Miami Film Festival's COMMENT PAGE

[oscar jubis]

I've opened a new thread in the Festival Coverage area concerning the 2009 Miami International Film Festival (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2478). Comments of any kind are encouraged. I've opened this thread for that purpose. Posts including commentary on films I manage to catch begin tomorrow (opening day). Enjoy.

[oscar jubis]

Two strong contenders for Best Film in the "World Cinema" category: Khamsa from France and Paper Soldier from Russia. Reviews (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=21485#post21485)

[oscar jubis]

Catherine Deneuve travels through devastated Lebanon and the photographer for Warhol's "Interview" magazine returns to Manhattan in these documentaries. Reviews (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=21488#post21488)

[Johann]

Great header logo of the festival, Oscar.

And great stills for the film reviews.
Looking forward to reading what's playing in Miami..

[Chris Knipp]

KHAMSA (very highly rated by the French critics after its October 2008 release): Francois-Guillaume Lorrain in Le Point calles it "a 400 Blows for the 21st Century." Sounds like something that ought to hve been included in the Rendez-Vous this year at Lincoln Center instead of some of the silly stuff like Thompson's CHANGE OF PLANS or Duran Cohen's THE JOY OF SINGING. But at least since it wasn't, we don't overlap.

I WANT TO SEE with Deneuve: Sounds indeed very lacking, hardly more than a vanity piece. Philipped Aractingi's UNDER THE BOMBS (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=20046#post20046) (SFIFF 2008) is surely better, if still unsatisfactory.

FACE ADDICT would be a good one to watch in lower Manhattan but certainly not a must. One for three is good, so far, however.

I'm glad you're posting images now, Oacar. Good reviews too, pointing out the pluses and minuses neatly.

[oscar jubis]

Thank you CHRIS and JOHANN for your support of my coverage of the MIFF. I have indeed finally learned how to attach images to my reviews and I'm glad you guys approve. I am still learning how to modify the size of the images. I had a neat one to accompany the Face Addict review but I just couldn't manage to reduce it from its original huge size.

That film, like Chris stated, is not a must. But it's more rewarding than the Deneuve one, which is the one film to avoid so far (that's for you locals and tourists). I'm glad to learn Khamsa was "very highly rated" in France. I watched Didri's Bye-bye at the '96 MIFF and I was quite impressed. His new film sounds like something you've seen before but it's the attention to detail that make it unique and the long, careful pre-production work needed to prepare non-actors to be themselves and ignore the cameras when the shoot starts. Let's not forget the Russian film Paper Soldier which is indebted to a Russian literary tradition of allegory (as pointed out by my colleague P. Scott Cunningham in New Times).

[Chris Knipp]

I don't myself have the software to alter sizes of images. You have to reformat them to make them permanent for the site. When I've done that I've had to get somebody to help on it. You've lost one of yours already. You can usually always find another image that's open source and won't go off, even if you can't reformat them. It takes me some time to get images up, but it pays off in the attractiveness of the reviews with them. So don't give up.

[oscar jubis]

Your exhortation is more significant than you think. I just spent about 90 minutes writing reviews and inserting images to them and something happened that caused the work to be irretrievably lost. I'll try again tomorrow. I'm not about to give up.
As for now, I'll tell you a little story that happened to me tonight. I went to the screening of Lisandro Alonso's magnificent LIVERPOOL. Alonso seemed particularly hyper during his introduction, joking loudly about how his brothers find his movies soporific and how we were about to be bored "like the gods". A Q&A was promised following the screening. It got canceled. No reason was offered. About a block from the theater, on the way to my car, I find Alonso leaning against a wall drunk out of his skull. I introduced myself and we joked around for a few minutes. He is a friendly drunk, that's for sure, but after a while he wasn't even trying to make sense so I politely said goodbye. He's here all week presiding over the festival jury, so I should be able to catch him at the hotel headquarters during one or another press conference. He promised we'd talk when he was more up to it. In a way he was acting no different than many who come here to party and have a good time. Still, it was surprising to find him inebriated to such an extent during the sole and well-attended screening of his latest film.

