Catering directly to my interests, the Criterion Channel’s January lineup boasts two of my favorite things: James Gray and cats. In the former case it’s his first five features (itself a terrible reminder he only released five movies in 20 years); the latter shows felines the respect they deserve, from Kuroneko to The Long Goodbye, Tourneur’s Cat People and Mick Garris’ Sleepwalkers. Meanwhile, Ava Gardner, Bertrand Tavernier, Isabel Sandoval, Ken Russell, Juleen Compton, George Harrison’s HandMade Films, and the Sundance Film Festival get retrospectives.
Restorations of Soviet sci-fi trip Ikarie Xb 1, The Unknown, and The Music of Regret stream, as does the recent Plan 75. January’s Criterion Editions are Inside Llewyn Davis, Farewell Amor, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and (most intriguingly) the long-out-of-print The Man Who Fell to Earth, Blu-rays of which go for hundreds of dollars.
See the lineup below and learn more here.
Back By Popular Demand
The Graduate,...
Restorations of Soviet sci-fi trip Ikarie Xb 1, The Unknown, and The Music of Regret stream, as does the recent Plan 75. January’s Criterion Editions are Inside Llewyn Davis, Farewell Amor, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and (most intriguingly) the long-out-of-print The Man Who Fell to Earth, Blu-rays of which go for hundreds of dollars.
See the lineup below and learn more here.
Back By Popular Demand
The Graduate,...
- 12/12/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
From Kingston to Lewisham, here are five other must-see reggae movies
The Harder They Come (Dir. Perry Henzell, Jamaica, 1972)
Jamaica's first feature, and the one against which others are measured. The plot – poor country boy seeks fortune in city – is archetypal, but Henzell cleverly turns our admiration for hero Ivan (Jimmy Cliff in incendiary form) into revulsion, as the film shifts through melodrama, comedy and musical into tragedy. Immortal movie moments – "You think the hero can be dead before the last reel?" scoffs Ivan at one point – and a stunning soundtrack led by Cliff's title song make this a five-star classic.
Rockers (Dir. Ted Bafaloukos, Jamaica, 1979)
A "Dreadsploitation" flick that's now a vibrant time capsule of reggae's halcyon days. Drummer Leroy "Horsemouth" Wallace plays a hapless muso caught up in Kingston's music wars. The plot's paper thin, but there's a gallery of great cameo appearances – Jacob Miller and Gregory Isaacs...
The Harder They Come (Dir. Perry Henzell, Jamaica, 1972)
Jamaica's first feature, and the one against which others are measured. The plot – poor country boy seeks fortune in city – is archetypal, but Henzell cleverly turns our admiration for hero Ivan (Jimmy Cliff in incendiary form) into revulsion, as the film shifts through melodrama, comedy and musical into tragedy. Immortal movie moments – "You think the hero can be dead before the last reel?" scoffs Ivan at one point – and a stunning soundtrack led by Cliff's title song make this a five-star classic.
Rockers (Dir. Ted Bafaloukos, Jamaica, 1979)
A "Dreadsploitation" flick that's now a vibrant time capsule of reggae's halcyon days. Drummer Leroy "Horsemouth" Wallace plays a hapless muso caught up in Kingston's music wars. The plot's paper thin, but there's a gallery of great cameo appearances – Jacob Miller and Gregory Isaacs...
- 4/23/2012
- by Neil Spencer
- The Guardian - Film News
The great reggae singer Gregory Isaacs died today after a long battle with lung cancer. As per tradition, I'm going to use this moment to celebrate the deceased through his documentary appearances. Isaacs can be seen prominently in three films ("Rockers," "Land of Look Behind" and "Made in Jamaica"), and though one is not technically or completely non-fiction, it does somewhat fit the documentary tradition and format. This is his first, "Rockers," a 1978 musical from Ted Bafaloukos originally intended to be an actual doc about reggae. It has a plot, inspired by realist films like "Bicycle Thieves," and some…...
- 10/25/2010
- Spout
Film review: 'Mr. Death'
PARK CITY, Utah -- In this age of increasing specialization, Fred A. Leuchter Jr. created a professional niche for himself, designing improvements for electric chairs, gas chambers and the gallows.
A self-styled engineer, he was beckoned by state prison officials to "improve" the efficiency of their devices and cut down on the pain and spectacle of state executions.
Leuchter came to fancy himself an expert on death and, prompted by a Canadian court case, visited Auschwitz and conducted his own "scientific" investigation, concluding that there was no evidence of the use of poison gas and that the Holocaust was therefore fictional.
Filmmaker Errol Morris profiles this curious and reviled man in a deadpan and unnerving documentary called "Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter Jr." that played to appreciative viewers at Sundance. It's a scorchingly dry depiction, one that burns to the marrow of this bizarre man's psyche and persona, given with a disciplined detachment that proves more penetrating than a more fervent and emotional drawing could realize.
