Ray Pride

Canadian artists descend upon the fallen world: "Manufactured Landscapes," Deborah Baichwal’s memorable, stately, often-stunning documentary, follows Canadian fine arts landscape photographer Edward Burtynsky to China, where he captures beautiful, large-scale images in large format of the epic damage man wreaks on nature. (A couple of transparent parallels: there’s affinity in Burtynsky’s work to the scale of Andreas Gursky’s recent work, as well as to the typologies of Bernd and Hilla Becher.) The clean geometry of the film’s images come from cinematographer Peter Mettler, also Canadian, and also a filmmaker in his own right, with an eclectic oeuvre including the epic look at altered consciousness, "Gods, Gambling & LSD." Like Montreal-born Baichwal’s earlier doc, "The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams’ Appalachia," "Manufactured Landscapes" takes that necessary one step back to capture the art and the artist. 90m.

"Manufactured Landscapes" opens Friday. (2007-07-24)

Also by Ray Pride

Space Odyssey
Scots-born director Danny Boyle’s protean imagination tends to the tactile, the immediate, the blood-rushing, the trippy: think "Trainspotting," "Miracles," "28 Days Later" and its sequel, "28 Weeks Later," which he supervised. His latest, "Sunshine," is no different, tending more toward the mind-expanding drift of "2001: A Space Odyssey" or the "Solaris" of Tarkovsky and of Soderbergh or the claustrophobia of "Das Boot" or "Wages of Fear" than to the pop-pow of "Armageddon."
(2007-07-17)

Tip of the Week
"Lights in the Dusk," the closing film of Aki Kaurismaki’s drolly dubbed "loser trilogy," follows Koistinen, a loner who’s been a night watchman for three years. He could go on this way forever, estranged from his equally glum co-workers. Janne Hyytiainen is dog perfect as the chain-smoking Koistinen, willing to drink alone. He's courtly but his cool knows its limits, as an ending as bracing as that of Kaurismaki’s brilliant "Match Factory Girl" rushes toward us
(2007-07-17)

Bombs Away
"Nice Bombs" is Chicago filmmaker Usama Alshaibi’s forceful diary-style documentary about the first visit he and his father and his American wife made a journey back to their native Iraq after the American occupation had begun
(2007-07-13)

iPhone Has a Home
Walking down Michigan Avenue, the crowd at Huron is motley, but up close to the Apple store, lines are roped off to east and south, security guards are parsing ten customers at a time: who gets to drop five, six hundred dollars in the pursuit of gadget-lust in the half hour to come?
(2007-07-10)

Tip of the Week
(2007-07-10)

Well Enough in the Margins
(2007-07-10)

Bay Watching
(2007-07-02)

Tip of the Week
(2007-07-02)

More Moore
(2007-06-26)

Tip of the Week
(2007-06-26)

The Show Must Go On
(2007-06-26)

Limpid Pools
(2007-06-26)

about Newcitychicago | about Newcity magazine | advertising | privacy policy | FAQ | employment