[Chris Knipp]

I'm not encouraged by hearing Alonso is a drunk but I loved LOS MUERTOS (SFIFF 2005) and wonder if you've seen all his films.

"Something happening" while you're setting up your content wasn't exactly what I meant about losing stills. I meant image links need to be reset for the site like so, to make them permanent: http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/images/nyff%2006/THUMB_The_Queen_2.jpg But personally I still have to get somebody else to do that for me.

To avoid long entries getting irretrievably lost as you're speaking of, I suggest you compose them right in the site thread and periodically save them as you go along. That way what you've saved on the site can't be lost. But the image on your thread that had dropped out was the festival logo, and it's back now.

[oscar jubis]

*I've seen 3 out of 4 Alonso films, but some consider the one I haven't seen (FANTASMA) a mood piece or "featurette" that serves as a companion to LOS MUERTOS. Variety loves the new LIVERPOOL even more than Los Muertos and I might agree. Drunk or not, Alonso is a Master. Only Lucrecia Martel is in his class among practitioners of the Nuevo Cine Argentino. Not that Trapero, Rotter, Burman, etc. lack talent.

*I know about saving. I just forgot to do it late at night after 3 festival films. Can't afford to let that happen again though with school, family, work, festival going and reviewing competing for those finite awake hours. I was pissed. The reviews have been rewritten. Links below.

*The image lost was not the logo but the one for the film PAPER SOLDIER. I found an alternative one that illustrates the film well. Check it out.

*Two very different debuts by Mexican filmmakers: Golden Leopard winner Parque Via (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=21507#post21507) and the Jewish-diaspora dramedy Nora's Will (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=21508#post21508).

[Chris Knipp]

A drunken master, then, but such masters may not last long. Yes, I know "featurette" is used for FANTASMA but I quoted the enthusiastic comments. I also saw the Variety reviewer was very pleased with LIVERPOOL. I'm not so sure I would compare him to Lucretia Martel after THE HEADLESS WOMAN. I don't like her as well as LOS MUERTOS. I was thinking of Lucretia Martel in connection with UNA SEMANA SOLOS but couldn't think of her name. It is not of the same country but I was very impressed by NOTICIAS LEJANAS (Ricardo Benet, Mexico, 2004), and also from the same SFIFF year, Alicia Scherson's PLAY (Chile 2005). The other Latin American master from the new generations to me is Carlos Reygadas (SILENT LIGHT).

[oscar jubis]

Extremely favorable reviews of Martel's The Headless Woman and, of course, Alonso's Liverpool are forthcoming. For the time being, how about the new film from the somewhat more conventional Pablo Trapero. It will be released stateside by Strand Releasing under the title Lion's Den and it was Argentina's submission to the 2009 Oscars. Review (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=21513#post21513)

[cinemabon]

Great stuff on the festival Oscar. Your work, along with the coverage Chris provided in France, gives legitimacy to our website. Bravo... excellent!

Sorry I haven't commented much lately. Book is coming out soon. I'm working on the cover. Have fun in Miami. Wish I was there.

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks, cinemabon. Correction on "Chris in France": I haven't been in France (though I'd like to have been), but in New York attending the RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA (http://) series at Lincoln Center for the fourth year in a row. We know Oscar is in Miami! And in April I'll be in the Bay Area, my home base, to attend the SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATINIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (SFIFF) 2009 (http://www.sffs.org/sf-intl-film-festival.aspx) . NYC has become my home away from home, though.

Much good luck with the book.

[Johann]

At least we have two legit members.
My posts from planet Grabackle are unacceptable, I know.
You don't have to rub it in cinemabon.
I'm trying. I really am.
Don't hate the player- hate the game!

[oscar jubis]

Thanks cinemabon, for your support. Good luck with your book!
Self-deprecation doesn't suit you Johann. Keep your wonderful posts coming!
New review: Celina Murga's A WEEK ALONE (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=21523#post21523)

[Johann]

You're a busy man Oscar. Not enough hours in the day, are there?
Yes indeed keep those posts coming!
Coverage is going well for you, yes?

