Looking for film reviews/discussion with fairly long and intelligent commentary on plot/cinematography/history of the films.

June 21, 2007 10:04 AM

I am looking for a good source of both modern and classic film reviews/discussion with fairly long and intelligent commentary on plot/cinematography/history of the films.

My friends are starting a film series and I have been asked to contribute some choice movies to the lot to be shown. This being said I feel like I have fallen a little behind in the past couple of years and would like to jump back into hunting down interesting films. I used to be fairly good at finding my own material, but I feel a little out of touch now. I would like to find some sort of website or forum where people discuss old or obscure films in detail. I know I could just show some of my favorite films, but the people I am dealing with are primarily film majors and I would like to show them something somewhat exciting.

posted by Bengston to media & arts (8 comments total)

Roger Ebert's Great Movies series is, well, great. Thank goodness he's bouncing back from last year's illness.
posted by asuprenant at 10:07 AM on June 21, 2007

Oh, and this blog reviewing all of the Criterion Collection movies has come up on MetaFilter before and seems solid, though the reviews are more blow-by-blow and might be best referenced after you've watched the movie.
posted by asuprenant at 10:10 AM on June 21, 2007

Never underestimate the Film Society of Lincoln Center's online archives, which, of course, are printed as Film Comment magazine.
posted by NationalKato at 10:50 AM on June 21, 2007

My ex-stepbrother has a film blog called "Sounds, Images". He's very smart, and his commentary is very in-depth and insightful.
posted by nasreddin at 10:52 AM on June 21, 2007

The Criterion collection forum has been recommended here before, more on the discussion end. I don't read it regularly, but its membership seems pretty active and knowledgeable.
posted by SoftRain at 11:35 AM on June 21, 2007

I'm fond of The House Next Door, Matt Zoller Seitz's group blog devoted to film and TV. He does occasional brief film reviews for the NYTimes was with the Newark Star-Ledger for a while, and is a sharp writer, if prone to hit the Usual Film Review Clichés on occasion; his stable of other writers is up and down, but there's a handful of keepers in the group, no question. The commenter community is contentious and friendly and overall enjoyable. The sidebar lists film reviews at the site, to give you a sense of the style.
posted by waxbanks at 1:05 PM on June 21, 2007

Mobius Home Video Forum is, in my opinion, the best board on the net devoted to cinema.

Participation at the site has fallen since November of 2004, when the servers were hacked and all of the archives (five years worth of posts and reviews) were lost. You can still find some of the old reviews and posts at the Wayback Machine.

As for blogs:

Greencine Daily
Dave Kehr
posted by cinemafiend at 3:25 PM on June 21, 2007

Your Humble Viewer is a wide-ranging blog of a film teacher that fits your description and is generally excellent. Dive into the archive anywhere; there's lots of smart, thoughtful analysis.
posted by mediareport at 11:22 PM on June 21, 2007