Slowly Re-Opening and Allan Fish Online Film Festival on Monday Morning Diary...
by Sam Juliano Here in the Garden State movement to open parks and some businesses is underway in view of dropping case numbers that are presently the lowest since the pandemic began. With progress of...
View ArticleHal Hartley’s Simple Men
By J.D. Lafrance “When you’re approached by a studio, they say ‘We want you to make your own films’ – and then they describe how the project will get financed. These are well-intentioned people;...
View Article4th Annual Allan Fish Online Film Festival on Monday Morning Diary (May 25)
by Sam Juliano Case numbers in my region have been on a steady decline. While I must reject the claim of a very well-respected local physician who feels the “pandemic is basically done in this area”...
View ArticleINGMAR BERGMAN’S ‘DREAMS’“One has to say no at some point…”
© 2020 by James Clark There are Bergman films that seem to be like ancient frescos, disappearing the moment they encounter our atmosphere. Thanks to a few devotees, such apparitions reappear by...
View ArticleAllan Fish Online Film Festival – 2020
This year Sam and I debated about having our yearly Allan Fish Online Film Festival. While it seemed an obvious choice in the positive—kept isolated and largely at home, what better time to hold an...
View ArticleIdaho Transfer (1973): Allan Fish Online Film Festival 2020 – Day 2
. Director: Peter Fonda Screenwriter: Thomas Matthiesen The Allan Fish Online Film Festival 2020 By Roderick Heath Peter Fonda famously left John Lennon uneasy but also creatively stirred when, as the...
View ArticlePronto (1997): Allan Fish Online Film Festival 2020 – Day 3
By J.D. Lafrance Somewhere, there’s an alternate universe where James Le Gros is playing recurring Elmore Leonard character Deputy United States Marshal Raylan Givens in a series of television movies...
View ArticleAllan Fish Online Film Festival: Day #4: “West of the Tracks”
by Sachin Gandhi West of the Tracks (Tie Qi Xu, 2003, Wang Bing): Parts I, II and III Wang Bing is one of the best filmmakers working today yet his films are not as well known compared to other...
View ArticleAllan Fish Online Film Festival 2020 (Day #5): Way Out – television series...
by Sam Juliano Those who were fortunate and privileged to know Allan or just even to cross his path immediately understood he was someone quite out of the ordinary. His incomparable obsessiveness...
View ArticleConcluded Fourth Annual Allan Fish Online Film Festival on Monday Morning...
by Sam Juliano The Monday Morning Diary thread is back after a rare one-week absence due to the concluding post of the Fourth Annual Allan Fish Online Film Festival publishing the previous Monday. I...
View ArticleDamien Chazelle’s First Man
By J.D. Lafrance Ever since I can remember I have been fascinated by space travel. The seeds were planted in science fiction movies like Star Wars (1977) but my interest intensified in the early 1980s...
View ArticleRacial Tensions, pandemic progress on Monday Morning Diary (June 15)
Jeremy shown at local Black Lives Matter rally. He attended the event this past week with my other four children. by Sam Juliano Racial tensions continue to hold the stage around the nation with...
View ArticleINGMAR BERGMAN’S ‘FROM THE LIFE OF THE MARIONETTES’“Weak people choose...
© 2020 by James Clark The films of Ingmar Bergman have elicited from his loyalists a bemusing history. At the point where a consensus about the remarkableness of his skills and heart was at...
View ArticleThe immediate area is looking good but the country as a whole is still under...
by Sam Juliano Though case numbers are still rising in Florida, California, Texas and other states -and now we have irresponsible, though happily poorly attended political rallies as part of the...
View ArticleScott McGehee and David Siegel’s Suture
by J.D. Lafrance Scott McGehee and David Siegel are part of a generation of American independent filmmakers that capitalized on the surprise success of Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies & Videotape...
View ArticleMoving Forward on Monday Morning Diary (June 29)
by Sam Juliano Our “virtual” summer school classes commence this week on Wednesday (July 1st) and will run until the final day of the month. Meanwhile, New Jersey’s governor has announced that in...
View ArticleHeat, political turmoil and COVID-19 on Monday Morning Diary (July 6)
by Sam Juliano July has showed up with excessive heat in most regions stateside, with the Metropolitan area seeing 90 degree temperatures. The summer season has also brought out throngs of people...
View ArticleINGMAR BERGMAN’S ‘IN THE PRESENCE OF A CLOWN’“I wonder why I love you as I do…”
© 2020 by James Clark In 1997, at the age of 80, Ingmar Bergman saw fit to return to his 1980 film, From the Life of the Marionettes, in order to disclose the further range to be found in its...
View ArticleThe Falcon and the Snowman
By J.D. Lafrance Why would someone sell top-secret government documents to their country’s enemy? Fame? Money? Disillusionment? With muckraking websites like WikiLeaks, a non-profit organization which...
View ArticleThe Status Quo and staying busy on Monday Morning Diary (July 13)
by Sam Juliano We are approaching mid-July and nothing has changed in any resonant manner. Movie theaters are planning to open soon but many of us, even those with long running attendance will be...
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