MCN Curated Headlines Archive for August, 2017
Here Comes Everybody’s “Transcendental Style In Film,” With Schrader’s Extensive New Introduction
And – Fresh Air Rebroadcasts Its 1988 Interview With The Director Of First Reformed
“A ravishing 60s-set romance, sweet, sad and sexy.”
GdT’s The Shape Of Water

“When Metrocolor closed, we were collecting our material and I came across some of the original missing footage. That was really fortunate. We printed it in a different section and put it together to get the director’s cut. We scanned the disparate parts in 4K resolution and put it back together — the original negative and then the deleted scenes for the pieces we found. We had picture source material for the rest; it was kind of a checkerboard.”
Close Encounters Reissue Is “Final 1997 Director’s Cut”
“The studios blacklisted me for making Walker. Roger Ebert and his fellow creep critics working for the man, as usual. I won’t feel the least vindicated until Universal and MGM and Fox pay me all the money they owe me for Repo Man, Sid and Nancy and Walker.”
Alex Cox Talks Walker

“It’s really turning into a wake. To throw out almost all of the union members goes against the grain of the Voice we love and cherish.”
Village Voice To Fire 13 Of 17 Union Employees After Final Print Edition Third Week Of September
“I can say pretty confidently right now that we just do not need this.”
Jezebel Culture Editor Joins The External Creative-Exec Game With “‘Lord Of The Flies,’ But With Women, Written By Men”
“Her left-field masterpiece; a picture that’s antic, sensual and strange, with a top-note of menace and a malarial air. The heat is intense; the settlers go berserk. Nobody here is quite stable; nothing can be trusted.”
Xan Brooks: Zama Gaga!
“The concept of spirituality does involve a stepping away from the maelstrom of activity and the maelstrom of action and empathy. Action and empathy are the two primary tools of a filmmaker. That’s why they’re called moving pictures: picture have empathy and movement has movement. So what happens when you say, “I’m going to show you inaction and characters who have no personality so you can’t empathize with them?” Now you’re fighting against the medium and its strong points. Obviously, not many people try this because it’s not a terribly commercial enterprise.”
From March, Paul Schrader Revisits Transcendental Style And Side-Eyes “Slow Cinema”
“Schrader, one of the crucial creators of the modern cinema, seems to have made it in a state of anger, passion, pain, mourning, and desire, held together by the conflicted religious fury—blending exaltation and torment—that runs through all of his films. First Reformed has the feeling of a summation, of a teeming and roiling avowal of his longtime obsessions, from the distant pressure of family life as a child to the repellent politics currently unfolding. In his most recent films, Schrader has been showing what the later years of a career are meant for: freedom, the lack of inhibition.”
Richard Brody On Paul Schrader’s First Reformed

“It’s a piece of 1970s grindhouse pseudo-psychology, applied to 21st-century violence. He’s like a graphic-novel version of Travis Bickle; he embraces ——— as a form of slumming. (And there’s a romance too!)”
Owen Gleiberman‘s Spoiler-Doused Notice Says Schrader’s Film Is Good, But Bad, But Good, But Bad
“Glass-domed Leisureland is merely America in microcosm, with all the same corruption and wealth-disparity, loneliness and strife. Neither does it exist in splendid isolation. If the outside world starts to burn, then Leisureland is all-but guaranteed to go down in flames too. What a spry, nuanced, winningly digressive movie this is.”
Grauniad Headlines Downsizing As A “Masterpiece”