movie reviews

Keanu Reeves and Martin Scorsese in 'Side by Side'

Chris and Keanu’s Not-So-Excellent Adventure: Side by Side Zooms in on Role of Digital Techonolgy in Film

Have you ever wondered what your favorite director thought about shooting on digital film? How about actress Greta Gerwig? Have you even considered what the indie actress thought the first time she heard the whirring sound of an actual celluloid camera? What of cinematographers and colorists—how interested are you in exploring their relationships? (Are they adversaries? Do they work as a team? Did they start out adversaries, but thanks to advances in technology, now work as a team?) Have you ever wondered how Keanu Reeves would sound saying such profound phrases as “film has helped us share our experiences and dreams,” or “by the 1980s, Avid had developed digital editing into a cost-effective, computer-based system”?

If the answer to any of the above is “yes—but only if fed to me through a 90-minute documentary”—then you are exactly the niche audience longtime production manager and part-time documentarian Chris Kenneally had in mind for his second feature-length film, Side by Side. Read More

Cats and Dogs

The Porn Identity

Avatar is returning to movie theaters next week in the hopes of reversing a disturbing trend in Hollywood: 3-D is fading at the multiplex. After some big hits like Alice in Wonderland and Toy Story 3, recent 3-D offerings including Cats and Dogs and Step Up 3D have withered.

But perhaps a bigger question Read More

The Floppy-Haired Fellows

The most striking thing about this year’s Oscars, other than that a female director finally won? The guys’ hair. There was George Clooney, whose longish (for him) do had a distinctly feathered quality in the front. Then there was James Cameron, whose soft, elongated bowl cut channeled ABBA, and was possibly blow-dried. But Mark Boal, Read More

Oscars: New York vs. L.A.

The Academy Awards may belong to Los Angeles, but that doesn’t mean that The Observer and fellow New Yorkers can’t boldly declare what Ought To Be. We give you Oscar picks by coastal sensibilities–and who’s got the edge in the end.

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