April is the Cruelest Month

These are the reviews
and other assignments
I'm working on this month.

Amazon DVDs: Siouxsie - Dreamshow: Live at the Royal Festival Hall With the Millenia Ensemble (bring on the black eyeliner...and the dancing horses!), Full House - The Complete Sixth Season [four-disc set] (click here for my reviews of the first five seasons), The 4400 - The Third Season [four-disc set] (click here for one and two), Melrose Place - The Second Season [eight-disc set] (click here for one), Pink - Live from Wembley Arena (click here for Live in Europe), Al Franken - God Spoke (documentary from the makers of The War Room), John and Mary (Peter Yates directs Dustin Hoffman and Mia Farrow), and S*P*Y*S (spook spoof with Donald Sutherland
and Elliot Gould post-M*A*S*H...hence all the asterisks).

Amazon Theatricals: Disturbia (thriller with Shia LaBoeuf), Hot Fuzz (buddy cop spoof from the makers of Shaun of the Dead), Diggers (small-town drama with Paul Rudd, Maura Tierney, etc.), Fay Grim (Hal Hartley's sequel to Henry Fool), The Hip Hop Proj-
ect (doc about music program for at-risk youth), and Once
(Irish award winner with Glen Hansard from the Frames).



Resonance: Expansion of the following DVD review.

RADIO ON (Christopher Petit / Plexifilm)
As the Modern Lovers once exclaimed, "I'm in love with the radio on."
In "Roadrunner," Jonathan Richman had 1950s America on his mind.
In Radio On, critic-turned-filmmaker Christopher Petit transfers the
phenomenon to 1970s England, exchanging exultation for something
more enigmatic. Shot by Wim Wenders regular Martin Schäfer, the
first-timer's monochromatic road movie captures a time of Bowie in
Berlin, Kraftwerk on cassette and Wreckless Eric on the jukebox. It's
Get Carter gone punk. Instead of Michael Caine, star of Mike Hodge's
crime classic, David Beames plays DJ Robert B. Like Carter, he's try-
ing to unravel the mystery of his brother's demise. Radio On makes
for the ideal double bill with Border Radio, the restless debut from
fellow Wenders acolyte Alison Anders. Petit's project may be chil-
lier, but the patina of time only makes it seem cooler than ever.

Seattle International Film Festival:
I'm continuing to write notes—or "blurbs"—
for this year's program guide.

Siffblog: Two or Three Things I Know About
Her (Godard on the Americanization of Paris),
Glastonbury (Julien Temple on the 37-year-
old music festival), and Oscar nominee After
the Wedding (Mads Mikkelsen alert!).

And I received the following from Doug Block:

catching up with old emails that fell between the cracks when
i starting getting overwhelmed with distribution matters.
meant to tell you at the time how much i appreciated your
review, and particularly the writing. the film has gotten a lot of
reviews, and they've virtually all been very positive, but yours
was among the most perceptive and well written. wish we had
more of that quality of criticism here in good ol' new yawk city.

That made my day! (Please click here for my review.)



Endnote: I made the cover of the current issue of Resonance—twice. This is a first (and a second). See issue #53 for interviews with David Lynch and the Brothers Quay. For more information about Araki, please click here for the lively transcript of a San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF) round table with Araki, Jon Moritsugu, and Marcus Hu. Araki image from The Evening Class, Mikkelsen from the archives.