I’ve already written about Aaron Katz’s terrific second feature, Quiet City (2007) previously, but I finally had a chance to catch up with his debut effort, Dance Party, USA (2006). Both films have been released recently on DVD in a two-disc setRead More
The success of films such as Stranger Than Paradise, She’s Gotta Have It, Working Girls, and River’s Edge solidified the position of American independent film within the marketplace in the1980s, but Steven Soderbergh’s sex, lies, and videotape raised the stakes considerablyRead More
THE FILMS OF J. J. MURPHY, Saturday and Sunday, March 1 and 2 at 7:30 PM at Anthology Film Archives in New York City. FILMMAKER IN PERSON! Though he’s perhaps best-known for PRINT GENERATION, in which the imagery of a one-minuteRead More
One of the best as well as most underappreciated independent films of the past several years is Robinson Devor’s Police Beat, which played at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, received a modest theatrical release, and finally came out on DVD onlyRead More
Ryan Trecartin’s A Family Finds Entertainment (2004) initially came to the attention of the art world in an article by Dennis Cooper as one of the emerging artist picks in Artforum complete with the backstory of how video artist SueRead More
Aaron Katz’s Quiet City and Ronald Bronstein’s Frownland represent a vivid study in contrasts. Frownland, with its cramped apartments and cast of social misfits, presents a hellish vision of urban life in Brooklyn. Aaron Katz’s Quiet City, on the other hand, somehow manages toRead More
Of the spate of recent mumblecore films, Ronald Bronstein’s debut feature Frownland is easily the most idiosyncratic and distinctive. The film received the Gotham Award for “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You” and Bronstein was nominated for the IndependentRead More
Todd Haynes’s new feature I’m Not There is not the first film to have its protagonist played by multiple actors. Christopher Maclaine did it out of necessity in his early beat classic The Man Who Invented Gold (1957) when heRead More