UrbanFilm

05/10/2022

As its plot unfolds, Amsterdam treats us to a strangely magical form of visual and verbal storytelling, both humorous and hard-edged, by turns sweet and shocking, with richly curated frames and bright spirited dialogue.

05/10/2022

There’s a punchiness to the pacing and a soulfulness to the story, driven ever-forward by a sense of fun urgency and nervous verve...

Glad to get to share my thoughts on in

As its plot unfolds, Amsterdam treats us to a strangely magical form of visual and verbal storytelling, both humorous and hard-edged, by turns sweet and shocking, with richly curated frames and bright spirited dialogue.

01/10/2022

At a time when the nation is taking stock of the failures of our history of urban policing and looking for some new approaches, the lessons of Hold Your Fire are needed more urgently than ever.

14/09/2022

As with many horror and action films (and probably much of real life), the build-up is better than the eventual resolution/climax.

27/07/2022

Apichatpong’s film is the bang in the night that has the power to shock us out of convention, to help us open our eyes and ears to the rich and[...]

18/11/2021

Belfast is overly sentimental and drenched if not drowned in nostalgia, but it's also very sweet, uplifting, well-paced, beautifully shot, and competently assembled.

15/11/2021

10/09/2021

"The Card Counter" collapses under the weight of director Paul Schrader's guilt complex..

21/07/2021

The Road to Ruin is a practically unknown film begging for discovery, and to be championed as a startling example of pre-Code cinema. And as a keystone for creating a directorial reputation for “Mrs. Wallace Reid.”

13/07/2021

I had a great time participating in the and Roundtable () with & Pamela Robertson Wojcik

If you missed it, here is the recording.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNQHi_4oNrs&ab_channel=MobiltyRoundtable

In this Roundtable we will discuss how Cinema and Mobility have impacted and continue to impact each other both in good and not so good ways.3:20 Pamela Wojc...

07/07/2021

It's no "Cathy Come Home," but it does the job. Thanks Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) for this short, well-made, empathic video to show the human side of the (and the need for more).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ2ZOXLON_8&list=PLJNLux-_ZPcINWehD4I2hSsdHQ5V-ttoU&index=10

25/06/2021

10/06/2021

Always fascinating to watch people sketch in the city, to see how an artist can capture, process, and interpret the urban world with a pen. Here's a great quick video from showing how it works.
youtu.be/AndVnmVoP0I

Working on my fast sketching on location skills to capture the scene. Mexico City’ Centro Historico was blocked off due to the country’s elections over the w...

07/06/2021

"an early salvo in a nascent 'Blue Lives Matter' campaign, at a time when officer deaths were peaking at more than double the figures seen in previous decades..."

Read my reflections on "Dirty Harry at 50" on The Arts Fuse

https://artsfuse.org/230211/arts-reconsideration-the-1971-project-blue-lives-madder-dirty-harry-turns-fifty/

The path Dirty Harry (and too many of his defenders, then and now) chose to pursue — the urban policing version of "killing the village in order to save it" — was outdated and discredited even in 1971.

19/05/2021

Here's a in honor of :

They may think that you don’t have a plan,
When they see that you p**p in a can,
But it’s them that did go mad,
You hard-working nomad:
You’ve a home on the road in your van.

https://www.urbanfilm.org/nomadland-the-filmerick/

As described previously, I’ve been exploring a new medium, the “filmerick” (limericks to summarize great films). Here’s a new one in honor of Chloé Zhao’s poignant and meditative on-the-road epic, Nomadland: Nomadland (Chloé Zhao, 2020) They may think that you don’t have a plan, When t...

12/05/2021

Sadly, this “elsewhere” is more accurately an “everywhere,” as there are loads of Sandras not just in Dublin, but in Dayton, Durban, Dallas, Dubai, Delhi, and Da Nang—and right here in Boston and its suburbs...
Ezra Haber Glenn reviews PhyllidaLloyd's "Herself" on The Arts Fuse
https://artsfuse.org/220171/film-review-herself-safe-as-houses/

While the film is determinedly called "Herself "("you got this, girl…"), the subtitle could equally have been "It Takes a Village..."

06/05/2021

"Boys and girls come out to play,
The moon doth shine as bright as day.
Leave your supper and leave your sleep,
And join your playfellows in the street.
Come with a whoop and come with a call:
Up, motherf**kers, against the wall."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-30/revisiting-inner-city-mother-goose

05/05/2021

In the longing that lingers, we recognize an aftertaste of connection, humanity, a yearning: a hint of meaning, hidden in this fleeting space between the me and the we...

