Posted on

“Owned: A Tale of Two Americas” (2019)

See Planning Magazine for our take on “Owned: A Tale of Two Americas,” the new documentary by Giorgio Angelini. The film explores the current housing crisis — and the long history of inequality and racism that led us here.

Importantly, the film shows that while the 1960s’ civil rights legislation was meant to address these problems, enforcement has never been strong, and racial disparities in ownership and wealth, once established, have persisted.

The film is showing around the country in limited-theatrical release and available for streaming on iTunes and other platforms.

(please share! all is takes is one quick click...)
Posted on

“Charm City” review on CityLab

Check out the Atlantic’s CityLab for Ezra Haber Glenn’s latest review of Charm City, a new documentary by Marilyn Ness set on the streets of Baltimore.

Thus, while the film is full of the clichés and conventions of both police procedurals and “poverty-porn,” the overall experience is refreshingly new. Viewers are neither titillated nor terrorized, but are instead invited to take their time and actually experience these places and interactions, reflecting on how they are lived and felt by the people in the documentary….

See CityLab for the full review.

(please share! all is takes is one quick click...)
Posted on

“The World Before Your Feet” review on CityLab

The Atlantic’s CityLab features Ezra Haber Glenn’s review of Jeremy Workman’s new documentary, THE WORLD BEFORE YOUR FEET. Click, read, watch, share.

As he describes his current project on his blog “I’m Just Walkin’,” it’s a natural, deeper “counterpoint” to his cross-country walk: “Instead of seeing a million places for just a minute each, I’m going to spend a million minutes exploring just one place.” What emerges is a kind of plain-spoken psychogeography, an honest fascination with the details of life and the little mysteries of the city….

See CityLab for the full review.

(please share! all is takes is one quick click...)
Posted on

The Elements of Cinema: King Vidor’s “The Crowd”

In July UrbanFilm’s Ezra Haber Glenn presented an old favorite, King Vidor’s “The Crowd,” as part of the Brattle Theatre’s Elements of Cinema series.

It’s a hard film to categorize: it combines aspects city symphony, silent comedy, melodrama, epic genres, and a sort of nascent proto-neorealism. The visuals are heavily influenced by the German Expressionism of the 1920s, but really blends everything into a style all his own…. As you watch, be sure to pay attention to the way the characters interact with the city and the crowd: the city of the 1920s is an extremely public place: notice the tension between private and public, between free will and conformity, between individual and “the crowd.” There are profound tensions — especially for an increasingly urban America after the closing of the frontier. Watching movies together in the great old movie houses like this — alone in the dark with our fellow city-dwellers — provided an important forum for us to navigate these tensions, in our own heads and in public, individually and as a crowd.

See the Brattle’s Film Notes to read the full introduction to the film.

(please share! all is takes is one quick click...)