Tags archives: Film Comment Selects
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8 years ago
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Founded in 1962, Film Comment has long been the critical voice of art-house and independent cinema, while also offering thoughtful coverage of more mainstream movies. The Film Society of Lincoln Center, which has published the magazine since the 1970s, annually presents the Film Comment Selects festival, which runs this year from Friday, Feb. 17, through Thursday, Feb. 23. Now in its 17th year, the festival screens movies that are not generally shown elsewhere, mixing the new and noteworthy with older, sometimes forgotten films that deserve another look.
The scope of the festival is demonstrated by its opening night films: a premiere of Stéphane Brizé’s A Woman’s Life, an intricate adaptation of the Guy de Maupassant novel; and an Ultra-widescreen IMAX presentation of Terrence Malick’s trippy Voyage of Time, a visual and aural treat. The festival also features a four-film tribute to recently deceased cinematographer Raoul Coutard and revivals including 1972's The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds and rarely seen 1962 short On the Harmfulness of Tobacco, both directed by Paul Newman.
Here’s a look at a couple of other films to be screened:
Bitter Money, Wang Bing’s rambling, fly-on-the-wall documentary about Chinese migrant workers, is sometimes a tough slog. His loose, observational style doesn’t always serve the stories of his subjects—various individuals who have traveled to Huzhou to work in the city’s garment factories—nor does it consistently[...]
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10 years ago
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The first feature from writer/director Lance Edmands (who previously served as editor on Tiny Furniture, among other movies), Bluebird is quiet, brooding, and visually stunning. The film’s slowly unfolding narrative tracks the reverberations of an accident on a small Maine logging town and its working-class inhabitants. Meditative and highly atmospheric, it’s as much a portrayal of a harsh, bleak environment as it is of the individuals who live there.
Amy Morton plays Lesley, a longtime school bus driver who becomes distracted at the end of her shift one day and fails to notice a sleeping boy in one of the rear seats. Her husband Richard (John Slattery), a logger, is largely preoccupied by news of an impending mill shutdown and probable layoffs while the couple’s sensitive teen Paula (Emily Meade) is engrossed in negotiating the beginnings of a new romance.
In the accident’s aftermath, the affected parties react in various ways: the boy’s young, irresponsible mother (Louisa Krause) hires a lawyer against the wishes of her own mother (Margo Martindale); the devastated Paula lashes out at her father and seeks comfort in her budding relationship. Though seemingly impervious and a bit distant, Richard shows clear signs of stress and the outwardly stoical Lesley herself eventually and quietly breaks down. These are not demonstrative people; though there are outbursts of emotion, much is kept under wraps.
The gradual unraveling of these characters is shown amid the[...]
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