My retrospective of The Last Picture Show
https://artsfuse.org/226683/arts-reconsideration-the-1971-project-celebrating-a-great-year-in-film-part-two/

1971 gave us bursts of magnificent cinematic iconoclasm that had no future -- culturally or politically.

04/05/2021

There’s a clever trick at work in these gray skies: all that gray eventually leads our attention back earthward, to the small flashes of color and character – and the community they represent...

https://www.wbur.org/artery/2021/04/14/david-campbell-retrospective-somerville-museum

The museum has gathered nearly two dozen of Campbell’s realist paintings for a special retrospective depicting Somerville cityscapes.

15/04/2021

Like the city around him, Lashay is unfinished, and this is what draws us to him: he’s working to figure things out...

See my review of "Victoria," by Liesbeth De Ceulaer, Sofie Benoot, Isabelle Tollenaere in

https://brightlightsfilm.com/a-becoming-place-exploring-victoria-2020/ #.YHegNRIpBTI

The film could be described as “meditative,” but with an important twist: while the directors and Lashay guide the audience through a thoughtful and introspective process – making sense of[...]

14/04/2021

After a long winter/Covid slumber, the Museum can finally open the doors to this amazing show. The ARTery

"The canvases serve as an exploded flip-book chronicle of change: an urban streetscape with as many cranes as pigeons."

https://www.wbur.org/artery/2021/04/14/david-campbell-retrospective-somerville-museum

The museum has gathered nearly two dozen of Campbell’s realist paintings for a special retrospective depicting Somerville cityscapes.

20/03/2021

Great to see Michael Marano's insightful cultural criticism in the pages of The Arts Fuse.

Boomers have morphed from being figures we were horrified to see victimized to those whom audiences cheer to see get their comeuppances.

16/03/2021

The themes revolve around two related concepts: the passage of time, and the ineffable qualities of life that make our existence meaningful. 'Truth or Consequences' seems to be positing itself as an archaeology of an unwritten future...

Read my review of Truth or Consequences Film on The Arts Fuse
https://artsfuse.org/223623/film-review-being-and-time-in-truth-or-consequences/

This is a thoughtful, surprisingly moving, and extremely ambitious film, one that employs an innovative style and some unconventional pacing to explore an unusually complex philosophical and emotional landscape.

16/03/2021

More often than not, the wall segments seem to fade into the scenery: history has become memory, and—as is true about memory in general, while it is always there, we are not always paying attention to it...

"The American Sector" reviewed on The Arts Fuse
http://ow.ly/1MWB50DJhfW

08/03/2021

As the images wash past and you reflect on these four similar but distinct stories, you begin to understand that words like "unique" and "visionary" really mean something in this context...

Ezra Haber Glenn on "City Dreamers" in
https://www.planning.org/planning/2021/winter/four-trailblazing-women-in-urban-design/

The accomplishments of women in urban design have often been minimized or completely overlooked. A new documentary is starting to help set the record straight.

04/03/2021

As this slow-burn tale unfolds, guided by the transporting lens of a sharp and honest documentary filmmaker, we bear witness to equal parts production, pollution, pride, and pathos...

Gabriel Tejedor's "Kombinat," reviewed in The Arts Fuse.
https://artsfuse.org/223481/film-review-wither-the-people-of-magnitogorsk-kombinat/

26/02/2021

If we are willing to suspend our need for a linear narrative and surrender to this seemingly random assortment of encounters, what emerges is a powerful new form of film.

Check out UrbanFilm's review "The Hottest August."

https://www.urbanfilm.org/review-of-the-hottest-august/

Assembled from meandering footage shot in New York City’s outer boroughs over a single summer month in 2017, The Hottest August is ostensibly about the effects of climate change on urban neighborhoods. But what emerges from director Brett Story’s artful and meditative treatment is so much more: ...

17/02/2021

I had a great time chatting with Ian, Alissa, Ned, and Ivy on the Brattle Theatre Film Podcast about Paul Anton Smith's "Have You Seen My Movie" and the topic of "Movies set in movie theaters." So many great to discuss! https://brattlefilm.org/2021/02/16/podcast-episode-32-movies-about-going-to-the-movies/

Inspired by Paul Anton Smith's "Have You Seen My Movie," a streaming exclusive currently running on The Brattlite, we're joined by MIT professor Ezra Glenn to talk about our favorite movies about going to the movies and films that take place in cinemas.