Soundtracks of Cinema: ‘Boxer’
‘Boxer’ Soundtrack: A Vague Visages guide for every Song in Mitja Okorn’s 2024 Netflix movie.
Mannhunting: Exploring Masculinity in the Films of Michael Mann – Part Four
“Masculinity in Mann’s world is its own prison, a conundrum of duality, a question of what someone will stand for and the masks they may wear while striving for an identity.”
Mannhunting: Exploring Masculinity in the Films of Michael Mann – Part Three
Mannhunting #3 by Bill Bria (‘Ali,’ ‘The Insider’ and ‘Collateral’)
Mannhunting: Exploring Masculinity in the Films of Michael Mann – Part Two
Mannhunting #2 by Bill Bria: “In Mann’s duality of man, cop and robber are, in Stevenson’s words, ‘radically both’ one and the same.”
Mannhunting: Exploring Masculinity in the Films of Michael Mann – Part One
Mannhunting #1 by Bill Bria: “The protagonists and antagonists in Mann’s films tend to be mirror images of each other, all of them caught within masculinity’s shackles.”
World Cinema Project: Permanent Impermanence — ‘Pixote’ and ‘Memories of Underdevelopment’
“‘Memories of Underdevelopment’ shares with ‘Pixote’ a cautious destabilization, a sense of how long can this last, of tipping points, radical reform and the capricious aftermath.”
The Disaster Area: From ‘Airport’ to ‘Airplane!’ – Part Four
Part Four of a Four-Part Disaster Movie Series by Bill Bria
World Cinema Project: Behind Closed Doors – ‘The Housemaid’ and ‘Insiang’
“One of the great joys in viewing the films amassed under the World Cinema Project banner is discovering the richness of a nation’s cultural and scenic backdrop.”
12 Angry Films: Sidney Lumet on Justice #12 – ‘Find Me Guilty’
“The accumulated effect of ‘Find Me Guilty,’ with its litany of absurdities, is that it is better to deliver the accused from continued subjugation than to maintain faith in a system that has lost all claim to its moral authority.”
The Disaster Area: From ‘Airport’ to ‘Airplane!’ – Part Three
Part Three of a Four-Part Disaster Movie Series by Bill Bria
The Disaster Area: From ‘Airport’ to ‘Airplane!’ – Part Two
Part Two of a Four-Part Disaster Movie Series by Bill Bria
World Cinema Project: The Sights and Sounds of a Nation – ‘Trances’ and ‘Redes’
“As with the underlying creed of Trances, the unambiguous intent of Redes’ communal message resonates in its country of origin and around the world, communicating the pleas for justice, egalitarianism and independence that are vital facets of life and are so often central to the best of all cinematic documentaries.”
12 Angry Films: Sidney Lumet on Justice #11 – ‘Night Falls on Manhattan’
“In ‘Night Falls on Manhattan,’ Lumet arrives at acceptance — the system is what it is. He is resigned to his inability to chronicle any meaningful change through his work.”
The Disaster Area: From ‘Airport’ to ‘Airplane!’ – Part One
“It is during the 70s that the disaster film’s most pure and admirable entries were made, bookended by two significantly different stories involving air travel fiascos.”
World Cinema Project: Beyond the Bounds of Narrative – ‘Limite’ and ‘Mysterious Object at Noon’
“Abstract and disjointed, the narrative of ‘Mysterious Object at Noon’ is progressively piecemeal, and what occurs in ‘Limite’ is even more inconclusive.”
12 Angry Films: Sidney Lumet on Justice #10 – ‘A Stranger Among Us’
“As a chronicler of the justice system in a dozen or more films, Lumet is intimately concerned with the ways in which it represses individual thought and fails to live up to its supposedly defining principles.”
World Cinema Project: Persistence of Vision – ‘Dry Summer’ & ‘Law of the Border’
“‘Dry Summer’ and ‘Law of the Border’ remain available as fascinating, engaging documents of a national cinema often forgotten.”
12 Angry Films: Sidney Lumet on Justice #9 – ‘Q & A’
“The thrill of a film like ‘Q & A’ comes in watching how Lumet finds new ways to level his criticisms, harnessing the cynicism that has propelled his work and suffusing each frame with deep, corrupting rot.”
World Cinema Project: Nowhere Fast – ‘Touki Bouki’ and ‘Taipei Story’
“For those suffering from the same dissatisfactions depicted in ‘Touki Bouki’ and ‘Taipei Story’ — be they based on economics, vocation, familial and romantic relations or a broad national uncertainty — hope may be all there is. And that, at least, is something.”
12 Angry Films: Sidney Lumet on Justice #8 – ‘Daniel’
“Though Sidney Lumet is by and large a classical filmmaker who privileges wide shots, staging and judicious framing over highly expressive techniques, ‘Daniel’ is one of his most formally adventurous works.”