Peculiarly, pathos has proven to be a more reliable element in comedies than in dramas. The pitiful man tends to incite a curious form of laughter than he would empathy, especially when his piteousness is welded with a muted strain of conceit. This is particularly a male phenomenon as well. By account of his built-in …
It’s only just October and already the Oscar season has grown ugly. And it’s not even the contenders battling for rank. The heat is coming from the pundits themselves, who have already grown weary of some of their colleagues’ BS and perpetual trumpeting. In Mark Harris’s brilliant first post about the Oscar race so far, …
After his death and time travel, Bruce Wayne returns and reclaims his rightful place as Batman. However, after his adventures and trials in Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne miniseries, he realizes that his approach towards crime fighting has been too narrow. Bruce Wayne reveals that he has been funding Batman since his inception and announces Batman …
Watermark Directed by Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky Canada, 2013 The opening minutes of the new documentary Watermark promise something that sadly never comes to fruition. First, we see rushing waters, possibly from a distinctive waterfall, for at least a minute, if not more. Then, there’s a smash cut to the desert that was once …
As with any year, some people have begun arguing that 2013 was a bad year for film, because of the expected glut of effects-heavy blockbusters that litter the multiplexes each summer, or because there was a lack of auteur-driven storytelling for the majority of the year. Though it is indeed frustrating that studios hold their …
Leviathan Directed by Lucian Castaing-Taylor & Verena Paravel USA, 2012 The Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab is slowly out to reshape the way you see cinema and the world. Rather than set out to document the world via a recitation of facts and experiences, they’re strapping the cameras right at the edge of life – in …
Shot using multiple unmanned digital cameras on an Atlantic Ocean fishing trawler, Leviathan plunges us directly into the ship’s chaotic machinery, revealing a dissonant, alien world. The latest collaborative work from anthropologists and filmmakers, Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel, is a profoundly original documentary and a staggering, hallucinatory piece of cinema. There is no narration and no interviews; from the outset, we are thrust unaided and disorientated into the cacophony, bombarded with anarchic point-of-view shots and haunting, discordant sounds.
We’re cast right into the clanging of metal and the harsh winds of the North Atlantic. Though ostensibly advertised as an immersive look into the commercial fishing industry, our viewing lens is at first murky and dim. This sort of visceral thrust is at once foreign and familiar, a transporting non-linear journey keen on the laborious modes of living at sea.
[callout] The Imposter Directed by Bart Layton [/callout] [quote by=”Josh Spiegel”] Your mind play tricks on you all the time. You’re presented with a clear-cut fact, something that is immutably true, and you doubt it. You wake up in the middle of the night, but your mind convinces you that you’ve had a full night’s …
Once considered by many as either high art, propaganda or educational videos, documentary film has developed into a popular and visible form of entertainment, sometimes breaking into the mainstream, and often having a greater effect on society. Every year it seems more and more docs are produced and thus not even our hard working staff …
The Rencontres internationales du documentaires de Montreal (RIDM) was founded in 1998 and every year since has highlighted the very best documentaries from Canada and around the world. With a special focus on documentaries that really test boundary between fiction and reality, while presenting singular and personal perspectives that might change our view of the world around …
Leviathan Directed by Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel France/UK/USA, 2012 It’s impossible to discuss the documentary Leviathan without comparing it to co-director Lucien Castaing-Taylor’s previous film, Sweetgrass. Sweetgrass was a documentary about sheep herders in Montana, but it eschewed all of the typical tropes of a documentary: no talking heads, no narration, no soundtrack. It …
Supernatural Review, Season 7, Episode 16: “Out With the Old” Written by Robert Singer and Jenny Klein Directed by John F. Showalter Airs Fridays at 9pm (ET) on the CW This week, on Supernatural: Dean just wants to dance, Sam is on the jittery edge, and even Leviathans have terrible bosses. After several weeks of …