Holocaust denial is certainly a damning example of personal numbskullery, but the individual we see here is not an overtly evil being. Leuchter is a docile, well-intentioned engineer who sees in his work a method of alleviating human suffering, of eliminating the grotesque pain and indignity that the condemned experience at their execution -- botched electrocutions, for instance, where the felon is literally ignited.
In personality and demeanor, Leuchter seems almost an automaton: he talks in a distant manner, with a technocrat's detachment from his "product." Indeed, his dull deportment is a bit eerie. Especially disquieting is his focus on the mechanical processes of the death chamber -- he might as well be talking about telephone installation. It's this dispassionate methodological aspect of the man's character, we see, that makes him prone to self-delusion: he comes to worship and take great credence in his knowledge of the execution process.
We see the evolution of a proud and egocentric being, one so consumed by his methodological purity that he becomes grandiose, applying his little, precise methods to greater arenas -- i.e. investigating the Nazi death camps.
In this revelation, Morris has concisely shown that pride, not mania or avarice, is perhaps a greater root of peril and evil: a banal little man perpetuates and dignifies one of mankind's most heinous crimes through his ego-driven "scientific" analysis of Auschwitz. Through the peculiar prism of this tiny technocrat, Morris has refracted a disturbing insight into the nature and the origin of evil.
Technically, "Mr. Death" is a marvel. Morris' clinical hand reveals much, in part due to the disciplined framing and icy scopings of cinematographers Peter Donahue and Robert Richardson, as well as the clear-cut cadence that editor Karen Schmeer brings to the film's telling.
MR. DEATH: THE RISE AND FALL OF FRED A. LEUCHTER JR.
Independent Film Channel
in association with Granada 4
Producers: David Collins, Michael Williams
Director: Errol Morris
Executive producer: John Sloss
Director of photography: Peter Donahue, Robert Richardson
Editor: Karen Schmeer
Production designer: Ted Bafaloukos
Music: Caleb Sampson
Color/stereo
Running time -- 105 minutes
No MPAA rating...
A self-styled engineer, he was beckoned by state prison officials to "improve" the efficiency of their devices and cut down on the pain and spectacle of state executions.
Leuchter came to fancy himself an expert on death and, prompted by a Canadian court case, visited Auschwitz and conducted his own "scientific" investigation, concluding that there was no evidence of the use of poison gas and that the Holocaust was therefore fictional.
Filmmaker Errol Morris profiles this curious and reviled man in a deadpan and unnerving documentary called "Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter Jr." that played to appreciative viewers at Sundance. It's a scorchingly dry depiction, one that burns to the marrow of this bizarre man's psyche and persona, given with a disciplined detachment that proves more penetrating than a more fervent and emotional drawing could realize.
Holocaust denial is certainly a damning example of personal numbskullery, but the individual we see here is not an overtly evil being. Leuchter is a docile, well-intentioned engineer who sees in his work a method of alleviating human suffering, of eliminating the grotesque pain and indignity that the condemned experience at their execution -- botched electrocutions, for instance, where the felon is literally ignited.
In personality and demeanor, Leuchter seems almost an automaton: he talks in a distant manner, with a technocrat's detachment from his "product." Indeed, his dull deportment is a bit eerie. Especially disquieting is his focus on the mechanical processes of the death chamber -- he might as well be talking about telephone installation. It's this dispassionate methodological aspect of the man's character, we see, that makes him prone to self-delusion: he comes to worship and take great credence in his knowledge of the execution process.
We see the evolution of a proud and egocentric being, one so consumed by his methodological purity that he becomes grandiose, applying his little, precise methods to greater arenas -- i.e. investigating the Nazi death camps.
In this revelation, Morris has concisely shown that pride, not mania or avarice, is perhaps a greater root of peril and evil: a banal little man perpetuates and dignifies one of mankind's most heinous crimes through his ego-driven "scientific" analysis of Auschwitz. Through the peculiar prism of this tiny technocrat, Morris has refracted a disturbing insight into the nature and the origin of evil.
Technically, "Mr. Death" is a marvel. Morris' clinical hand reveals much, in part due to the disciplined framing and icy scopings of cinematographers Peter Donahue and Robert Richardson, as well as the clear-cut cadence that editor Karen Schmeer brings to the film's telling.
MR. DEATH: THE RISE AND FALL OF FRED A. LEUCHTER JR.
Independent Film Channel
in association with Granada 4
Producers: David Collins, Michael Williams
Director: Errol Morris
Executive producer: John Sloss
Director of photography: Peter Donahue, Robert Richardson
Editor: Karen Schmeer
Production designer: Ted Bafaloukos
Music: Caleb Sampson
Color/stereo
Running time -- 105 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 2/8/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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