This is the Way the World Ends

This is the Way the World Ends

FILM REVIEW: MELANCHOLIA For those who can look past Lars von Trier’s moronic comments at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the melancholy Dane’s latest unappetizing outing has made it to cinemas in Berlin (a limited American release is planned in November). Described by the very un-PC director as a “beautiful...
Eran Kolirin, David Cronenberg and Docs at VFF

Eran Kolirin, David Cronenberg and Docs at VFF

This, my wrap-up from the Mostra appeared in last week’s Forward. I’m only getting around to posting it now, after the onslaught of Jewish high holy-days. Enjoy! Venice — For the 11 days of the 68th Venice International Film Festival, which ran in September, the stars walked the red carpet...
Todd in Venice

Todd in Venice

Here fresh in from The Forward is my interview with Todd Solondz from the Venice Film Festival. “I have a weak character,” Todd Solondz said, bending forward in his chair. “When people like my movies, it makes me happy, and when they don’t, it makes me sad, and I wish...

Nono and Mahler Kick-Off Berlin Music Season

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT GRAMOPHONE.CO.UK A.J. GOLDMANN BERLIN Over the past two weeks, Berlin kicked off an ambitious classical music season with its annual musikfest berlin. The theoretical framework for this year’s musikfest, which ran from September 2-20, was the dualism between the human voice and instruments that has preoccupied – in theoretical and practical terms – composers from Wagner and Berlioz to Mahler and Nono. This duality was mirrored by the ambitious concerts presented at the end of the festival, Mahler’s entirely choral Eighth Symphony and Luigi Nono’s Prometeo  – Tragedia dell’ ascolto, (“Prometheus – The Tragedy of Listening”), an expansive work that delves into liminal spaces between tone and silence. Wildly different in design and execution, the two works provided contrasting explorations of the human voice as the most fundamental of musical instruments. Written in 1985, in the final years of the composer’s life, Prometeo has become a key...
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Calixto Bieito Back in Berlin

Calixto Bieito, opera’s king of gore, returned to Berlin last night with a sex and violence drenched production of Carl Maria von Weber’s Romantic opera “Der Freischütz” (“The Sharp Shooter” )at the Komische Oper Berlin. The Catalan director, whose recent Stuttgart “Parsifal,” depicted the knights of the grail as members of a cannibalistic cult, is...
The Feuilletonist Picks the Top Films of 2011

The Feuilletonist Picks the Top Films of 2011

*CORRECTION / UPDATE – DEC. 30, 2011 Dear Readers, It’s that time of year again when the Feuilletonist must sift through the hundreds of films consumed in the past twelve months and make choices – some easy, some more difficult – about the year’s best batch of film. Note that I’m counting films that have...

Last Call: Moment Short Story Contest

Moment Magazine’s 2012 Short Story Contest’s deadline is fast approaching. Grand prize is $1,000 plus possible publication. Runners up recieve $500 and $250. You can read the full rules here: http://www.momentmag.com/moment/contests/shortfictionguidelines.html
RIP Ken Russell

RIP Ken Russell

Last week, the film world mourned the passing of the eccentric filmmaker Ken Russell. The British naughty boy was 84. Although the work he made in a career that spanned four decades was far from consistant, Russell’s bizarre temperament and variety of interests contributed to one of the most memorable and unique film careers of...
Peter Greenaway's Goltzius Teaser

Peter Greenaway’s Goltzius Teaser

It has just come to our attention that there’s finally a teaser for Peter Greenaway’s ‘Goltzius and the Pelican Company’ up on YouTube. No release date has been announced for Greenaway’s latest art-cinema foray about the 16th Century Dutch engraver and erotic print maker Hendrik Goltzius. Apparently John Malkovich has dropped out of the film,...
Darren Aronofsky's Loutallica Vid

Darren Aronofsky’s Loutallica Vid

Several weeks ago, it was announced that cult filmmaker Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan) would be helming a music video of the song “The View” off of the recent and much-despised Lou Reed / Metallica collaboration Lulu. Well, the video was posted on the Loutallica site over the weekend. It’s 3.5 minutes...
Lou Reed Returns to Berlin with Metallica in "Lulu"

Lou Reed Returns to Berlin with Metallica in “Lulu”

A.J. Goldmann Berlin A lot on digital ink has been spilled debating Lulu, the unlikely collaboration between Lou Reed and Metallica that hit stores early November. Chuck Klosterman writes an amusing take-down in the sports and popular culture journal Grantland, where he calls the album a “successful simulation of how it feels to develop schizophrenia...