Legendary director Werner Herzog unveiled his latest documentary, Lo And Behold, Reveries Of The Connected World, at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. After an introduction explaining that he didn’t make his first phone call until the age of seventeen, the filmmaker returned for a wide-ranging and often hilarious Q&A. Here are some edited highlights:
Talking with fellow Boston Online Film Critics Association members Bob Chipman, Steve Head and Jake Mulligan about this month’s repertory offerings. Topics include The Brattle’s neo-noir series, Jane Fonda at The Coolidge, Tarantino after midnight and the cinephiliac white whale that is Jacques Rivette’s Out: 1. Apologies in advance to girls named Madison. – BOFCA, 01/08/2016
“Middle finger aloft, De Palma cast the daughter (Melanie Griffith) of one of Hitchcock’s iconic blondes as a porn star and has the villain penetrating helpless women with a massive power drill held at crotch-level as the most unsubtle phallic symbol in the history of cinema. If you can get on its perverse wavelength the film is screamingly funny.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 01/05/2016
“Off-handedly virtuosic and destined to be underrated. Too bad, because the film is full of tough stuff and asks questions I haven’t seen answered very well on debate stages lately, particularly about what it means to be an American during wartime, and how many of our founding principles we are willing to trade just because we’re scared.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 12/29/2015
Talking 2015 with fellow Boston Online Film Critics Association members Bob Chipman, Norm Schrager, Dede Crimmins, Evan Crean, Brett Michel, Steve Head, Charlie Nash, Megan Kearns, Greg Vellante and Jake Mulligan. Yes, we all had a bit to drink. – BOFCA, 12/28/2015
“The Star Wars movie you think you’ve been waiting for. Abrams gets the tricky tone and jokey exhilaration down pat, the feeling of (re)visiting a rusted-out, slightly sarcastic fairy tale. Still, a few hours after the credits rolled it’s all evaporating and I’m struggling to recall a remotely original or inventive moment in the entire goddamn thing.” – North Shore Movies, 12/18/2015
“Youth feels very much like one of those movies a director makes right after a huge success when everybody’s calling him a genius and nobody dares say no. There’s a reckless energy with which it lunges from one ga-ga visual flourish to another, consistency and coherence be damned. I found it terribly endearing.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 12/11/2015
“So full of unconvincing green-screen work I wouldn’t be surprised if the actors shot their scenes on a soundstage in Burbank. In The Heart Of The Sea keeps obnoxiously insisting this story inspired Melville, but nowhere here will you find the insights into obsession and humanity that made his book a classic. The movie doesn’t know Dick.” – Movie Mezzanine, 12/11/2015
1. Mad Max: Fury Road 2. The Mend 3. Heaven Knows What 4. Chi-Raq 5. Bridge Of Spies 6. Clouds Of Sils Maria 7. Tangerine 8. Creed 9. Magic Mike XXL 10. Blackhat
Honorable Mentions: Anomalisa, Appropriate Behavior, Call Me Lucky, Carol, Danny Collins, Hard To Be A God, I’ll See You In My Dreams, Kurt Cobain: Montage Of Heck, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Results, Ricki And The Flash, Stray Dog, Wild Tales – BOFCA, 12/04/2015
“At once deeply sorrowful and exuberantly silly, Chi-Raq is a scabrous, sexy musical comedy shot through with an almost unbearable sadness. The majority of the (filthy) dialogue is delivered in rhyming verse, with broad buffoonery bumping up against hectoring sermons and stunning moments of contemplation and grace.” – Movie Mezzanine, 12/04/2015
SPLICED PERSONALITY 