Jurgen & Marcy's Independent Film Blog May 2004 Archive

Long before "Troy" and "In the Line of Fire," Wolfgang Petersen made the greatest submarine movie of all time. There have been several DVD releases of his seminal WWII film, ... Read More

A story in Forbes magazine reports that MTV is refusing to show ads for "Super Size Me" because "the ads are 'disparaging to fast food restaurants.'" There's no ... Read More

Two Danish directors challenge each other to a cinematic mind game: veteran filmmaker Jorgen Leth will remake one of his own films, with rules given to him by Lars von ... Read More

This week's best new DVD releases include the revelatory documentary "The Weather Underground," the prize-winning French film "The Son," two new Criterion classics, Akira Kurosawa's "Straw Dog" and Ingmar Bergman's ... Read More

Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" won the Palme d'Or at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. The film, which takes a critical look at the Bush administration following the Sept 11 attacks ... Read More

Jehane Noujaim's eye-opening documentary "Control Room" peeks behind the curtain at the Arab news network Al Jazeera. At once a document of the Iraq War, an inquiry into the way ... Read More

Last year at Cannes, Vincent Gallo's "Brown Bunny" played to loud jeers and heckles. Roger Ebert, the film's fiercest critic, said: "I had a colonoscopy once, and they let ... Read More

Rithy Panh's devastating documentary about the Cambodian genocide under Pol Pot opened yesterday at Film Forum in New York. Uniquely powerful among human-rights documentaries, "S21" brings victims and perpetrators face-to-face. ... Read More

Toni Kalem's directorial debut, based on the novel by Anne Tyler, is a slow, easy-going, likeable film, starring two appealing actors, Guy Pearce and the always interesting Lili Taylor. Read ... Read More

Enter Jim Jarmusch's black and white universe, where thick black coffee sloshes onto dirty saucers and cigarette butts overflow from ashtrays. The super cool cast includes Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray, ... Read More

Emmanuelle Béart plays a beautiful widow who hides her children from the advancing German army in André Téchiné's carefully observed wartime drama. With Gaspard Ulliel as mysterious drifter. Read Jurgen's ... Read More

Pedro Almodóvar's "La Mala Education" kicked off the 57th annual Cannes Film Festival with a gala premiere on Thursday night. The exuberant Spanish filmmaker expressed "enormous joy" at opening the ... Read More

A month of Happy Meals: filmmaker Morgan Spurlock ate nothing but McDonald's for thirty days, under close supervision by a team of doctors. The results of his fast food binge ... Read More

How timely: while America is discussing whether Donald Rumsfeld is doing a "superb job," Errol Morris' Oscar-winning documentary about a Secretary of Defense who stepped down hits the DVD shelves. ... Read More

Liu Fen Dou of China was named best new narrative filmmaker at the Tribeca Film Festival for his film "The Green Hat."

Guy Maddin's unusual tale of a legless heiress (Isabella Rosellini) who sponsors a competition to find the saddest piece of music in the world in order to boost beer consumption. ... Read More

On orders from parent company Disney, Miramax won't release Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 911." This news comes after Miramax head Harvey Weinstein invested $6 million into the controversial documentary. The ... Read More

Middle-aged women bare their breasts, squat French mothers and overweight dogs travel across the Ocean is search of kidnapped bicylists, teenage girls kiss, Scarlett Johansson seduces, and Sam Shepard acts ... Read More

For the third time, the annual Tribeca Film Festival takes over Lower Manhattan this week. In sharp contrast to Lincoln Center's select New York Film Festival, Robert DeNiro's sprawling TFF ... Read More

Julie Bertuccelli's "Since Otar Left" is a small, wonderful drama about three women living through hard times in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, pinning all their hopes on the ... Read More