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An Autumn Afternoon (1962) More at IMDbPro »Sanma no aji (original title)

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5 items from 2011

1 December 2011 8:34 PM, PST | MUBI | See recent MUBI news »

I have featured posters before for films that were never made, but this is a poster for a film that no longer exists.

Earlier this year that essential blog of Japanese graphic ephemera, Pink Tentacle, posted a startling collection of posters, magazine covers and advertisements from the 1920s and 30s (“a glimpse at some of the prevailing tendencies in a society transformed by the growth of modern industry and technology, the popularity of Western art and culture, and the emergence of leftist political thought.”) The graphics were all taken from the book Modernism on Paper: Japanese Graphic Design of the 1920s-30s which was published in 2003 but is now out of print and hard to find. 

All of the graphics are fabulous, but one that really caught my eye was labelled “Young Miss” (Ojo-san) movie poster, 1930. The title didn’t ring any bells, but then the other day I was »

25 November 2011 10:22 PM, PST | blogs.suntimes.com/ebert | See recent Roger Ebert's Blog news »

Where do you like to sit when you go to the movies? I know where I do, and I even suppose I know why. I started reconsidering my thinking, however, when I read David Bordwell's enlightening new blog entry, "Down in front!"

Here is a man who recalls every film he has ever seen, and where, and when, and why, and where he sat, and usually who he sat next to. That person has often been his wife, Kristin Thompson. That they take turns writing entries on the world's best film blog may tell you something.

But wait. I am adamant about hating to make lists. Why do I go out on a limb and name the world's best film blog, when I would never name the world's best film? It's because there's no competition. If you know a better blog, please tell me. I'll start reading it.

Kristin and Bordwell are the authors, »

- Roger Ebert

25 October 2011 2:58 AM, PDT | MUBI | See recent MUBI news »

"Alexander Korda's production of The Four Feathers, the most popular film version of a 1902 British adventure novel set during the Sudanese Mahdist revolt in the late 19th century, retains on its surface pro-Empire bravado and a streak of colonialist supremacy," writes Bill Weber in Slant. "But as vintage 1939 English-regiment actioners go, it has the edge on Hollywood's Gunga Din in authentic, epically framed locations, a lush Technicolor palette, and a lesser racist taint." Criterion's release is a "landmark physical production is handsomely remastered and preserved, even if the bloom has gone off the rose of its imperial England." Speaking of which. As you've likely heard, perhaps on Start the Week (see Mon, Oct 11), Richard Gott's Britain's Empire: Resistance, Rebellion and Repression has kicked up a bit of dust recently. Verso has a quick primer.

Identification of a Woman is Michelangelo Antonioni's "foolishly underrated 1982 film about men and women, »

25 August 2011 11:13 PM, PDT | CriterionCast | See recent CriterionCast news »

Here’s a bonus installment of my Journey Through The Eclipse Series, which I regularly crank out on a weekly schedule. I’m adding this one to the mix because I’ve got a little extra time on my hands this week (using a bit of vacation time as summer winds down) and because Friday, August 26 marks the 70th anniversary of the release of Ornamental Hairpin, a sensitive, contemplative romantic drama from Japan. If you do the math, you’ll realize that this film hit the theaters just a few months before the Imperial Navy rained down bombs on Pearl Harbor and well into the period that Japan was aggressively expanding its empire into China and the islands of the South Pacific. One would hardly suspect that it was produced at such a volatile moment in that nation’s history, but watching what otherwise seems like a timeless summer-season idyll »

- David Blakeslee

25 April 2011 12:06 PM, PDT | Twitch | See recent Twitch news »

With Brian De Palma's Blow Out due for release tomorrow in a sparkling new Blu-ray edition from The Criterion Collection (it's my top pick of the week), it's a good time to revisit Obsession, the director's 1976 thriller that leaves no eyebrows unmoved before it's finished. The film borrows elements from Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo and Yasujirô Ozu's An Autumn Afternoon; screenwriter Paul Schrader frankly admitted: "Before video, it was a lot easier to knock things off because no one else had seen them" (Peter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, p. 294). It probably helped that Vertigo was one of five films pulled out of circulation by Hitchcock in 1973, and would not return until 1983. In any event, the influence of Vertigo is more »

5 items from 2011