Jonathan Rosenbaum's Blog: jonathanrosenbaum.com, page 33

Criticism on Film

From Sight and Sound (Winter 1990/91). -– J.R.



It’s no secret that serious film criticism in print has become an increasingly scarce commodity, while ‘entertainment news’, bite-size reviewing and other forms of promotion in the media have been steadily expanding. (I’m not including academic film criticism, a burgeoning if relatively sealed-off field which has developed a [...]

The Tower Of The Seven Hunchbacks

From the Chicago Reader (October 26, 1987). — J.R.




Edgar Neville — an aristocratic Republican filmmaker and writer who was friends with everyone from Lorca and Chaplin to Ortega y Gasset and Lacan — is one of the great undiscovered auteurs of the Spanish cinema. This remarkable turn-of-the-century fantasy, which suggests an eerie encounter between the [...]

Visions of the South

From Nashville Scene (cover story), March 10, 2011. –- J.R.






In certain respects, the “Visions of the South” series of Southern movies
being launched in Nashville this week at The Belcourt deserves to be
applauded for its omissions as well as its inclusions. The most conspicuous
of these omissions is probably Robert Altman’s Nashville (1975), which
Brenda [...]

Doing the Hustle [DANCER IN THE DARK]

From the Chicago Reader (October 27, 2000). — J.R.


Dancer in the Dark
**
Directed and written by Lars von Trier With Bjork, Catherine Deneuve, David Morse, Peter Stormare, Joel Grey, and Jean-Marc Barr.

To put it in the singsongy fashion of its own tacky musical numbers, Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark enrages as well as [...]

Star Wars, Episode 5: Attack Of The Clones

From the Chicago Reader (April 2002). — J.R.

The whiff of amateur theatricals in The Phantom Menace, imparting a personalized clunkiness to the proceedings, is back in force in this aptly titled fifth installment, but this time the exposition is so thick that everyone except acolytes may tune out. Though the look aspires as usual to [...]

Bedlam (1974 review)

From Monthly Film Bulletin, November 1974 (Vol. 41, No. 490). — J.R.



Bedlam

U.S.A., 1946 Director: Mark Robson




London, 1761. Attempting to escape from the St. Mary of Bethlehem lunatic asylum, commonly known as Bedlam, a poet named Colby is forced by Sims, the apothecary general in charge, to drop from a railing, and he falls to [...]

Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace

From the Chicago Reader (May 1999). — J.R.



Not bad for a toy commercial, and the SF settings, however familiar, are even more impressive than the gadgets and beasties. The casualties are narrative momentum (at least compared to episode four) and the actors — Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Frank Oz, Samuel L. Jackson, Ray [...]

The Ten Best Jazz Films (1999 list)

Joseph McBride, a friend, asked me to contribute a list of some sort to The Book of Movie Lists (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1999), which he put together, and here’s what we came up with. -– J.R.



The 10 Best Jazz Films

by Jonathan Rosenbaum
What follows is a personal list of neither the best films on jazz (e.g., [...]

Low Budget, Real Life [MY LIFE’S IN TURNAROUND]

From the Chicago Reader (September 2, 1994). — J.R.


** MY LIFE’S IN TURNAROUND
(Worth seeing)
Directed and written by Eric Schaeffer and Donal Lardner Ward
With Schaeffer, Ward, Lisa Gerstein, Dana Wheeler Nicholson, Debra Clein, Sheila Jaffe, John Sayles, Martha Plimpton, Phoebe Cates, and Casey Siemaszko.

As a member of the New York film festival’s selection committee, I’ve seen [...]

Part of an Exchange on CITIZEN KANE

From Cinema Journal 26, No. 4, Summer 1987. — J.R.




Dialogue


Jonathan Rosenbaum Responds to Robin Bates’s “Fiery Speech in a World of Shadows: Rosebud’s Impact on Early Audiences” (which appeared in Cinema Journal, Winter 1987)


Having been invited to respond briefly to Robin Bates’s”Fiery Speech in a World of Shadows: Rosebud’s Impact on Early Audiences” in the [...]