THE ACADEMIC HACK.
Writings by Michael Sicinski
I. The Common Moviegoer
New Releases Seen 2010 (organized by rating)
Reviews of New Releases 2010 (by title)
------Jan / Feb / Mar / Apr / May / Jun / Jul (NEW: Life During Wartime [5]; COMING UP: Greenberg's Face In The Shadows of the Wild Grass [7/6/7/7])
2010 Migrating Forms Festival (coming soon)
2010 Toronto International Film Festival (previews coming soon)
Reviews of New Releases 2009 (by title)
-------Jan / Feb / Mar / Apr / May / Jun / Jul / Aug / Sep / Oct / Nov / DecSelections from the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival (although I didn't go)
2009 Cinema Arts Festival Houston
2009 New York Film Festival / Views From the Avant-Garde ("The Home Game")
A still highly tentative 2009 Top Ten+
Reviews of New Releases 2008 (by title)
Jan / Feb / Mar / Apr / May / Jun / Jul / Aug / Sep / Oct / Nov / Dec2008 Toronto International Film Festival
Selections from 2008 NYFF Views from the Avant-Garde
Reviews of New Releases 2007 (by title)
Jan / Feb / Mar / Apr / May / Jun / Jul / Aug / Sep / Oct / Nov / Dec
2007 Toronto International Film Festival Semi-Actual Retroactively Constructed Pseudo-Coverage
2007 New York Film Festival "Views from the Avant-Garde"
2007 Syracuse International Film and Video Festival
2006 / 2005/ 2004 / 2003 / 2002 / 2001 material
Nothing but Top Ten Lists (in progress - 1960-72; 1974-2006; ADDED: Top Ten of the 1960s)
II. Lines of
Light (a-g film)
-It's Mike D'Angelo [CON!] vs. The Hack [mild pro!] on Harmony Korine's Tennessee elder-drag freakshow Trash Humpers (for The Nashville Scene)
-If there's anything left to say about James Benning's RR, I want to take the time to really say it. Because it's a masterpiece. But until then, I have this sketch (for The Nashville Scene)
-The trypp is a bit longer this time in Ben Russell's astonishing avant-ethnography Let Each One Go Where He May (for Cinema Scope)
-Kino International issued many, many classic experimental films on three DVD sets. And I reviewed #2 and 3, with some digital-era mutterings (for Cineaste)
-a few chunks of a ponderous wall of text attempting
to grapple with Ken Jacobs's Bitemporal Vision:
The Sea
-excerpts from a discussion about Scott Stark's NOEMA (published in the anthology Porn Studies)
-an open letter of apology to Caveh Zahedi for a bad decision while serving on the SFIFF jury
-an unpublished (and unpublishable) review of
Catherine Russell's book Experimental
Ethnography
-the latest revision of my paper on Snow's Wavelength, Heidegger and Lefebvre (published in Qui Parle)
-an apologetic email
sent to my students, summarizing a lecture on Baldwin's Tribulation 99 and Kubelka's
- "The Fixed
Frame" (latest revision and expansion -- warning, deadly dull)
III. The Funky Diegesis (narrative film)
-Here are some considerations of four films by the late Malay filmmaker Yasmin Ahmad (for Moving Image Source)
-Before the Philadelphia establishment is through with the Barnes Foundation, it'll be administered by this guy. I review The Art of the Steal (for Nashville Scene)
-I liked Wiseman'sLa Danse pretty well, and then sat with it awhile, and realized I had significant problems with it. Still worth seeing, though. (for Cinema Scope)
-I justify my lax, shitty parenting with some discussion of Fantastic Mr. Fox and Where the Wild Things Are (for Cinema Scope)
-Not really "by" me, but my bud Vadim Rizov thoughtfully expanded my rant-kernel on Shrek IV and made it into a coherent argument (for IFC.com)
-My review of the quite-interesting anthology Inventing Film Studies doesn't fit anywhere else, so I'll slot it here (for Cineaste)
-Join me, David McDougall, Craig Keller, and Ignatiy Vishnevetky as we go nuts on Alejandro Adams' Canary (for The Auteurs)
-Soderbergh x2! I go guerilla on Che and ponder the deep arschenhaller of The Girlfriend Experience (for Cargo)
-If Prof. Brickell is correct that "philosophy is the talk on the cereal box," Examined Life brings the C.W. Post-Structuralism (for Cineaste)
-Once a soldier in God's Army, Richard Dutcher will fight no more forever (for Cinema Scope)
-It is not always a heavenly romance when two become one. Just ask John Woo's Red Cliff (for Nashville Scene)
-It took me awhile to realize just how awesome Christian Petzold is. (I can be a little thick sometimes.) (for Cinema Scope)
-It's a doggone shame Wendy and Lucy isn't a bit more careful with its class politics (for Cineaste)
-A discussion of the pros and cons of Van Sant's Milk relative to the Obama transitional moment (for Cargo)
-Take the Mulligan and leave the rest! An Education in mediocre filmmaking (for The Nashville Scene)
-Emperor = naked. Tommy Wiseau = sucks. I arrive to kill all joy in The Room (for The Nashville Scene)
-Who here loves TIFF coverage? Yeah, me too! So here's some for ya! One, two, three! (for GreenCine Daily)
-Shin Sang-ok's A Flower in Hell is crazy enough to spirit you away to the other side (for Moving Image Source)
-Alexandra . . . Why? Sokurov tries to puzzle out the Chechen War, with mixed results (for Cinema Scope)
-a rather convoluted attempt at an introduction to the films of Abderrahmane Sissako (for Cinema Scope)
-I talk some about Ousmane Sembčne (for The Nashville Scene)
-Spike Lee knows what it means to miss New Orleans (for Cineaste)
-I was hating Crash when hating Crash wasn't cool (for Cineaste)
-a review of the mock-doc book F is for Phony (for Cineaste)
-Hong Sang-soo's postmodern gamesmanship hits new levels of existential horror in Tale of Cinema (for Cinema Scope)
-sinking my teeth into Land of the Dead (for Cinema Scope)
-wildly enthusing over Kung Fu Hustle with some cross-referencing jujitsu (for The Nashville Scene)
-A true blurb! Pure shallowness! I scratch the surface of the surface of Howard Hawks's great Only Angels Have Wings (for The Nashville Scene)
-TIFF wrap-up 2006!!! (for GreenCine Daily)
-"How Alain Resnais Beat the Numbers Game" (tedious excursus on the hazards of the 1-10 scale and Not on the Lips)
-a Deleuzian reading of Bruno Dumont's L'humanité with some odd digressions
-a sample from a long-ass discussion of temporal frameworks in The Shining
IV. A Hundred Flowers in Bloom (web links UPDATED!)
V. Viewer Mail (contact me here)
VI. Talk Was Never Cheaper (my Twitter feed)
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all the swearing.