Since the weather is going to be mediocre this weekend, and you are probably still recovering from the three days of partying last week in honor of the Flag Day-Father’s Day-Bloomsday holiday trifecta, Bwog enlisted newbie critic Brandon Hammer to brainstorm some classic and not-so-classic films that would fall into the general category of appropriate […]

In which BW culture editor Paul Barndt indulges a taste for blood and gore. You may have caught Pan’s Labyrinth, a violent fairy tale set in fascist Spain written and directed by Guillermo del Toro. It has a good shot at the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar this year, and I, for one, am a […]

In which BW culture editor Paul Barndt presents a swashbuckling throwback. Now that you’ve had a chance to see Justin Timberlake in Alpha Dog three or four times, rent Edison Force, his feature film debut, a cop thriller also featuring Oscar winners Kevin Spacey and Morgan Freeman, as well as LL Cool J, Dylan McDermott, […]

In which film savant Iggy Cortez recommends a melodrama with honesty. Like many Iranian movies, Bahman Ghobadi’s beautiful and passionate A Time for Drunken Horses focuses its poignant narrative on children, a device some critics consider excessively manipulative, but which Ghobadi handles with honesty and an admirable restraint. The film follows a family of orphaned Kurdish […]

In which film savant Iggy Cortez tells us how to live forever, and live right. Sally Potter’s film version of Virginia Woolf’s irreverent biography remains one of the strongest examples of adaptation in recent years, maintaining the spirit of its novelistic predecessor while enriching it with distinctly cinematic qualities. This is a particularly impressive achievement […]

In which film savant Iggy Cortez shows us the Way. Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai is a bizarre but very watchable melting pot of ancient spiritualism, gangster references, urban decay and RZA’s  predictably infectious soundtrack. Forest Whitaker stars as yet another off-beat and enigmatic character, a bird-loving hit man named Ghost […]

In which film savant Iggy Cortez indulges a distaste for linear narrative. Chinese director Jia Zhangke’s fourth film The World is set almost entirely in the Beijing World Park, an Epcot-like expanse filled with unconvincing counterfeits of famous landmarks. The irony is almost unbearably biting for the park’s many workers – they can stroll from […]

In which film savant Iggy Cortez recommends we find our inner music-lover. Micheal Haneke’s Caché was probably last year’s best film, an engaging anti-thriller about repressed personal and national guilt. However, it was not the first time Haneke had confronted his audience with universal ethical dilemmas. In movies such as Funny Games and Code Inconnu, […]

In which film savant Iggy Cortez recommends a película and gives justification for enjoying Almodóvar. It’s always good to start the year with a film both iconic and obvious, and Almodovar’s 1998 All About My Mother is both a classic of the college-dorm-poster variety and obligatory watching for anyone remotely interested in European cinema of […]

In which Blue and White film savant Iggy Cortez gives you another reason to love the French. This week’s selection is Read My Lips. If you, like many Columbia students, are waiting until the very last moment to fill out your tax returns, Jacques Audiard’s smart yet entertaining thriller-cum-noir, Read My Lips should provide both […]

In which Blue and White house cineaste Iggy Cortez advises you on how to impress the discerning Kim’s clerks. Also look for Iggy’s thoughts on a newly updated biography of Italian great Federico Fellini in the Spring Books issue of The Blue and White, forthcoming imminently. This week’s selection is Red. Walter Reade Theater is […]

In which film savant Iggy Cortez gives you something to watch this weekend when you ask the cute girl from CC to your room to “watch a movie.” What Time is it There? is Tsai-Ming Liang’s powerful exploration of loneliness and loss, themes he has explored previously in such modern classics as the bleak The […]

In which film savant Iggy Cortez gives you something to watch if even a trip on the 1, 2, or 3 seems too much. A friend of mine recently said he couldn’t think of any great contemporary directors, and to contemporary cinema’s defense the first (out of many) names that came to mind was that […]

In which film savant Iggy Cortez tells you what to watch on Oscar’s eve. Joining the ranks of Fellini and Kurosawa, Robert Altman will receive a life-time achievement award during this year’s Academy Awards. Although the Oscar’s prestige has considerably diminished in the past few years, Altman’s recognition should be universally lauded, as he is […]

In which film savant Iggy Cortez tells you how to spend your weekend. Find previous installments here and here. Columbia students may have forgotten the glory of Fridays with their Thursday night weekends, but universally Friday night is the space for unwinding, allowing a certain exuberance away from weekly monotony. Claire Denis runs away with […]