I've made a solemn pledge to get my ass to the Ontario Cinematheque this year. I just missed a string of Dreyer films. 34th TIFF WILL be covered in it's entirety this year- you have my word on that (unless I bite the dust before then- let us pray :)
Juggling movie watching/life/work is difficult sometimes..

I indicted and praised American Idol in the lounge today.

[oscar jubis]

Busy indeed. This week everything came together demanding time and attention. Spring Break next week so I'll have time to finish all my MIFF reviews.
Here's another one, from Austria: March (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=21528#post21528)

[Chris Knipp]

I'll put the link to your review with my review of "Una semana solos," which I hope you read. Maybe you said so, and I've forgotten
With great skill and subtlety, Murga intimates that the potential of an affair between Juan and Maria, the oldest girl, fuels feelings of jealousy on the part of Maria's cousin. I didn't really see that, though I saw there was communication between Juan and Maria. You would perceive more, because of the language. I thought maybe Juan's silence was not so much a calculated strategy as just that he was shy as a misfit newcomer, as we would all be, regardless of class (if we're shy, as I was at that age). For sure there is a sense of the snobbism of the boys, but an element of it is universal and not class (in my opinion, anyway) I wish you had said more about the moment-to-moment details and the climactic misbehavior--in which Juan of course shares. The thing is that when a film is nothing but tiny details, it's very hard to summarize. You do a good job of outlining main plot points; but in a way this kind of film is not about those. I definitely agree with you on the "great subtlety."

[cinemabon]

I've always appreciated your sense of humor, Johann. All of our members make great contributions to our site. Recently, Oscar and Chris have made extraordinary efforts.

The first time I ever heard classical music was a performance by the New York Philharmonic "Live from Lincoln Center" on our area's first FM station when I was a boy. They performed the Brahms Symphony No. 1 in C minor. I took my son to his first symphonic performance in Raleigh last week. They performed the Brahms Symphony No. 1 in C minor... and did it beautifully.

Enjoy your New York trip, Chris.

[oscar jubis]

From Mexico: I'M GONNA EXPLODE (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=21537#post21537)

Chris, perhaps you would post links here to your reviews of both A WEEK ALONE and I'M GONNA EXPLODE. As usual, I read both of your reviews shortly after you posted them. Speaking only for myself, I cannot see how one can discuss the former without bringing up the issues of class or the gap between the rich and the poor that is very much at the center of the film. If I remeber correctly you allude to that in your review but probably only as one of several possible readings of the film.

[oscar jubis]

A romantic comedy with the wonderful actress Ines Efron in the leading role:
LOVELY LONELINESS (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=21542#post21542)

[oscar jubis]

Young American's debut film opens at Cannes then US-premieres in NY:
AFTERSCHOOL (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=21547#post21547)

[Chris Knipp]

Links to Chris Knipp's earlier reviews of Miami Festival films:

Afterschool (Campos) (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=20748#post20748)
I'm Gonna Explode (Naranjo) (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=20784#post20784)
A Week Alone (Murga ) (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=21462#post21462)

[Chris Knipp]

Oscar: I was only suggesting here on your thread that re: A WEEK ALONE some of Juan's behavior could have been true if he was just shy, but of course he is excluded by the boys because he's poor, primarily. Kids exclude a "new boy" even when he's of their class, that was the only point I was making. I was not disagreeing with you about the film as a whole. There's no doubt that A WEEK ALONE is about class.

Cinemabon: Thanks for your wishes. My current stay in NYC is just about over now though. I have been here for four weeks. It's good that you're taking your son to hear live classical music. I got some of that but radio and records were also importnt.When I was a kid my grandmother subscribed to the NY Philharmonic programs, and their concert were broadcast every Sunday when we went to her house. But that was before Lincoln Center.

[oscar jubis]

KISSES (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=21552#post21552)
A small gem from Ireland, about a pre-teen couple experiencing a day of joy and adventure away from their abusive families. It's also a heartfelt homage to Bob Dylan. KISSES (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=21552#post21552)

[Chris Knipp]

Hardscrabble Dublin seems to be a good cinematic source, witness ONCE, and I just saw the headliner of The CRAIC Irish film festival (at Cinema Village), an affecting documentary about a boxing gym called SAVIOURS (Liam Nolan, Ross Whitiker) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1297844/).

