Jonathan Rosenbaum's Blog: jonathanrosenbaum.com, page 37

Thinking Inside the Box [THE KING IS ALIVE]

From the Chicago Reader (May 18, 2001). — J.R.

The King Is Alive
*
Directed by Kristian Levring
Written by Levring and Anders Thomas Jensen
With Miles Anderson, Romane Bohringer, David Bradley, David Calder, Bruce Davison, Brion James, Peter Kubheka, Vusi Kunene, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Janet McTeer, Chris Walker, and Lia Williams.

The King Is Alive, directed and cowritten [...]

On the Internet, No One Can Hear You Think (or, Datelessness Equals Cluelessness)

The avoidance or frequent absence of history on the Internet is often a problem, but I’ve rarely seen it exploited so shamelessly and cripplingly as it is in a post supposedly “celebrating” Godard’s 82th birthday that quotes fifteen filmmakers on the subject of Godard, including Godard himself, arranged alphabetically from Chantal Akerman to Wim Wenders.
Let’s [...]

Nightmare as Funhouse Ride: Orson Welles’s THE TRIAL

Written for the StudioCanal Blu-Ray of The Trial in the Spring of 2012. — J.R.


‘What made it possible for me to make the picture,’ Orson Welles told Peter Bogdanovich of his most troubling film, ‘is that I’ve had recurring nightmares of guilt all my life: I’m in prison and I don’t know why –- going [...]

Artful Imitations

From the Chicago Reader (July 17, 1992). — J.R.










UNIVERSAL SOLDIER
** (Worth seeing)
Directed by Roland Emmerich
Written by Richard Rothstein, Christopher Leitch, and Dean Devlin
With Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, Ally Walker, Ed O’Ross, Jerry Orbach, Leon Rippy, Tico Wells, and Ralph Moeller.
UNLAWFUL ENTRY
** (Worth seeing)
Directed by Jonathan Kaplan
Written by Lewis Colick, George D. Putnam, [...]

Godard: Cities and Carwrecks (1968)

From Film Society Review (Vol. 4, No. 2, 1968), the first film magazine I ever wrote for. The was the first of my two pieces for them. -– J.R.




Godard: Cities and Carwrecks

By Jon Rosenbaum
***


“The impact of progress turns Reason into submission

to the facts of life, and to the dynamic capability of

producing [...]

Something to Talk About

From the Chicago Reader (January 3, 2008). This was the last of my annual “ten best” pieces for the Reader. — J.R.

If I were playing by the usual rules, the contenders for my best of 2007 list would be drawn from the titles only millionaires could afford to promote. In that case, I would say [...]

Review of THE AMERICAN CINEMA (1969)

From Film Society Review (Vol. 4, No. 5, January 1969) — the first magazine, apart from school and college publications, where I ever published film criticism, for a total of two issues. This was my second piece for them. — J.R.

Jon Rosenbaum

THE AMERICAN CINEMA: DIRECTORS AND DIRECTIONS 1929-1968, by Andrew Sarris, New York: E.P. Dutton [...]

Hot Under the Collar [PRIEST]

From the Chicago Reader (April 14, 1995). — J.R.

Priest
**
Directed by Antonia Bird
Written by Jimmy McGovern
With Linus Roache, Tom Wilkinson, Cathy Tyson, Robert Carlyle, James Ellis, Lesley Sharp, Robert Pugh, and Christine Tremarco.

A friend of mine who hasn’t even seen Priest calls it “post-Oprah,” and it’s easy to see what he means — in terms of [...]

Anna Biller in Torino (a 2007 Reader Movies blog post)

Sat, Dec 1, 2007 at 1:46 PM




Two of the more interesting programs that I saw at the just-concluded Torino Film Festival consisted of films by LA filmmaker and Cal Arts alumnus Anna Biller, who writes, directs, stars in, designs the costumes and sets for, and sometimes helps to [...]

Rough Magic

A Critic’s Choice for the Chicago Reader (June 6, 1997). — J.R.

In an era when the only fantasies grown-up critics are supposed to validate are preschool ones, here’s a charming and decidedly offbeat adult fantasy-comedy (1995) from the stylish English director Clare Peploe (High Season). In the early 50s, around the time of Nixon’s Checkers [...]