Poor Seen. I have been away from you for so long; been spending most of my time over at your sister's joint, Scarlett Cinema, but I promise to share some time with you too, old chum!
As you might imagine, there are a-many movies to be updated in this humble diary. Where to begin? At the beginning!
Monday, March 24th movie was where we left off (in case you forgot, that's four days after the flick before it, This Is England, see below), and on that fateful Monday I met my favorite film so far this year, Chop Shop. I was lucky enough to interview the film's director Ramin Bahrani a few weeks ago for a piece on New York City geography in cinema, which will be out in the coming days through the New York Asian-American Film Festival (links to come!). In the meantime, if you missed the movie in theaters, it is now available on DVD. Lucky you.
In light of the subject of my essay with the AAFF, my favorite element of Bahrani's film is its setting. There is a close, intimate feel with the space--a dilapidated area called the Iron Triangle in Queens, New York just beyond the perimeter of Shea Stadium. Breathtaking shots of the stadium lit at twilight loom behind the characters kicking across the dirt roads in the extreme foreground. The roar of the crowd mixes with the characters' spoken dialogue in real time, and the film becomes as much a historical document as it is entertainment. This is true New York cinema.
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