[oscar jubis]

Kisses can be as successful at the b.o. as Once but... will a distributor realize that?
Character Study and/or Political Allegory: TONY MANERO (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=21558#post21558) (Chile)

[oscar jubis]

A selection from the "Cutting the Edge" sidebar:
FilmeFobia (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=21560#post21560) (Brazil)

[Chris Knipp]

TONY MANERO was in the NYFF 2008.

My review of it:

Tony Manero (Larrain) (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=20717#post20717)

The spelling you use "Llarain" is not that used by the Miami film festival:
Special Jury Mention
Tony Manero by Pablo LarraÃ*n, Chile/Brazil

[oscar jubis]

Weird in that my favorite film from Chile from the past 20 years is also directed by a Larrain. The film is Ricardo Larrain's La Frontera (1991).

Thanks for the correction: Here's the link to the now correctly-spelled review:
Tony Manero (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=21558#post21558)

[oscar jubis]

Photobucket censored a still from FILMEFOBIA in which a naked woman with a penis phobia was strapped and suspended off the floor while little control-remote cars with dildos attached to their roofs moved just below her. The anguished expression on her face is precisely what the director of the film wanted to show and explore. Whether or not the woman was an actor or a person experiencing real horror is the director's secret. The image has now been erased. I replaced it with a smaller still with no objectionable content that doesn't quite illustrate this unique film experience with the same clarity.

Short review of Italian crime melodrama:
GALANTUOMINI (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=21568#post21568)

[oscar jubis]

An unforgettable film by Catalan auteur Jaime Rosales:
The anti-thriller BULLET IN THE HEAD (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=21575#post21575)

[Chris Knipp]

This was part of the NYFF in September 2008. My review is here (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=20769#post20769). J.Hoberman wrote in his NYFF intro piece
Another eccentric political thriller by a director without local name recognition, Catalan filmmaker Jaime Rosales's Bullet in the Head is the NYFF's main section's most experimental movie (think last year's In the City of Sylvia—but different). It's showing only once in the capacious Ziegfeld—and is highly unlikely to ever receive such a magnificent projection again. I did not warm to it as you did. In fact I rejected it as of little value. My reaction was to regard it as too much like an art museum/gallery conceptual piece film, and not even strong for that. I know you like difficult, challenging films. It's misleading of Hoberman to compare this to the lovely, langorous, romantic In the City of Sylvia, which has appealed to so many. This is also quite different from Rosales' previous and prize-winning Solitary Fragments/La Soledad, which I saw as part of the SFIFF last year, and found curiously moviing. It is a provocation, and intentionally chilling and remote. But your explanation is convincing. Well done!
What Rosales conveys with tremendous authority and deep conviction is that there is no valid excuse, no valid cause, no valid explanation and nothing to understand about such an event. The psychological profile and political ideology of the killer(s) is irrelevant. You or me can perpetrate an act of violence and find a way to rationalize it. It would be wrong no matter what trauma we experienced in our childhood and no matter how strongly we believe violence is a necessary means to further our political viewpoint. To give the viewer clues as to who this killer is and what he stands for by means of characterization, dialogue and plot would be counter to film's unwavering moral position. Rosales refuses to use violence as a means of entertainment and diversion. He delivers a deeply resonant, rigorous anti-thriller.

[oscar jubis]

Thanks Chris. Indeed, La Soledad is more expansive than Bullet in the Head, which is closer to the debut The Hours of the Day. Rosales' next film will deal in one way or another with the misuse of religion. Rosales projects a 2011 release date. Can't wait!

Documentary about the relisilient poor people of Lima:
OBLIVION (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=21578#post21578) (Peru)

[Chris Knipp]

You're welcome. I'm afraid your otherwise fine last two reviews, of BULLET IN THE HEAD and OBLIVION, are marred on some browsers/computers by scattered black spots and question marks where apostrophes (and one hypen) should be, due, most likely, to your cutting and pasting your writing from a word processing format to the site--you didn't follow my advice by composing them in the thread directly. The text software for Filmleaf doesn't tolerate a wide range of symbols. As you know, it doesn't take accent marks. Bu also not curved apostrophes and some other common symbols from another format.

