With The Wire finally out of the way — none of the screeners piling up by the door could possibly compete — I’ll try and quickly catch up with some of the bat-free movies I’ve seen over the last few weeks. Charlie BartlettWarm and funny coming-of-teenage tale about a wealthy kid (Anton Yelchin) who dispenses [...]
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"A fast, complex, exhilarating roadster ride through history and time.... Kino is an intoxicating Euro-brew, written with enormous skill and dedication." — Frederick Barthelme
"Jürgen Fauth's deft mashup of genre and historical period is both a full-throttle literary thriller of ideas and a contemplative examination of film and fascism. Kino is a debut of great intellectual force."– Teddy Wayne
"A surprising alternative history. Kino brings the golden age of German cinema to light with loving, sometimes gritty, detail and great precision." – Neal Pollack, author of Jewball.
"A delirious melange of conspiracy, magic, sex, history, bad behavior, and cinema, Kino is a stellar entertainment, and Jürgen Fauth is a writer of rare, sinister imagination." – Owen King, author of Reenactment
"A light-hearted romp that leads straight into darkness and back through the shadows on the wall."– Ben Loory, author of Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day
"Movie nuts arise! A happy and felicitous debut."– Terese Svoboda
All posts tagged TV
The Wire
We’re done! Getting through all five seasons of The Wire in one massive binge took weeks & weeks out of our usual movie-viewing schedule, but it couldn’t have been more worth it. Instead of yet another paean to “the best show on television” (which, in fact, isn’t praise enough), here’s a quote by David Simon [...]
Posted by Jürgen on July 27, 2008
http://jurgenfauth.com/2008/07/27/the-wire/
The Dhamma Brothers
One afternoon last week, I found myself explaining the benefits of transcendental meditation — and its much cheaper, guru-free alternative Natural Stress Relief — to a junkie at an East Village pizza joint. (He asked.) You see, I was predisposed to love The Dhamma Brothers, a documentary about inmates of an Alabama high security prison [...]
Posted by Jürgen on April 15, 2008
http://jurgenfauth.com/2008/04/15/the-dhamma-brothers/
The Simpsons Movie
Just in case you somehow managed to avoid the longest-running TV sitcom in American history, do not worry: The Simpsons Movie is careful to include everybody in the fun. In the opening minutes, after Itchy and Scratchy have landed on the moon and everybody in the audience has been declared “a sucker” for paying good [...]
Posted by Jürgen on July 24, 2007
http://jurgenfauth.com/2007/07/24/the-simpsons-movie/
Peter Beard: Scrapbooks from Africa and Beyond
Palm Pictures is releasing this made-for-TV documentary about photographer Peter Beard in August. It’s an unassuming portrait of a versatile artist that made me feel that it would be lovely if TV was in the habit of introducing fascinating people every day instead of carpet-bombing us with familiar bores. An adventurer, playboy, fashion photographer, and [...]
Posted by Jürgen on July 2, 2007
http://jurgenfauth.com/2007/07/02/peter-beard-scrapbooks-from-africa-and-beyond/
Slings & Arrows
After Twitch City, another outstanding TV show from Canada. Set at a provincial theater, Slings & Arrows is populated with all the stock types: the borderline-mad artistic director, the sell-out manager, the nosy American board member eager to put on Mamma Mia!, the aging diva, the budding ingénue (Rachel McAdams). Don McKellar makes an appearance [...]
Posted by Jürgen on June 12, 2007
http://jurgenfauth.com/2007/06/12/slings-arrows/
Fingersmith
This skilled BBC adaptation of Sarah Waters’ novel is a lesson in structure: the intricate plotting of the Victorian crime story has been simplified by screenwriter Peter Ransley, but the carefully layered revelations still affect and surprise. Casting is excellent, with Elaine Cassidy and Sally Hawkins as the tender lovers embroiled in Dickensian intrigue and [...]
Posted by Jürgen on May 17, 2007
http://jurgenfauth.com/2007/05/17/fingersmith-2/
Tulpendiebe
