The Phoenix Network:
 
 
About  |  Advertise
Adult  |  Moonsigns  |  Band Guide  |  Blogs  |  In Pictures
 
HOT TOPICS:
Devendra Banhart , Frank Williams
FOLLOW US:
Let's be friends
Become a fan of the Phoenix Facebook page Follow The Boston Phoenix on Twitter Follow The Boston Phoenix on YouTube Become a friend of The Phoenix on MySpace
jobs | housing | personals
All Authors >

MICHAEL ATKINSON

Latest Articles

list_belle

Belle Toujours

Quel dommage!
Manoel de Oliveira made this long-range sequel to Buñuel’s 1967 fetish classic Belle de jour .
By MICHAEL ATKINSON  |  May 17, 2007

070511_pinter_list

Glee and venom

Lacerating Harold Pinter at the Harvard Film Archive
Of the great modernist playwrights, Harold Pinter has had the most intimate relationship with film.
By MICHAEL ATKINSON  |  May 08, 2007

070504_glff_list

Gay abandon?

The edge has gone from the Gay and Lesbian Film Festival
Has gay cinema become a mere ghetto nowadays, of interest to its sexual demographic and no one else?
By MICHAEL ATKINSON  |  May 01, 2007

070309_chose_list

Life, truth, and Jean-Luc

2 or 3 things we know about Godard
Jean-Luc Godard is 76 now, of fading productivity and perhaps fading health, and so we’re faced with the unfathomable prospect of no longer living in the Age of Godard.
By MICHAEL ATKINSON  |  March 06, 2007

070223_kautner_lsit

Film among the ruins

Helmut Käutner at the HFA
Helmut Käutner, as an eloquent narrative stylist, is the peer of his contemporaries William Wyler, Frank Borzage, Michael Powell, and Vincente Minnelli.
By MICHAEL ATKINSON  |  February 21, 2007

070216_romanze_list

Romanze in Moll | Romance in a Minor Key

A little-seen masterpiece
German movies made during the Nazi reign have been largely regarded as anti-Semitic fables, Aryan propaganda, and fantasies like the 1943 Münchhausen .
By MICHAEL ATKINSON  |  February 14, 2007

070216_puzzle_list

Puzzlehead

An indie that deserved better
As authentically indie as you can get, James Bai’s bottom-budget Puzzlehead has only its ideas and a speculative frisson to sell it.
By MICHAEL ATKINSON  |  February 14, 2007

070112_list_filmt

Rain man

The lingering gaze of Béla Tarr at the HFA
Let’s take stock of Béla Tarr, the great Hungarian dyspeptic, and maybe the most famous and revered international film titan to have been so pitifully screened in American theaters that his public profile here is tantamount to an embargo.
By MICHAEL ATKINSON  |  January 10, 2007

070106_list_rivette

Cinema belongs to him

The je ne c’est quoi world of Jacques Rivette
For many backlashing film scholars and canonical cinéastes, most of the big players in the French New Wave — Truffaut, Chabrol, Rohmer, Resnais, etc. — have been, over time, at least a touch overrated, save two: Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Rivette.
By MICHAEL ATKINSON  |  January 03, 2007

120806_list_goodgerman.jpg

The Good German

Packs in the movie stars
Steven Soderbergh merges his mainstream aptitude with his proclivity for experimentation, making a conventional post-WW2 proto-espionage noir packed with movie stars, but daring to make it in the black-and-white style of period classics like The Third Man, Notorious , and The Lady from Shanghai . Watch the trailer for The Good German  (QuickTime)
By MICHAEL ATKINSON  |  December 20, 2006

061208_dustdevils_list

Devine DVDs

Film-smart gifts for people who think they’ve seen everything
Sure, we all know Get Smart! is out on DVD in time for the holidays, and the Superman films (all of them, going back to 1948), and Mission Impossible: The Ultimate Missions Collection , sure, sure, as if you could miss the bleating sirens of studio publicity.
By MICHAEL ATKINSON  |  December 07, 2006

061201_list_russian1

Movies from outer space

From the tsars to the stars at Harvard
Our new-found DVD-ness and cable-TV luxury notwithstanding, movies have always been a public medium, a spatial experience we share in the theater and a topical experience we share in the culture at large.
By MICHAEL ATKINSON  |  November 30, 2006

061124_list_51STbirch.jpg

51 Birch Street

A child discovers his mother
Doug Block comes close to poisoning his family interrogation with dreary self-regard and an NPR-ish tone of simpleton obviousness, but the family, as families often do, offer up some prime rib. Watch the trailer for 51 Birch Street
By MICHAEL ATKINSON  |  November 21, 2006

061124_list_bobby.jpg

Bobby

...and everyone else
The Camelot mythography lives on in writer/director Emilio Estevez’s earnest bid for significance, a cliché’d collage portrait of LA’s Ambassador Hotel on June 4, 1968. Watch the trailer for Bobby  (QuickTime)
By MICHAEL ATKINSON  |  November 21, 2006

061117_fur_list

Fake Fur

Steven Shainberg makes over Diane Arbus
It had to happen, sooner or later: a bio-pic of Diane Arbus, photographer goddess of the alternate America, doyenne of the somber freakout, selfless voyager into the unorthodox. Watch the trailer for Fur (QuickTime)
By MICHAEL ATKINSON  |  November 15, 2006

061110_iran_list

Fissionable material

Gauging the new wave at the Festival of Films from Iran
The Iranian masters upon whom we’ve come to depend seem for the moment to be indulging in their global fame.
By MICHAEL ATKINSON  |  November 10, 2006

061103_list_nation.jpg

. . . So Goes the Nation

In 30-second TV spot
Two years coming but landing in our laps this November, this documentary of the 2004 presidential balloting in Ohio from Adam Del Deo and James D. Stern volleys from the day-to-day build-up to Election Day and retrospective interviews with team players from both sides. Watch the trailer for . . . So Goes the Nation  (QuickTime)
By MICHAEL ATKINSON  |  November 01, 2006

061103_bjff_list

Eternal returns

The Boston Jewish Film Festival celebrates life as usual
When film festivals are programmed as extensions of life, not merely celebrations of cinema, commerce, or hype, everybody wins.
By MICHAEL ATKINSON  |  October 31, 2006

061005_list_oldjoy.jpg

Old Joy

A tale of old friends
American movies don’t come much smaller, subtler, or swoonier with tactile experience than Kelly Reichardt’s film, where a rare commitment to heartfelt naturalism keeps the proceedings free of bull and cool-indie toxins. Watch the trailer for Old Joy  (QuickTime)
By MICHAEL ATKINSON  |  October 25, 2006
< prev  1  |  2  | 

MOST POPULAR
RSS Feed of for the most popular articles
 Most Viewed   Most Emailed 



  |  Sign In  |  Register
 
thePhoenix.com:
Phoenix Media/Communications Group:
TODAY'S FEATURED ADVERTISERS
Copyright © 2009 The Phoenix Media/Communications Group