Film Comment (Juli/August)

Die Online-Ausgabe des Film Comment ist freigeschaltet und hat dies zu bieten:

Auf dem Titel, in der Titelgeschichte der unvermeidliche Michael Moore. Keine große Filmkunst, aber der wichtigste Film des Jahres, meint Kent Jones in einem ausgesprochen politischen Text:

This is a far cry from the buffoonish self-aggrandizement of Columbine. There are no jokey cartoon alternate histories of America or overextended Canadian gags here.

Außerdem Ausschnitte aus einem Interview mit Moore.

Zwei Berichte aus Cannes. Einer von Chefredakteur Gavin Smith, der unter anderem sonst wenig besprochene Filme aus dem Mittleren Osten vorstellt:

Every year Cannes has a good crop of distinctive work from the Middle East. Standouts this year included In the Battlefields from Lebanon, Thirst (Atash) from Israel/Palestine, and Earth and Ashes from Afghanistan - a trio of striking, widely divergent takes on strained family ties in times of historical stress.

Der andere von Kent Jones - in dem unter anderem zu erfahren ist, dass die Cannes-Jury allen Ernstes (?) überlegte, George W. Bush eine Palme für seine komische Performance in "Fahrenheit 9/11" zu verleihen. Ein klein wenig enttäuscht ist Jones von Apichatpong Weerasethakuls "Tropical Maladay". Und es gibt viel Lob für Jean-Luc Godards "Notre Musique":

Just as Fahrenheit 9/11 is immeasurably superior to Bowling for Columbine, Our Music (Notre musique) is the shining valedictory everyone claimed to see in In Praise of Love, less visually spectacular but far more carefully thought out. Through a process of trial and error that has been ongoing for nearly three decades, Godard has finally found a structure that comfortably accommodates history, myth, and the eternal mystery of the moving image.

Amy Taubins Kolumne über zwei Filme:

Damaged goods! Jennifer Reeves's The Time We Killed and Peggy Ahwesh and Bobby Abate's Certain Women summon up the old-fashioned misogynist metaphor and also set in motion its deconstruction.

Regulär besprochen werden: The Stepford Wives, Spike Lees "She Hate Me" und Michael Manns erster Digital-Film "Collateral":

Mann’s fleet, dynamic handling of action has never been better - a convulsive four-way shootout between Vincent, the FBI, and two rival gangs in a jammed Koreatown club joins the pantheon of his greatest setpieces. And particularly in the final third, the director reaffirms his status as one of the cinema’s great lyric poets of urban space.