96) 4:44 Last Day on Earth (2011) Dir: Abel Ferrara Date Released: March 23, 2012 Date Seen: March 13, 2012 Rating: 4/5
RV!: Bad Lieutenant (1992) Dir: Abel Ferrara Date Released: November 20, 1992 Date Seen: March 18, 2012 Rating: 4/5
RV!: Bad Lieutenant (1992) Dir: Abel Ferrara Date Released: November 20, 1992 Date Seen: March 18, 2012 Rating: 4/5
Can't decide whether I'm being over-cautious with my grade for 4:44 or not.
And the censored cut of Bad Lieutenant isn't terrible, though it does cut out a lot of the more productively prickly material from Ferrara's milestone film.
I feel compelled to say that I wouldn't know what to look for or how to more fully appreciate Ferrara's latest film had I not read Brad Stevens's frequently revelatory book Abel Ferrara: The Moral Vision. It's been a book on my "To Read" list for a while now and, since I'm preparing for an interview with Ferrara (which I hope still happens...), I decided to check it out. And it's so, so worth it. In any case, 4:44 is rather good and so is The Moral Vision. More soon in my interview, hopefully.
Editor's Note, the first: in the meantime, peep my review of 4:44 Last Day on Earth for Capital New York...yo.
Editor's Note, the second: here's my profile of Abel for Movieline.
And the censored cut of Bad Lieutenant isn't terrible, though it does cut out a lot of the more productively prickly material from Ferrara's milestone film.
I feel compelled to say that I wouldn't know what to look for or how to more fully appreciate Ferrara's latest film had I not read Brad Stevens's frequently revelatory book Abel Ferrara: The Moral Vision. It's been a book on my "To Read" list for a while now and, since I'm preparing for an interview with Ferrara (which I hope still happens...), I decided to check it out. And it's so, so worth it. In any case, 4:44 is rather good and so is The Moral Vision. More soon in my interview, hopefully.
Editor's Note, the first: in the meantime, peep my review of 4:44 Last Day on Earth for Capital New York...yo.
Editor's Note, the second: here's my profile of Abel for Movieline.
Just watched 4:44 while playing catch-up. What a surprisingly dense--in a good way--piece of techno-social commentary. I quite liked the indirect comparing of today's scientific doomsdayers--"Al Gore was right!"--with yesterday's gnostic quacks, and the delivery kid's kiss goodbye, planted on the Macbook, is downright iconic. I can't believe reviews are pegging this as "Ferrara goes LAST TANGO and fails!". I wrote about it here with the opposing KID WITH A BIKE: http://capsules.josephjonlanthier.com/post/26582138654/kid-with-a-4-44
ReplyDeleteIn your shoe.