[oscar jubis]

I must have missed some apostrophes. I'll be more attentive to this issue. I've lost reviews when posting here directly, which is a bigger problem for me.
This Fipresci winner at Cannes is clearly influenced by Hungarian master Bela Tarr, credited as "script consultant"
DELTA (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=21583#post21583)

[Chris Knipp]

I hope we can figure out these font problems. I do think it might help to post directly, and don't think you will lose posts as long as you click on Post Reply every time you complete a line or two and use tab browsing so you don't move away from the page.

I make a lot of typos myself... As Nicholas D. Kristof ruefully says in his op-ed column in today's NYTimes ("The Daily Me") (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/opinion/19kristof.html?_r=1&ref=opinion) , "When we go online, each of us is our own editor, our own gatekeeper." He says:
Nicholas Negroponte of M.I.T. has called this emerging news product The Daily Me. And if that’s the trend, God save us from ourselves.He's talking about a different problem--a growing lack of balance--but it's all part of the same thing. We need editors and proofreaders, and we're not getting them online.

Originally, I posted reviews of French films (2006 Rendez-Vous) with all the accent marks in titles and names, and did not know error marks would appear later because this site's software does not accept any "alien" symbols. That thread (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1693) is riddled with error symbols. It could take an evening to carve them all out.

[Chris Knipp]

I didn't know Bela Tarr's style was called "miserabilist" but I see that it very definitely is--there are many instances of writers referring to him that way. And thus linked with Kaurasmaki. This is a diffeent sense of the term "miserabilist" than the one I have been aware of and using myself, which was more a negative branding that Mike Leigh rejected explicitly in HAPPY GO LUCKY and I used pejoratively in my review of FROZEN RIVER. So I'm learning something here that I need to know more about. But (another question) can DELTA really be offered as an example of, as it were, Bela Tarr lite? What do you mean by saying people could use DELTA as a "test case' for Tarr or Hungarian poetic gloom novices?

[oscar jubis]

I hope the DELTA review doesn't have similar errors.
That film won Hungarian Film Week, the most important showcase for Hungarian films, before being chosen as part of the Competition roster at Cannes.
I think that there is a special affinity between Tarr's signature films like SATANTANGO and WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES and Mundruczo's DELTA. Tarr's films are longer and more (deliciously) morose and laconic than DELTA. If a viewer finds the latter boring or too depressing, then avoid Tarr no matter what admirers like me say.

[oscar jubis]

Amerindie needs distributor:
Sean Baker's PRINCE OF BROADWAY (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=21590#post21590)

[oscar jubis]

Funny but not silly Chilean film, a big winner at Sundance '09, has huge mainstream appeal:
THE MAID (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=21599#post21599)

[Chris Knipp]

This was at this year's New Directors/New Films series (http://www.filmlinc.com/ndnf/program/themaid.html) but I missed out on it because I had to leave town before the screening. Did not know it was a hit at Sundance.

[oscar jubis]

No problem. There'll be plenty opportunities in the future to catch The Maid at festivals and later, in theaters or dvd.
INVOLUNTARY (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=21603#post21603) (Sweden)

[oscar jubis]

Barcelona Ghetto Tale:
THE HANDLESS TRICK (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=21608#post21608)

[Chris Knipp]

Indeed sounds unusual coming from Spain. Reminds me slightly of the 2006 Rendez-Vous film Jolivet's ZIMM & CO. (http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?t=548) because it's a Banlieue buddy picture with some illegal doings and an urgency. I wish you would give more emphasis to the directors' names in your festival reviews. One shouldn't have to hunt for them.

