Email Author Ed Halter

2004 Stories by Ed Halter

• Take Five

  published December 14, 2004

  Jessica Yu reconstructs artist Henry Darger's notoriously private life in her documentary In the Realms of the... More >>

• In the Realm of the Senses: Sampling Japan's Avant-Garde

  published November 30, 2004

  Despite a substantial history stretching back to the silent era, Japanese experimental cinema screens only sporadically in North America, which... More >>

• Doc Looks at Individual Prayer; Melodrama Preaches to Choir

  published November 23, 2004

  Cinema has long maintained a contentious relationship with the Catholic Church. In recent decades, Rome-friendly pictures like The Song of... More >>

• That '70s Now

  published November 23, 2004

  Russ Little spares no emotion when denouncing the state of American government and its divisive commander in chief: "The country is totally out of... More >>

• Midtown Rushes

  published November 9, 2004

  Programmed to celebrate the museum's midtown rebirth, MOMA's two-month-long Premieres series feels like a supersized international film festival... More >>

• Film

  published November 9, 2004

  A kiddie biopic of Islam's founder retold through Hollywood-style animation, Muhammad: The Last Prophet opts for wholesome credos rather... More >>

• Film

  published October 12, 2004

  Packaged for a double-bill run with legendarily ultraviolent serial-killer flick The Toolbox Murders, this gory exploitation costumer... More >>

• Kitschy Kuchar Coup: Uptown Cheers for Bronx-Born Underground Legends

  published October 5, 2004

  "What do you want from me, you hideous cetacean?" So spews a grubby philanderer to his portly, blubbering frau—she done up in housedress and... More >>

• Long-Distanced Operators: Brecht's in Effect for Minimalist Filmmaking Couple

  published October 5, 2004

  Typically based on theatrical or literary works, prone to long takes, minimal camera movements, stark settings, and mechanistic acting, the films... More >>

• Family Viewing: Recycling Home Movies Into Wrenching Autobiography

  published September 28, 2004

  Audiences sampling the emotion-drenched autobiography Tarnation will spend an hour and a half with one tragic family's tale of mental... More >>

• Film

  published September 21, 2004

  Largely composed of personal visits with Louise Bourgeois at her home in France, Brigitte Cornand's documentary is a video-verité portrait... More >>

• Globalize Me: Doc Makers Cry for Argentina, Punk the WTO

  published September 14, 2004

  Fahrenheit 9/11 and the contemporary onslaught of political documentaries have demonstrated that it's invitingly easy to demonize Bush... More >>

• Film

  published September 14, 2004

  A lovingly overblown piece of terrorist-chic trashfilm, Bruce La Bruce's Raspberry Reich peoples a Berlin underworld with Baader-Meinhof... More >>

• Señor Drug Plan: Doc Sheds Light on Dealer's Robin Hood Persona

  published August 31, 2004

  Marrying the melodrama of Behind the Music to the down-and-dirty reportage of Frontline, Colombian documentarian Marc de Beaufort's... More >>

• Ruff Times

  published August 31, 2004

  A corny hodgepodge of gooey sentiment mixed with half-baked mush and strained pieties, fashion photographer Bruce Weber's free-form canine... More >>

• Altered State

  published August 17, 2004

  "The U.S. position," Edward W. Said writes in From Oslo to Iraq and the Road Map, "has been escalating toward a more and more metaphysical... More >>

• Books

  published August 17, 2004

  A Marxist history of world capitalism told in comic-book form, Mexican political cartoonist El Fisgón's How to Succeed at Globalization:... More >>

• Slime Pickings

  published August 10, 2004

  In the lowfalutin spirit of Dracula vs. Frankenstein, King Kong vs. Godzilla, and Freddy vs. Jason (not to mention next... More >>

• Political Urgency at Arts Fest May Cause Vietnam Flashbacks

  published August 10, 2004

  An armed American soldier, cigarette dangling from his smiling mouth, strikes a playful, victorious pose next to a battered enemy's body while a... More >>

• Media Cool

  published August 10, 2004

  The thousands of delegates, journalists, and protesters descending upon midtown for the Republican National Convention the week of August 30... More >>

• Film

  published August 10, 2004

  This unwarranted iteration of the '70s shaggy-dog tale pales in entertainment value compared to its website, which features a rant from the... More >>

• Marital Mythmaking: Brakhage's Seaside Poems to His Wife

  published August 3, 2004

  The foundational figure of a certain Romantic tradition within experimental cinema, in which the lone artist's camerawork (or hand-manipulation of... More >>

• Hardcore Curriculum

  published July 27, 2004

  Within the discipline of film studies, canonical figures like Orson Welles, Christian Metz, and John Ford have long since made room for the ruder... More >>

• They Distort, You Decide: Doc Explores Fox News's Right-Wing Bias

  published July 27, 2004

  After seeing Fahrenheit 9/11, a friend said that Moore's film had a strong impact on her because it made her watch George Bush speak:... More >>

• Film

  published July 13, 2004

  The level of subtlety expressed in the title of this video broadside about media consolidation continues into the rhetoric deployed by its talking... More >>