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Physical Media Isn’t Dead, It Just Smells Funny: Blu-ray Reviews for December 2020

Posted on by Aja Essex

 

Full transparency: all Blu-rays reviewed were provided by Kino Lorber and Criterion.

Sometimes technology just doesn’t cooperate the way it’s supposed to. This month’s review round-up was all typed and set to go, but due to a computer error, I lost everything but the notes I jotted down in a notebook as I watched this month’s films. However, my benevolent editor and I didn’t want to deprive anyone of their physical media fix. I jumped onto Audacity and freestyled my thoughts on this month’s titles, and what an eclectic bunch it was: a lavishly decadent period piece, kinetic narrative showcases, an erotic psychosexual thriller, and more! (more…)

Structures of Looking in Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Posted on by Laura Ivins

Héloïse stands before a bonfire, almost appearing as if she's in it
Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) in Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Céline Sciamma, 2019) revolves around a refusal of a woman to be looked at. Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) will not sit for her own portrait, because she knows that portrait is the means to take her into an unwanted marriage with an unknown man. It’s the 18th century, though, and as an aristocratic woman Héloïse has little choice in whether or who she will marry.

Through its layered exploration of the act of looking, Portrait of a Lady on Fire also uncovers the range of choices available to 18th century, white, European women and the social limitations imposed upon them.

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Monthly Movie Round-Up: December

Posted on by Establishing Shot

Every month, A Place for Film brings you a selection of films from our group of regular bloggers. Even though these films aren’t currently being screened at the IU Cinema, this series reflects the varied programming that can be found at the Cinema and demonstrates the eclectic tastes of the bloggers. Each contributor has picked one film that they saw this month that they couldn’t wait to share with others. Keep reading to find out what discoveries these cinephiles have made, as well as some of the old friends they’ve revisited.

To hear more about this month’s picks, be sure to join us for the live portion of this round-up, which will be presented as a virtual event tomorrow, December 15. Register now! (more…)

Eight Underrated Holiday Favorites

Posted on by Michaela Owens

Dennis Morgan and Barbara Stanwyck in Christmas in Connecticut
Dennis Morgan and Barbara Stanwyck in Christmas in Connecticut

You know Home Alone and Miracle on 34th Street and Love Actually and White Christmas, Elf and A Christmas Story and Die Hard and Christmas Vacation. But do you recall the most underrated holiday films of all? Okay, so saying they’re “the most underrated” might be a bit of an exaggeration. But the following eight titles are almost certainly not the first ones that come to mind for many people when the holidays roll around. For me, though, Christmastime isn’t complete until I cozy up with these little-known, little-discussed classics, so if you’re looking to expand your own holiday watchlist or you’re just in the mood for something heartwarming, silly, or both, this list is definitely for you. (more…)

Film Style in Documentary Cinema

Posted on by Jack Miller

Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory (1895)
Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory (1895)

“In my mind, there isn’t as much distinction between documentary and fiction as there is between a good movie and a bad one.” — Abbas Kiarostami

Cinema’s capacity to document the world around us, to faithfully create an indexical record of its spaces and happenings, is a tradition that’s been with us at least since the filmed “actualities” of the Lumière brothers from the late nineteenth century. But almost from cinema’s inception, many people have tried to situate this realist tradition in opposition to the other great function of movies, that of creating fictive dream-worlds, of imposing a personal vision or aesthetic atop this reality (a tradition that’s exemplified by another pioneer of early cinema, Georges Méliès). Even today, we tend to think of “documentary cinema” as being more concerned with the dissemination of information about a particular subject than with the power of moving images and editing. (more…)

Ken Jacobs: Little Stabs at Happiness

Posted on by Establishing Shot

Florence and Ken Jacobs
Florence and Ken Jacobs

Guest post by Joan Hawkins, Associate Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at Indiana University.

The immediate post-World War II period saw an explosion of formal experimentation across the American art scene. In music, there was jazz, bop, be-bop, and rock ‘n’ roll. Classical music saw the rise of John Cage and experiments that would lead to 1960s minimalism. Painters Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning pioneered abstract expressionism in the visual arts, while Merce Cunningham and George Balanchine radically redefined the vocabulary of dance. In literature, there were the Beats: Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, William S. Burroughs. And the world of film saw the emergence of a new American Independent cinema, with narrative storytellers like John Cassavetes and Shirley Clarke at one end of the spectrum and experimental visionary filmmakers like Maya Deren, Stan Brakhage, and Ken Jacobs at the other end.

(more…)
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