The Edge Of Heaven Archives - The Playlist

Best Of The Decade: The Playlist’s Best Films Of 2008

Rodrigo Perez — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:10:00 +0000

Here are our 2000, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06 and 07 picks.

As the decade came to a close, we have little to complain about. The second-half of the aughts were fantastic and gave us many of our best overall films.

At the box-office, it was nice to see something that wasn’t part 4 of a McFranchise. Instead, a piece of smart, thrilling entertainment, Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” took the #1 spot worldwide grossing over more than $1 billion dollars.

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TIFF ’09 Review: ‘Soul Kitchen’s’ Feel-Goodery Doesn’t Quite Cook

Rodrigo Perez — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:06:00 +0000

“Soul Kitchen”? Who, what, where, when, why? Because Turkish/German filmmaker Fatih Akin is quickly becoming one of the fastest rising international auteurs out there and at the age of 36, is already amassing an excellent body of work.

His nihilistic love story “Head On” was wonderfully electrically-charged and last year’s penetrating and powerful Kieslowski-esque chance and fate drama, “The Edge of Heaven,” was one of the year’s best.

Akin’s been around for years and made his first feature in 1998, but has only slowly been gaining worldwide recognition.

Continue reading TIFF ’09 Review: ‘Soul Kitchen’s’ Feel-Goodery Doesn’t Quite Cook at The Playlist.

‘Gomorrah’ Foreign Oscar Snub Outrage Continues

Rodrigo Perez — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 15:04:00 +0000

We weren’t gigantic fans of Matteo Garrone’s hyperlinked Italian crime drama “Gomorrah” (though we did like it), but with all the accolades and praise it earned this year (the Grand Prix award at Cannes and an very enthusiastic endorsement from Marty Scorsese), its shortlist snub yesterday from the Oscar Foreign Picture committee cannot be viewed as anything but a major fuck up and oversight on their part.

As we noted yesterday, this is nothing new.

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The Playlist’s Top 20 Films Of 2008

Rodrigo Perez — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:14:00 +0000

It’s that time of year again. Remember the tried and true formula: experience + resonance= fantastic film. As we all know art is not made within the confines of a calendar year and release dates are arbitrary, or at least monetarily driven, but that said, here’s what we have for the last 12 months of the year that was 2008.

A terrible year for movies? For American mainstream films, mostly, it was sub par overall.

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The Playlist’s Best Films Of The Year… So Far

Rodrigo Perez — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:23:00 +0000

We kind of hate lists. We really do. They perturb us. As Glen Kenny just wrote in his evaluation of the recent “New Classics” list by Entertainment Weekly, “Lists are bullshit. Lists are such blatant bullshit that any magazine person will admit to you that they’re bullshit. Why do magazines and websites do them almost all the frickin’ time? Because lists are putatively “fun.” People notice them, argue about them. They take them fairly seriously, pretty much regardless of what their sources are…oddly enough.

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‘The Edge Of Heaven’ Reveals The Razor Thin Line Between Chance & Fate

Rodrigo Perez — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:07:00 +0000

An entrancing meditation on chance, fate and the capacity for human forgiveness and compassion, German/Turkish director’s Fatih Akin’s follow up to his stunning 2004 film “Head On” is equally engaging if slightly less energetic, but only because this story dictates a different presentation.

The slow building and beautiful “The Edge of Heaven” also comments on the divide between generations and cultures while centering on the intersecting lives of three families, all of a German and Turkish descent, (mothers and daughters, fathers and sons).

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