[5]

(Near the end of a wrap-up of several films and makers I saw in the course of reviewing the 2017 Crossroads Festival...)

...And finally, there’s Peter Burr. His Pattern Language is an 8-bit visual experiment that evolves from Op Art to architectural surveillance. It owes something to the far more stately (and serious) works of T. Marie, although Burr's humor works in his favor. I think there is something fascinating about the fact that Pattern Language (which takes its…

[5]

Another discovery [from the 2017 Crossroads Festival] came in the form of Le bulbe tragique, a bracingly aggressive film that also took a couple of viewings to somewhat win me over to its side. Its maker, Guillaume Vallée, is someone with whom I was not familiar, but he certainly made an impression. A work that wouldn’t be possible without the later, hand-painted films of Stan Brakhage, Le bulbe tragique is in no way beholden to the ways of the…

[6]

I miss the old Kiyoshi. The can't-be-sold Kiyoshi. Back in the fold Kiyoshi. That was the bold Kiyoshi. Remember Cure Kiyoshi? That wasn't your Kiyoshi? 'Cause that was my Kiyoshi. Damn, that was fly, Kiyoshi! You came with Kairo, Kiyoshi. That shit was fire, Kiyoshi! Even Bright Future Kiyoshi, that ill repute Kiyoshi. I dug it all, Kiyoshi. So why'd you stall, Kiyoshi? And then that Journey to the Shore? You got some gall, Kiyoshi!

I miss the real…

[4]

If you happen to follow my Twitter feed, you'll know that I've already gotten a bit hot and bothered about this film. In retrospect, it was probably a good deal of energy wasted, or at least misdirected. I tend to forget that useless dreck like The Imitation Game is pimped on every streetcorner around Oscar season by an industry that considers movies as product, not art. Most of the time, that product is slathered in Adam Sandler, and it…