September / October 2003

CLINT EASTWOOD
Clint Eastwood has an old-fashioned sense of responsibility to his audience: he often feels obliged to cross t's and dot i's that other filmmakers leave cryptically unadorned. But if Eastwood is virtually alone in playing by rules that most filmmakers started ignoring back in the Seventies, why should it bother anyone at all? The fact is, however, that Eastwood is always bothering somebody.
KENT JONES

ELEPHANT
Who were Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold? Who were all these kids who, throughout the late Nineties, in suburbs across the country, armed themselves to the teeth and walked into school on missions of destruction? Gus Van Sant knows it's an enigma.

KENT JONES AMY TAUBIN

YASUJIRO OZU: THE POETICS OF RESISTANCE
Richard Combs considers the Ozu behind "our Ozu" on the occasion of the Japanese director's centennial

RICHARD COMBS

ZOË LUND

KRISTIN M. JONES

THE HIRE
Way upscale, way downloadable, The Hire, BMW's car-commercial series, contains action-smacked micromovies for drive-ins along the infotainment superhighway. Art house meets box office, product placement melting into warm leatherette.
CHUCK STEPHENS

CHINESE CINEMA NOW
As their country and film industry open up, a new wave of Chinese filmmakers is reaping the benefits of the Sixth Generation's years of struggle.
BÉRÉNICE REYNAUD

MOVIE OF THE MOMENT: DEMONLOVER
Corporate vampires, bloody catfights, global cyber spy games-welcome to Olivier Assayas's desert of the real
SERGE KAGANSKI

SOUND: DEMONLOVER
Getting Sonic Youth to do the soundtrack for Olivier Assayas's cerebral neothriller demonlover was perfect typecasting-this beautifully splintered exploration of point-and-click behavior guided by malevolent remote control fits the group like a binding latex bodysuit.
HOWARD HAMPTON

VISION: MANHATTA
In 1920, painter Charles Sheeler and photographer Paul Strand collaborated on Manhatta, widely regarded as the first American avant-garde film and the progenitor of the so-called City Symphony film. It chronicles a day in the life of New York City, shot over several months, surveying five square blocks of lower Manhattan from a variety of vertiginous angles.
CHRIS CHANG

JOURNAL: BUENOS AIRES
Amidst political chaos, social instability, and economic meltdown, the New Argentine Cinema continues to bear witness. Pablo Suárez feels the heat

PABLO SUÁREZ

DISCOVERY
"Anything can happen at any time," says 27-year-old Argentine indie filmmaker Diego Lerman, talking about his debut feature, Suddenly (Tan de repente). "It doesn't matter if it doesn't. What's important is the possibility that it can, and creating a world for it to take place in." This succinct definition of cinematic verisimilitude perfectly embodies the essence of Lerman's film, which has won significant critical acclaim, both locally and internationally, over the past year.
DIEGO LERMAN