Paranoid Park (2008)

Directed by Gus Van Sant

Gus Van Sant’s Paranoid Park (a Blake Nelson novel) is like watching a master paint--sketching out the story and adding more layers/details.  It is told through the perspective of a young skateboarder, who writes an account of the events that surround a death near a stretch of train tracks.

Happy birthday to Gus Van Sant, he turns 59 today. Restless is his new film (looks a bit glossy to me).

Here’s a more articulate Roger Ebert review and a A.V. Club's Book vs. Film comparison. 

For more excellent Christopher Doyle cinematography see Ondine.

Limited US theatrical release March of 2008 (IMDB). Film reviews in fifty words (2011).

2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967)

Directed by Jean-Luc Godard

 














One: Godard. Two: The changing landscape of the modern city with women as metaphor. Three: What cinema can be—intellectual and entertaining. Godard’s mature Film/Art synthesizes (his early films) the spirit of Breathless and A Woman Is A Woman with the essay-structures of My Life to Live and Feminin Masculin.

A great film deserves a link to a great blog (with a name after my own heart): Like Anna Karina's Sweater.
50-word film reviews from 2006.