Screen Rush is the blog of film critic and journalist Eric Kohn, whose work regularly appears in indieWIRE, New York Press, Filmmaker, Moviemaker, Heeb Magazine and a half dozen other outlets. A true twenty-first century movie buff, his writing centers around the impact of new media on the moving image, the changing face of film criticism, and the tempestuous relationship between pop culture and independent artistry. This site includes links to his recently published work and allows for additional thoughts on cinema's modern state. E-mail Eric at erichkohn(at)gmail(dot)com.
I caught Katy Chevigny’s enthralling documentary Election Day at SXSW in 2007 and it has continued to haunt me since then. Here was a politicized work about the 2004 election that refused to toy around with easy rhetoric or theatrical stunts, yet still managed to wholly engage with democracy and its discontents from the smart perspective of a social activist. There’s nothing “objective” about this skillfully edited portrait of polling stations around the nation on that fateful day; it’s a nuanced, essayistic deconstruction of an overcomplicated process that often leaves too many people frustrated and confused even if they’re astute enough to care. Here’s my piece on Election Day for Stream, which includes snippets of a recent conversation I had with Chevigny. The movie airs on PBS on July 1 and hits DVD on the same day. Catch it if you can—it’ll only get more potent as the current election season reaches its fever pitch.
Timur Bekmambetov’s inaugural English language movie Wanted doesn’t hold up for several reasons. Much as I would like to welcome the Russian filmmaker’s first assaultive entry in the canon of modern Hollywood spectacles with a cheerful nod to the gloriously anarchistic fantasies that preceded it, I’ve got major reservations about the mangled thematic implications of a hero empowered by the ability to kill. It works against the suspension of belief that should make this sort of maniacal shoot-em-up such mindless fun. There’s no way around contemplating the fucked up morality of a guy whose release from his shitty 9-to-5 arrives with a license to kill and a smooch from Angelina Jolie. The killing, by the way, has a seriously twisted purpose. He’s not your parents’ 007, that’s for sure.
Bekmambetov’s Nightwatch and Daywatch films are nonlinear, messily arranged and sometimes downright incoherent, but man, together they constitute one helluva orgiastic blast. In the context of an American action movie, however, the Bekmambetov seems oddly subdued, like somebody told him to cool it with the idiosyncrasies and just cut-and-paste the slo-mo bullet effect ad infinitum. Still, the guy has a sense of humor about his absurd narrative, which will hopefully serve him well in future productions. The problem with self-satisfied drek like Die Hard 4 is that the stupidity of it all has a sincerity to it. There’s something innately gross about that.
A friend joining me at today’s Union Square screening of Wanted said he would have rather checked out Wall-E. Interestingly enough, the two movies provide a very precise contrast of visual strategies, where dialogue becomes relegated to nothing more than filler. Guess which one does it better? But more on that in a bit.
A couple of weeks back, I spoke with David Munro, the kind and observant director of Full Grown Men, which opens tonight at Cinema Village after roaming the festival circuit for two years. Check out my indieWIRE interview and then see the movie, which is both worth your time and your effort. In other words, it’s a good movie that needs as much attention as it can get. I’ve sat through enough trite coming-of-age stories to the point where most overly sentimental narratives make me gag as soon as I hear the first note of the first redundant pop song , but Full Grown Men actually works pretty well on its own terms. The dialogue isn’t overwritten, the characters make sense (a guy in his thirties who doesn’t want to grow up, his best friend who already has) and it’s genuinely bittersweet—not faux bittersweet, like, uh, that sun shiney movie with the VW van.
I’ve been traveling a lot lately, which has prevented me from keeping the world regularly updated about my whereabouts. Having traveled across country in the past week, I’ve concluded that Silver Spring, Maryland is the Clark Kent to Las Vegas’ Superman, but I still haven’t determined if that’s a compliment to either place. At any rate, I found Silverdocs to be a refreshingly normal alternative to CineVegas’ ultra-trippy (but still intriguing) package. Non-fiction continues to provide a voice for some of the best independent filmmakers working today, and this year’s line-up offered some illuminating events to go along with the screenings. Dispatches one and two.
Here are some fleeting glimpses of the experience.
My cousin Sandra was kind enough to put me up at her Ikea-filled home in Adams Morgan. A welcome relief after all the swanky hotel room action of Vegas. Seriously.
Alex Gibney talks with fest director Patricia Finnegan. A great visit, although no mention of that pesky lawsuit.
Spike Lee says hey to me on his way into AFI Silver for a special evening. The guy was a little introverted, but, hey, that’s Spike. Miracle at St. Anna, by the way, looks like the best war movie of the last ten years, at least. But it is, as they say, way early.
Spike in conversation with Denver Post critic Lisa Kennedy. That’s about as lively as he gets, I think.
Festival coordinators/superheroes Josh Gardner, Georgia Koch and Mia Walker. Spike, standing behind the photographer, declined to pose for a photo with them. I think he had filled his quota for the evening or something…
AFI PR head Jody Arlington and ever-present IndieGoGo buddy Slava Rubin.
The kid playing this guitar was, like, eight. He rocked a mean pentatonic. Yeah, what the fuck indeed.
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