<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>washingtonpost.com - Film Notes</title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/style/columns/filmnotes?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</link><description>Film Notes</description><language>en-us</language><ttl>15</ttl><image><title>washingtonpost.com</title><width>140</width><height>20</height><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com</link><url>http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/hp/image/wp_web.gif</url></image><item><title><![CDATA[Film Craziness Comes From Calm Chow]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6967-2005Apr21.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6967-2005Apr21.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</guid><pubDate>Fri, 22 Apr 2005 7:30:51 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  YOU WATCH the films of Stephen Chow, with all their kung fu stunts and hilarious sight gags, and you imagine someone wild-eyed, animated and bouncing off the walls. Intense, maybe. Manic even.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[AFI Series Celebrates Tarkovsky]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53138-2005Apr14.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53138-2005Apr14.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</guid><pubDate>Fri, 22 Apr 2005 7:30:51 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  ANDREI TARKOVSKY, who died of cancer in his mid-fifties, may not have lived long, but he captured and poeticized time and space so powerfully, it's as though he created his own immortality. To watch a Tarkovsky film is to become profoundly lost inside a vortex of surreal observation. There is also a deep spirituality in all his works (which often deal with religious themes), not only for the subject on the screen but the audience having the experience of watching it. His films frequently consist of extremely long takes that not only take you through a journey of surprise; you also find yourself looking deeper into yourself.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[At Festival, an Inside Look at 'Insider']]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34127-2005Apr7.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34127-2005Apr7.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</guid><pubDate>Fri, 22 Apr 2005 7:30:51 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   JEFFREY WIGAND, the inspiration for the superb 1999 thriller "The Insider," will make an appearance Friday at a 7 p.m. screening of the Michael Mann film. It's part of American University's Reel Journalism Film Festival, a weekend-long event at the Greenberg Theatre at Wisconsin Avenue and Van Ness Street NW, and on the university campus (Massachusetts and Nebraska avenues NW) at the Wechsler Theatre in the Mary Graydon Center.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Tavernier's Variety Show]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15802-2005Mar31.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15802-2005Mar31.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</guid><pubDate>Fri, 22 Apr 2005 7:30:51 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[ BERTRAND TAVERNIER is almost 4,000 miles away, speaking on the phone from his Paris home. But it's easy enough to conjure up his face, as seen in numerous photographs and the 1996 TV documentary "A Film About Bertrand Tavernier" (made by Nils, his actor son). He's an avuncular man, soft-voiced, white-haired and bespectacled  --  a sort of Gallic combination of Peter Ustinov and Barry Levinson. And he sounds like he's in a good, receptive mood as he discusses his work, much of which can be seen in a Tavernier retrospective at the American Film Institute's Silver Theatre (8633 Colesville Rd., Silver Spring).]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Eternally 'Masculine, Feminine']]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62995-2005Mar24.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62995-2005Mar24.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</guid><pubDate>Fri, 22 Apr 2005 7:30:51 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  WATCHING Jean-Luc Godard's "Masculine, Feminine"  --  its full title: "Masculine, Feminine (in 15 Acts)"  --  is to appreciate a sort of hip antiquity. The movie is set during Paris in  the 1960s, when communism still seems (to many people) a viable alternative to capitalism. (In fact, within the movie, Godard famously suggests an alternative title: "The Children of Marx and Coca-Cola.") And people are still playing pinball. And smoking. And the women are wearing those funny white boots.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Judy Irving, Bird Watcher]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23705-2005Mar10.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23705-2005Mar10.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</guid><pubDate>Fri, 22 Apr 2005 7:30:51 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   IT WAS an article about parrots that drew filmmaker Judy Irving to San Francisco, where the author, Mark Bittner, resided.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Fine-Tuning 'Schultze Gets the Blues']]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4089-2005Mar3.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4089-2005Mar3.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</guid><pubDate>Fri, 22 Apr 2005 7:30:51 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[ MICHAEL SCHORR, the German writer and director of "Schultze Gets the Blues" (see  review on Page 41), says the idea for the film came to him on a bus tour through the southern states "10 to 12 years ago."]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Scorsese 'All the Rage' at AFI]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50178-2005Feb24.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50178-2005Feb24.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</guid><pubDate>Fri, 22 Apr 2005 7:30:51 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  WELL, IF it isn't his night at the Oscars, "Aviator" director Martin Scorsese (also  an AFI Lifetime Achievement Award winner) is still being celebrated at the American Film Institute's Silver Theatre (8633 Colesville Rd., Silver Spring) with a retrospective Friday through March 22.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Series Honors New Wave's Agnes Varda]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32495-2005Feb17.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32495-2005Feb17.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</guid><pubDate>Fri, 22 Apr 2005 7:30:51 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  AGNES VARDA, a filmmaker who predated and was a part of the celebrated French New Wave of the late 1950s and 1960s, is making a rare appearance in Washington. She'll introduce and discuss her film "Jacquot de Nantes" Friday at 7 at the National Museum of Women in the Arts (1250 New York Ave. NW). The film is part of an ongoing retrospective presented by the museum, the National Gallery of Art, the Embassy of France and La Maison Francaise.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Fight Night With Tony Jaa]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14111-2005Feb10.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14111-2005Feb10.