THE ACADEMIC HACK.
Writings by Michael Sicinski
I. The Common Moviegoer
New Releases Seen 2009 (organized by rating)
Reviews of New Releases 2009 (by title)
-------Jan / Feb / Mar / Apr / May / JunNYC Releases Seen 2009 (this week: Lion's Den; Tony Manero)
Reviews of New Releases 2008 (by title)
Jan / Feb / Mar / Apr / May / Jun / Jul / Aug / Sep / Oct / Nov / Dec2008 Toronto International Film Festival
Selections from 2008 NYFF Views from the Avant-Garde
Reviews of New Releases 2007 (by title)
Jan / Feb / Mar / Apr / May / Jun / Jul / Aug / Sep / Oct / Nov / Dec
2007 Toronto International Film Festival Semi-Actual Retroactively Constructed Pseudo-Coverage
2007 New York Film Festival "Views from the Avant-Garde"
2007 Syracuse International Film and Video Festival
Reviews of New Releases 2006 (by title)
Jan / Feb / Mar / Apr / May / Jun / Jul / Aug / Sep / Oct / Nov / Dec
2006 Toronto International Film Festival
2006 New York Film Festival "Views from the Avant-Garde"
2005/ 2004 / 2003 / 2002 / 2001 material
Nothing but Top Ten Lists (in progress - 1963-72; 1974-2006)
II. Lines of
Light (a-g film)
-a few chunks of a ponderous wall of text attempting
to grapple with Ken Jacobs's Bitemporal Vision:
The Sea
-excerpts from a discussion about Scott Stark's NOEMA (published in the anthology Porn Studies)
-an open letter of apology to Caveh Zahedi for a bad decision while serving on the SFIFF jury
-an unpublished (and unpublishable) review of
Catherine Russell's book Experimental
Ethnography
-the latest revision of my paper on Snow's Wavelength, Heidegger and Lefebvre (published in Qui Parle)
-an apologetic email
sent to my students, summarizing a lecture on Baldwin's Tribulation 99 and Kubelka's
- "The Fixed
Frame" (latest revision and expansion -- warning, deadly dull)
III. The Funky Diegesis (narrative film)
-It's a doggone shame Wendy and Lucy isn't a bit more careful with its class politics (for Cineaste)
-A discussion of the pros and cons of Van Sant's Milk relative to the Obama transitional moment (for Cargo)
-Who here loves TIFF coverage? Yeah, me too! So here's some for ya! One, two, three! (for GreenCine Daily)
-Shin Sang-ok's A Flower in Hell is crazy enough to spirit you away to the other side (for Moving Image Source)
-Alexandra . . . Why? Sokurov tries to puzzle out the Chechen War, with mixed results (for Cinema Scope)
-a rather convoluted attempt at an introduction to the films of Abderrahmane Sissako (for Cinema Scope)
-I talk some about Ousmane Sembčne (for The Nashville Scene)
-Spike Lee knows what it means to miss New Orleans (for Cineaste)
-I was hating Crash when hating Crash wasn't cool (for Cineaste)
-a review of the mock-doc book F is for Phony (for Cineaste)
-Hong Sang-soo's postmodern gamesmanship hits new levels of existential horror in Tale of Cinema (for Cinema Scope)
-sinking my teeth into Land of the Dead (for Cinema Scope)
-wildly enthusing over Kung Fu Hustle with some cross-referencing jujitsu (for The Nashville Scene)
-TIFF wrap-up 2006!!! (for GreenCine Daily)
-"How Alain Resnais Beat the Numbers Game" (tedious excursus on the hazards of the 1-10 scale and Not on the Lips)
-a Deleuzian reading of Bruno Dumont's L'humanité with some odd digressions
-a sample from a long-ass discussion of temporal frameworks in The Shining
IV. A Hundred Flowers in Bloom (web links)
V. Viewer Mail (contact me here)
VI. Talk Was Never Cheaper (my Twitter feed)
NOTE: I am the sole copyright holder of all written
materials published on this site.
Materials previously published elsewhere which are reprinted, partially
or in full, on this site are under copyright through agreement between myself
and the original publishers. In
other words, don't plagiarize me.
I am not a big proponent of "intellectual property" and I am actually
in favor of a certain amount of theft.
But if you are going to steal: (a) steal from better than me; and (b)
steal creatively. Also, despite my
institutional affiliations, I am the sole party responsible for material posted
on this website. Also, note to family members -- sorry about
all the swearing.