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks for all your coverage of this festival. I'm reading through everything now. I'm glad to see the stills and the highlighting of the films titles. Equally prominent mention of the director's name at the top would also be in order. On this one, mention at the outset that this was a documentary would have been helpful--format or genre being another basic element needed at the top of a review, the film writing equivalent of the journalistic "who, why, what, where, and when." (This is what.) Note that the VARIETY review you cite by Jan Weisberg does mention the word "documentary" twice in the first paragraph. You only mention the word in connection with another film that you say this one "fits perfectly" with, thus belatedly and indirectly indicating that this is a documentary too.

[oscar jubis]

I strive to make the reviews short enough to be read whole. I don't feel bound by any strict rules regarding format, structure or placement of information. I probably do mention genre and director in 1st paragraph most of the time though. Variety reviewers have to adhere to a structure and certain terms or jargon to achieve a certain unity of style no matter who's the writer. I'd rather not. I'm extremely glad you read my reviews. It's such a pleasure to attend the MIFF and I do my best to review a large number of films shown despite the usual time and energy constraints. I noted that EL OLVIDO's review only implied it was a doc so I used that term on the film's one-sentence description on this page.

[Chris Knipp]

Your reviews are getting better all the time and you have made such trivial matters as the director's name and the title easier to find than you used to. I'm not sure what you mean by "short enough to be read whole." In one gulp? In one blink of the eye? Anyway, giving title, director's name, and the type of film at the beginning has nothing special to do with a particular publication's style rules for unity but simply to the basic needs of a review to inform the reader.

[oscar jubis]

Thanks for saying my reviews are getting better. I get feedback on my longer essays from faculty and students but festival reviews are posted exclusively here so feedback from you and other members is doubly appreciated. To be honest, I've been concentrating on longer essays (15-25 pages) because those are the ones I'm being graded on. They include multiple screen-captures which would be impossible to replicate here.

Anyway I do attempt to do my best with these festival reviews just as you do. I know it'd be impossible to satisfy what another person thinks a good review should be, and perhaps one should try to do that. What I meant to say before is that if you read the whole review (and these reviews are not too long to read and fairly free of academic jargon), you do get director's name, genre, etc. My EL OLVIDO review didn't include the word "documentary" which was wrong, even though astute readers would discern that anyway just like you did. As a means of clarification, I described the film as a "documentary" on this thread.

[Chris Knipp]

It's good that you're working on your academic and your mainstream stills at the same time. I understand and appreciate your desire not to fit your reviews into a standardized mold; to make them more individual and personal; to avoid utter conventionality. However you can't get away from the fact that people read a review not exclusively but primarily to find out what the film is -- what it's called, who made it and where and when, who's in it, what it's about, what watching it is like, and where they can see it. It's best to get that basic information out of the way right at the outset, to provide the basic information, director, title, genre, country of origin, language, date, distribution details. Here's a somewhat funny example from A.O. Scott of the NYTimes, from yesterday:
"Tulpan," the first fictional feature by the Kazakh director Sergey Dvortsevoy, might be described as an epic landscape film, a sweetly comic coming-of-age story or a lyrical work of social realism. But the setting -- a windswept, sparely populated steppe in southern Kazakhstan -- gives the movie a mood that sometimes feels closer to that of science fiction. He gives the title, director ,that it's a first film, and then alternate ways of describing the genre and subject matter, and he also gives you an idea of what the expereience of watching the film is like. I balked at the elaborate list of specific genre labels, "landscape film," "coming of age story, "lyrical work of social realism," at first, but as I read on in what turned out to be a quite wining and enthusiastic review, I was impressed that Scott did the film more than justice, I wound up thinking that afer all he had chosen an excellent way to begin, and one that was very helpful to the reader. No doout as a journalist, Scott is trained in the "pyramid style," the basic rule that a reporter puts the most important information at the top of a story and then finishes off with details of greater specificity and gradually diminishing importance, with the least essential material toward the end.

Basically a rule of writing is that you don't want to make it hard for your reader but quite the contrary. If somebody has to read back and forth through a 250-word review to get basic information, something's radically wrong in how it's written. There are exceptions but they do not concern such utilitarian formats as the film review. Your reviews show a sophisticated knowledge of film and careful thought. You want to make all that as easily accessible to readers as you can.