Boxing Cats and Scorsese On Cinema

In the film The Magic Box, which was made in England in 1950, the great English actor Robert Donat plays William Friese-Greene—one of the people who invented movies. The Magic Box was packed with guest stars. It was made for an event called the Festival of Britain. You had about fifty or sixty of the biggest actors in England at the time, all doing for the most part little cameos, including the man who played the policeman—that was Sir Laurence Olivier.

I saw this picture for the first time with my father. I was eight years old. I’ve never really gotten over the impact that it had. I believe this is what ignited in me the wonder of cinema, and the obsession—with watching movies, making them, inventing them.

(Read on...)

July, New Titles, 'Zero Dark Thirty', 'Oz The Great And Powerful'

‘Zero Dark Thirty’ is lean, mean storytelling: no backstories, no-frills – just action and an effortless forward momentum. Maya is obsessed with tracking down one of her leads: a man said to be Bin Laden’s courier. Some might think Bigelow is apologising for torture with this film. She’s not. She’s interested in why Maya and her CIA colleagues behave as they do – with the detachment of a reporter. We see the desperate context they work in – the tick, tick, tick wait for more bombs to go off around the world. Years pass. We watch a pile-up of dead-ends and mistakes.

Boal spent the best part of a decade talking to counterterrorism operatives, and it shows in his faultless dialogue. At CIA headquarters, they question Maya’s credibility. ‘What do you think of her?’, asks the CIA director (James Gandolfini). ‘She’s smart,’ answers an advisor. ‘We’re all smart,’ he deadpans. It’s 2010, and some analysts doubt Bin Laden is still the game, or perhaps he’s dead. (Time Out)

Other New Titles this month

OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL (2013)
OSLO AUGUST 31 (2011)
ARBOR, THE (2010)
JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR: LIVE ARENA TOUR (2012)
FROM UP ON POPPY HILL (2011)
MAMA (2013)
BEAUTIFUL CREATURES (2013)
LAST STAND, THE (2013)
PARANORMAN (2012)
HOUSE OF CARDS (2013) SEASON 1
CLOUD ATLAS (2012)
CLOUD ATLAS (2012) BLU-RAY
AMOUR (2012) BLU-RAY
WE DIVE AT DAWN (1943)