CineAction articles from January 2005

CineAction archives from January 2005

In the web with David Cronenberg: Spider and the new auteurism.(Cover Story)
January 1, 2005... David Cronenberg has long reigned as one of the principal North American auteurs of independent filmmaking. As a Canadian filmmaker, he has defined himself repeatedly in opposition to Hollywood feature filmmaking. He has operated under...

Thoroughly modern Maddin.(Guy Maddin)(Critical Essay)(Biography)
January 1, 2005... I do feel a bit like Dracula in Winnipeg. I'm safe, but can travel abroad and suck up all sorts of ideas from other filmmakers--both dead and undead. Then I can come back here and hoard these tropes and cinematic devices.... And I...

Canadian social documentary in the age of Michael Moore: The Corporation and Fix.(Critical Essay)
January 1, 2005... Canadian documentary today finds itself in the best and worst of times. There are more films being made than ever and more people--some 14,000 or so--involved in the making of them. The National Film Board, thanks to Commissioner Jacques...

Gay guerrilla filmmaking and terrorist chic: Toronto filmmaker Bruce LaBruce discusses his latest art/porn feature, The Raspberry Reich.(Interview)
January 1, 2005... Some of the most exciting contemporary queer work is emanating from Canada. The Great White North has spawned what seems a small army of gender/cinema revolutionaries, from the exemplary documentary work of Lynne Fernie and Aerlyn Weissman in...

Caress, denial, decay: queer desire in The Nature of Nicholas.(Critical Essay)
January 1, 2005... Pairing dark humour with psychological disturbances, Jeff Erbach's The Nature of Nicholas (2002) commences with an impulsive kiss. Bobby, whom 12-year-old Nicholas kisses, stands aside, gently wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and...

The local and the global revisited: Un 32 Aout Sur Terre.(Movie Review)
January 1, 2005... In a smoke-filled Montreal cafe, the sound of an electronic pager causes the otherwise cool patrons to scramble in comic-ritualized sameness for the electronic leash until one identifies the alert as directed at him. This scene sets up the...

You watch too much TV, kid: casualties of cultural colonialism.(Critical Essay)
January 1, 2005... At the time of its release in 1993, David Wellington's I Love A Man In Uniform was hailed by Canadian critics as one of the most provocative features to emerge from Canada's then still new "new wave." Critic Geoff Pevere observed,...

Tedium and torture: Fight Club, globalization and professionals in crisis.(Critical Essay)
January 1, 2005... PART 1: Fight Club and Social Meaning [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In this essay I discuss David Fincher's Fight Club (US, 1999) as a provocative anti-capitalist cultural artifact, one which articulates a widely-resonant and resistant...

Allegorical figurations and the political didactic in Bulworth.(Critical Essay)
January 1, 2005... Warren Beatty's Bulworth is a political film in a long line of recent popular political films that have come out of Hollywood, films such as Dave (Ivan Reitman, 1993), The American President (Rob Reiner, 1995), Nixon (Oliver Stone, 1995), The...

Bridges: Notre Musique by Jean-Luc Godard.(2004 TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL)(Critical Essay)
January 1, 2005... Each September, the Toronto International Film Festival grants discerning spectators a chance to experience wonderful films from all over the world, many of which may never appear again. Forget all the hype, the red carpet, the paparazzi; think...

Hou Hsiao-hsien's Cafe Lumiere.(2004 TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL)(Critical Essay)
January 1, 2005... Hou Hsiao-hsien's latest film Cafe Lumiere (Kohi Jikou) is a commemorative project produced as an homage to Yasujiro Ozu, commissioned by Shochiko, the company for whom Ozu worked. Ozu has been cited as an influence in Hou's films, in part...

The Ninth Day and The Downfall.(2004 TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL)(Movie Review)
January 1, 2005... "..(W)e Germans just can't hide behind the taboo any longer that these horrors are not depictable. Sooner or later, one has to face them." --Volker Schlondorff, press kit "We have to come to terms with our own history." --Oliver...

Living and looking at life: Bruce Webber interviewed.(2004 TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL)(Interview)
January 1, 2005... A Letter to True takes the form of a letter Bruce Webber writes to one of his five golden retriever dogs, a pup named True. Webber begins his voice over narration of the film by telling the viewer the letter was prompted by his loneliness while...

The Toronto Film Festival: random thoughts.(2004 TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL)
January 1, 2005... My health was poor throughout the festival, and I was able to see only seventeen films, sometimes in a less than wonderful state of mind. What follows will therefore be somewhat scrappy and tentative. Which is not to say that any statement by...