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</guid><pubDate>Fri, 22 Apr 2005 7:30:51 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  THE END CREDITS were coming up, and, mercifully, "Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior" had come to a close. (See capsule review on Page 46.) Suddenly, public relations man Dan Maloney stood imposingly in front of the audience and begged everyone to stay put. Tony Jaa was in the house!]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA['Assisted Living,' Take Two]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60485-2005Feb3.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60485-2005Feb3.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</guid><pubDate>Fri, 22 Apr 2005 7:30:51 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   THEY ARE quite the pair: Elliot Greenebaum, a 27-year-old philosophy-student-turned-filmmaker, and Maggie Riley, an octogenarian actress and former circus performer who once rode elephants to the music of Rimsky-Korsakov.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA['Chorus' Strikes  A Personal Chord]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41543-2005Jan27.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41543-2005Jan27.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</guid><pubDate>Fri, 22 Apr 2005 7:30:51 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   WHEN Christophe Barratier made a low-budget movie about a choir teacher who turns a school of 1940s miscreants into an angelic choir, he figured it would have some critical success. He didn't think "Les Choristes" (aka "The Chorus") would make more than $60 million (or more than 9 million admissions, as the French like to measure it), an astronomical figure for a small French film. And it hasn't even opened in the United States yet. (It opens Friday; see review on Page 36.) Miramax is hoping that this crowd-pleaser will become a dark-horse hit. It has just been nominated as France's entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the  Academy Awards, and its word of mouth is consistently strong.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Chronicling the  'Blues Divas']]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23764-2005Jan20.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23764-2005Jan20.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</guid><pubDate>Fri, 22 Apr 2005 7:30:51 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   ROBERT MUGGE is a cultural preservationist, a Silver Spring-born filmmaker whose documentaries about blues and other musical traditions have celebrated the indigenous work of the United States for decades.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[New German-Language Cinema]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6528-2005Jan13.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6528-2005Jan13.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</guid><pubDate>Fri, 22 Apr 2005 7:30:51 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   JANUARY BRINGS us the annual New Films From Germany, Austria and Switzerland,  a series that features 10 contemporary German-language features from those countries.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Almodovar Retrospective at AFI]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36287-2004Dec30.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36287-2004Dec30.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</guid><pubDate>Fri, 22 Apr 2005 7:30:51 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[ THINK Pedro Almodovar to start the year.  <br> Not only does the Spanish director's remarkable "Bad Education" (see my top-10 list for 2004 on Page 36) open Jan. 14, his most recent films (through the 1990s) will be shown in a mini retrospective at the American Film Institute's Silver Theatre...]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA['Phantom,' From Stage to Screen]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22185-2004Dec23.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22185-2004Dec23.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</guid><pubDate>Fri, 22 Apr 2005 7:30:51 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   JOEL SCHUMACHER, a rascally and vigorous 65, enjoys talking about life, the news, everything. And even about his latest movie, "Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera" (see review on Page 34), which stars Gerard Butler, Emmy Rossum and Patrick Wilson.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[An 'Engagement' With Jeunet]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4667-2004Dec16.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4667-2004Dec16.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</guid><pubDate>Fri, 22 Apr 2005 7:30:51 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  JEAN-PIERRE Jeunet, the French director who made "The  City of Lost Children" and  "Amelie," says that his latest, "A Very Long Engagement" (see review on Page 41) comes from the only book he ever wanted to adapt, "Un Long Dimanche de Fiangailles," (the same title) by Sebastien Japrisot.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA['Fighter Pilot' Takes Off At Udvar-Hazy Imax]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51676-2004Dec9.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51676-2004Dec9.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</guid><pubDate>Fri, 22 Apr 2005 7:30:51 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[FILMED WITH the cooperation of the Air Force and funded by Boeing (the world's largest aerospace company and a major producer of military planes), there's little doubt about the muscular agenda behind "Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag," which opens at the (deep breath) Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center Imax Theater. But this promotional package also offers authenticity and exhilaration.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Jewish Film Festival at Theaters Near You]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28342-2004Dec2.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28342-2004Dec2.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</guid><pubDate>Fri, 22 Apr 2005 7:30:51 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   THE WASHINGTON JEWISH Film Festival, in its 15th year, is in full swing this weekend. The fest, which is showing 36 feature films, documentaries and shorts representing 14 countries, runs through Dec. 12. And many of the filmmakers, as well as other panelists and experts, will present these screenings and field questions.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Returning to 'Heaven's Gate']]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13507-2004Nov25.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13507-2004Nov25.html?nav=rss_style/columns/filmnotes</guid><pubDate>Fri, 22 Apr 2005 7:30:51 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[    DIRECTOR Michael Cimino, hot after 1978's successful "The Deer Hunter," thought he had the deal of a lifetime with his next project, a western epic called "Heaven's Gate." He had final cut. But, oh no, he didn't. United Artists had final word. The movie, which went 400 percent overbudget, to a then-unprecedented $44 million, broke the back of United Artists. It died at the box office. The panicked studio recut it and released it again. No luck.]]></description><author></author></item></channel></rss>