Gregarius » Items by By DENNIS LIM

Film: Hard Body Plays an Old Softie (Himself)

Posted: November 9th, 2008, 2:28am EST by By DENNIS LIM

Jean-Claude Van Damme is all washed up, in a meta-movie in which he plays himself.

Holiday Movies: Candy and Coal in a Gallic Stocking

Posted: October 31st, 2008, 4:25pm EDT by By DENNIS LIM

“A Christmas Tale,” the new feature by the French director Arnaud Desplechin, is haunted by the ghosts of holiday movies past — and not just the ones you’d expect.

Film: Leaving Hollywood, Headed South, Bound for Indie

Posted: September 26th, 2008, 2:32pm EDT by By DENNIS LIM

Most movies set out to tell a story. Lance Hammer was after something more amorphous. With “Ballast,” he wanted to depict a tone.

Film: French School as Democracy and Stage

Posted: September 24th, 2008, 10:59pm EDT by By DENNIS LIM

With “The Class,” Laurent Cantet recharges the classroom genre by casting actual students and teachers.

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The New Season Film: For Michelle Williams, It’s All Personal

Posted: September 6th, 2008, 12:37pm EDT by By DENNIS LIM

Filmmakers love her work, while the public remembers the Heath Ledger connection.

Film: The Angry Flood and the Stories in Its Wake

Posted: August 15th, 2008, 10:45am EDT by By DENNIS LIM

A series of films explore the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and its impact on communities.

Film: Mom-and-Pop Production, Directed by Son

Posted: August 9th, 2008, 8:46pm EDT by By DENNIS LIM

Azazel Jacobs’s “Momma’s Man,” a film about a grown son’s homecoming, is also a literal home movie, starring his own parents and shot in the loft where he grew up.

An Angsty Leading Man Who Caught the Spirit of His Times

Posted: August 1st, 2008, 12:07pm EDT by By DENNIS LIM

Elliott Gould is being honored in his native borough, Brooklyn, with a series at BAMcinématek called “Elliott Gould: Star for an Uptight Age.”

An Examined Life of Wicked Pleasure

Posted: July 11th, 2008, 5:15pm EDT by By DENNIS LIM

“Before I Forget” trains an unflinching spotlight on a species that, to judge from the movies, might as well be extinct: the aging homosexual.

Displaced and Adrift in Los Angeles

Posted: July 3rd, 2008, 9:19pm EDT by By DENNIS LIM

“The Exiles,” a film about American Indians living on the edge of downtown Los Angeles in the 1950s, is both a chronicle and a casualty of neglect.

Film: Soft-Core Auteur Turns Attention to Radicals

Posted: June 20th, 2008, 4:02pm EDT by By DENNIS LIM

At 72, Koji Wakamatsu has made his most ambitious work, “United Red Army,” a look at the collapse of the Japanese militant student groups of the 1960s and ’70s.

Gay, Punk and Ever the Provocateur

Posted: May 23rd, 2008, 2:26pm EDT by By DENNIS LIM

Derek Jarman, indie pioneer, iconoclast and the subject of a new documentary and DVD set, is ripe for reappraisal, years after his death.

Cinematic Life in Oslo (Where Else?)

Posted: May 15th, 2008, 10:17pm EDT by By DENNIS LIM

“Reprise” shows some parallels between its characters and the two men behind the movie.

The Return (and Reform?) of Harmony Korine

Posted: April 24th, 2008, 3:53pm EDT by By DENNIS LIM

After largely receding from public view, Harmony Korine has finally made another film, “Mr. Lonely.”

Film: Mining Post-9/11 America for Laughs

Posted: April 21st, 2008, 12:20pm EDT by By DENNIS LIM

The stoner-film “Harold and Kumar” franchise tries to dispel stereotypes at a time when race is linked to terrorism.