f i l m j o u r n e y . o r g

I was invited to attend this past weekend’s 25th edition of “The Reel Thing,” the annual technical symposium for the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA). The event offered an impressive line-up of some of the top film restorationists and preservationists working today, who presented their work and discussed problems and solutions they encountered. [...]

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LACMA is halfway through its series devoted to cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca, one of RKO’s prime cameramen in the 1940s and ’50s, and thus one of the key strategists behind the shadowy “noir” look in films such as Cat People (1942), The Seventh Victim (1943), Out of the Past (1947), and Clash by Night (1952). [...]

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Jafar Panahi, happy to be home. (Photo courtesy of the Twitter group FreeJafarPanahi.)
“I think Panahi’s refusal to cooperate with [the authorities] prolonged the case,” Jamsheed Akrami says in Godfrey Cheshire’s summary of events. “They just realized they couldn’t intimidate Panahi. I consider that to be a great moral victory for Panahi and people like [...]

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10-17-88 (1989)
I’ve got an article in this week’s LA Weekly about the films of Ross Lipman, whom many readers will recognize as the UCLA restorationist behind classic films by independent luminaries such as Kenneth Anger, John Cassavetes, John Sayles, and Charles Burnett. However, his upcoming show at REDCAT on March 30 (a Tuesday event [...]

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Word is quickly spreading that the man whom many regard as the world’s greatest living animator–Yuri Norstein–is making a brief US tour, with visits to Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City and Olympia. My 23-month-old daughter routinely requests viewings of Hedgehog in the Fog, but I’ve been an admirer of Norstein’s work [...]

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The two-week-plus campaign to Save Film at LACMA continues (be sure to read Time art and architecture critic Richard Lacayo’s article from yesterday), but Los Angeles’ fall film scene is beginning to promise highlights:
• “Cigarettes & Alcohol: Eight Films by Hong Sang-soo” (Sept. 11-19)
I’ve seen all of Hong’s films except for The Day a Pig Fell [...]

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Hayao Miyazaki made an appearance at AMPAS a couple weeks ago, and participated in a Q&A that included clips from his films. In general, he was soft spoken and not especially forthcoming with his answers (my wife assures me he was playing the part of the distinguished Japanese gentleman), but I found several of [...]

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With its 2008 line-up unveiled yesterday, AFI FEST has become the preeminent film festival for world cinema in Los Angeles. This is a dramatic improvement over past years, when the Palm Springs or Los Angeles festivals seemed destined to carry the torch for movies common to the critical dialogue from major festivals around the world. [...]

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Ran: Ichimonji Hidetora
There are currently two fantastic art exhibitions in Los Angeles that cinephiles won’t want to miss, both offered by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. I’ve already written about “Frédéric Back: A Life’s Drawings” in Hollywood (through November 1st). The second is “Akira Kurosawa: Film Artist” in Beverly Hills [...]

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Forty-seven years after its premiere, Kent Mackenzie’s The Exiles (1961) has finally returned to its iconic setting of Los Angeles; a newly restored print begins a week-long run at the UCLA film archive tomorrow and is being used to promote at least one historical tour of Bunker Hill. Although the new print premiered in [...]

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