Following in the footsteps of the great French film Regular Lovers last year, Amos Poe’s butt-numbing, three-hour experimental film EMPIRE II — a spin-off of Andy Warhol’s eight-hour Empire (1964) — might be MIFF’s most worthwhile test of your patience this year. Poe shot the film over the course of a year from his Manhattan apartment window, and edited the footage into a playful examination of time, with music by Cat Power and Brian Eno, among others.
Classics
Among the movie’s in MIFF’s “Re-Discovery” program this year are three very different films by the relatively unsung Japanese director MASAKI KOBAYASHI (one, Samurai Rebellion, features the actor Toshiro Mifune, a favorite of Akira Kurosawa), which have been recently restored and remastered; THE BIG COMBO, a long-lost but apparently classic film noir directed by Joseph H. Lewis (Gun Crazy) in 1955; and THE EXILES, a 1961 documentary by Kent Mackenzie about a community of city-raised Native American teenagers in downtown Los Angeles, recently re-released in New York City to tremendous acclaim on a par with Killer of Sheep, another L.A.-based underground masterpiece re-released and screened at MIFF last year.
On the Web
Maine International Film Festival: www.miff.org
Christopher Graycan be reached atcgray@phx.com.
Related:
Arthur Russell, Get around to it, Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell, More 
- Arthur Russell
Following the 2004 release of Calling Out of Context comes yet another posthumous Arthur Russell session.
- Get around to it
You would not guess, listening to his music, that Arthur Russell grew up in Oskaloosa, Iowa. In fact you might not guess that he came from anywhere.
- Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell
There’s no explaining Arthur Russell. It’s best just to listen to his music. I hope Wolf’s documentary will encourage people to do precisely that.
- Dancing with himself
Arthur Russell's music does little to illuminate the mysteries and vagaries of his life. It simply tosses them aside, in pursuit of moods and rhythms few have successfully replicated, two decades later.
- Space cowboy
Ronald Mallett wanted to build a time machine.
- Politics as usual?
Conspiracy, corruption, catastrophe — politics and world events sure can be exciting. Even the mainstream news is taking an interest.
- EXTRAS! EXTRAS!
As much as I lament the continuing decline of attendance at the cineplex, it’s also easy to understand.
- Seasonal adjustment
After weeks of tormenting audiences with gems like Failure To Launch and The Shaggy Dog , Hollywood seems ready to shake off the Oscar doldrums and unveil its spring collection.
- Autumn peeves
With pundits already reading political significance into summer blockbusters like The Dark Knight (“Is Batman a stand-in for George Bush? Discuss.”), the meatier movies of fall arrive not a moment too soon.
- Trouble the Water
The direct, artless footage conjures a real-world Cloverfield , except with people who are resourceful and worth caring about.
- CSA: The Confederate States of America
Those who found Spike Lee’s Bamboozled too subtle won’t have that problem with Kevin Willmott’s satire.
- Less
Topics:
Features
, Entertainment, Jimmy Carter, James Walsh, More
, Entertainment, Jimmy Carter, James Walsh, Matt Wolf, Philippe Petit, Alan Ball, Andy Abrahams Wilson, Jeremiah Zagar, Masaki Kobayashi, Pearl Fryar, Less
