“I’m so happy with it. And I’m so happy to be done!” For twelve years, Richard Linklater‘s been working on a film with Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette, and, as their son, newcomer Ellar Coltrane. The title used to be Boyhood, but that’ll likely change. As does Coltrane, who ages from seven to 18 during the course of the story. For Vulture, Jennifer Vineyard gets a few words (a very few, but still) with Linklater and Hawke.
The Chicago Reader‘s Ben Sachs is talking about Claire Denis again. This time he’s discussing The Intruder (2004) and Bastards with Melika Bass and Lori Felker.
“The increasing visibility of Eastern European films—those of the Romanian New Wave, especially—in the United States has brought with it a corresponding rise in volumes published on the subject,” notes Brandon Konecny for Film International,
“including, most notably, East European Cinemas (2005), The BFI Companion to Eastern European and Russian Cinema (2008), and Directory of World Cinema: East Europe (2012). However, none of these texts, informative as they in fact are, come close to the impressive quality of Anikó Imre’s A Companion to Eastern European Cinemas…. From the well-known topics of the Czechoslovak New Wave and Yugoslav Black Wave to the obscure post-communist Latvian documentary, all find their appropriate place between these two covers.”
The fourth paper issue of La Furia Umana is now available.
Congrats to Hal Hartley for achieving his crowdfunding goal for Ned Rifle.
LISTS
“Am I turning into a 70-year-old grouch?” wonders Jonathan Rosenbaum, addressing “the sensation that many of my most sophisticated colleagues are inflating the value of several recent releases. And my problem isn’t coming up with ten films that I support but trying to figure out why so many of the high-profile favorites of others seem so overrated to me.” Such as: Gravity, Blue Jasmine, 12 Years a Slave, Inside Llewyn Davis, and Spring Breakers.
Today’s trailer for The Discreet Charm of George Cukor: Greta Garbo in Camille (1936)
When the New York Film Critics Circle gathered to vote up their awards on Tuesday, J. Hoberman wasn’t able to be there. But he has posted his proxy ballot at Artinfo. He likes Gravity, 12 Years a Slave, and Before Midnight, and I particularly like his choice for cinematography: Matthias Grunsky for Computer Chess.
Time‘s listing the “Top 10 Everything of 2013,” with Richard Corliss taking on the best movies list. His #1: Gravity. Mary Pols chalks up the 10 worst. #1: Grown Ups 2. And James Poniewozik writes up the best of television this year. #1: Laura Dern and Mike White’s Enlightened.
“Entertainment Weekly‘s Best-Of issue doesn’t hit newsstands until Friday, but they’ve released a preview of their Top 10 Movies and TV lists,” and Sam Adams has the annotated lists at Indiewire. Owen Gleiberman’s #1: 12 Years a Slave. Chris Nashawaty’s: Before Midnight.
Open Culture: “Reading over the top fifty films she considered the greatest back in 1977 (and published in her volume of journals As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh), we find plenty of evidence [Susan] Sontag herself, unsurprisingly, had such a cinephilic love of and vast appetite for movies, especially for European filmmakers but also the best-known Japanese ones of the day.”
The New York Times Book Review editors have selected their top ten, five fiction and five non-fiction books.
Gorilla vs. Bear presents its albums of 2013.
GOINGS ON
Nashville. “If anything, the Coens, the subject of a two-week Belcourt retrospective, are Mannerists,” argues Michael Sicinski in the Scene. Joel and Ethan Coen are “artists who exaggerate to provoke thought. Sometimes this is misconstrued as caricature, a dirty word in a film culture dominated by dull verisimilitude. But classical Mannerism is about slightly warping reality to highlight certain aspects. While this can be comedic or satirical in context, it is not satirical in itself—a distinction that’s useful in navigating the Coens’ often sardonic universe.”
At Film.com, Jordan Hoffman ranks the Coens’ movies; meantime, the entry on Inside Llewyn Davis has been updated through today.
Seattle. The Stranger‘s David Schmader presents a winter calendar.
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