should stay between two men") but had only praise for his friend. "I salute him, a good soldier of cinema," he said. "We have very few left."
Village Voice Crix Poll Gets a New Home for Christmas
Filed under: Comedy », Drama », Foreign Language », Independent », Lists », Cinematical Indie »
Our friends over at indieWIRE have done a very cool thing -- they've given Dennis Lim's year-end critics' poll, which ran at the Village Voice, from 1999-2005, a new home. Lim, of course, was one of the victims of the gutting over at the Voice that happened earlier this year, and we're hoping we'll be seeing more of him around indieWIRE in the future.As for the poll itself, which checked in with 107 alt-minded print and online critics, The Death of Mr. Lazerescu, which our own Martha Fischer and Ryan Stewart reviewed for Cinematical, tops off the list. Rounding out the top ten were L'Enfant, The Departed, Inland Empire, Army of Shadows, Three Times, Old Joy, United 93, Children of Men and Half Nelson. Helen Mirren (The Queen) and Ryan Gosling (Half Nelson) topped out the Best Performance category, with Mark Wahlberg (The Departed) and Shareeka Epps (Half Nelson) capping off the Best Supporting list. See the full list of nods, and a list of who was polled, over at indieWIRE.
Major Shakeup at Village Voice Leaves Only J Hoberman Standing
Filed under: Executive shifts », Newsstand », Politics »
The bees have been buzzing for a couple days now with word that the Village Voice, once one of the great bastions of print film criticism, is gutting its film staff. Critic Michael Atkinson was given the boot a couple days ago, and now film editor Dennis Lim has also been shown the door, leaving only J Hoberman (pictured, right) to hold down the film criticism fort at the Voice. Gawker wrote up Atkinson's firing earlier this week, with a scathing indictment of the shakedown going on at the Voice, noting that the old guard is being replaced with an awful lot of friends of Voice EIC David Blum. Anthony Kaufman is mourning, especially, the loss of Lim, who, as Kaufman notes, has been a champion for independent film over the years. The IFC Blog wrote up the Voice makeover as well, bemoaning the loss of one of the few reliable print outlets that bothered to cover indie film . And David Poland, natch, has a write-up on the sackings as well.
As interesting as the string of firings over at the Voice are to follow -- including the rather shocking canning of Robert Christgau, the Voice's venerable top music critic -- what's really going to be interesting is to see what happens there over the next few months. Will the old vanguard of Village Voice critics be replaced with more generic voices writing across publications? Will the Voice's coverage of independent film be silenced as a result of the turnover?
Bujalski hits the NY Times
Filed under: Independent », DIY/Filmmaking », Newsstand », Cinematical Indie »
I go to Los Angeles for one weekend, and I miss a profile of Andrew Bujalski in the New York Times, courtesy of Village
Voice Film Editor Dennis Lim. But what a joy to return to New York last night and read this little gem:"Hoping for a shot at Hollywood screenwriting, he recently connected with some executives in Los Angeles, though he said he treated the meetings more like therapy sessions: "I would go in and tell them my problems," [Bujalski] said. "They always had a couch.""
...all of which sounds far more relaxing than any trip to Los Angeles I've ever taken. We, of course, have been on Team Bujalski for a while now, and Mutual Appreciation landed at number nine on our list of the Ten Best Films of 2005. I like the film so much that I only feel the tiniest shred of early adopter panic now that the bandwagon is packed and ready to burst. Now will somebody step up and distribute it already?
Jeremy Renner Wants To Be An Avenger
Directors We Love: Jim Jarmusch
Indie Roundup: 'Sweetgrass,' 'Clarkworld,' 'Broken Embraces'
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Watch: Famous 'Matrix' Scene Re-Created with LEGOs
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