Links
Associations & Organisations
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Infliction Film
Website where you can get information on films made or produced by Mitch Davis, who also programs for Fantasia, and the Cinema du Parc theatre. Great links page.
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Fab Press
UK publishing house run and operated by the indefatigable Harvey Fenton. Genre material done with passion, style, and intelligence.
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The School of Sound
The School of Sound is an organisation that has staged an annual
and now, biennialinternational symposium on the creative use of sound in the arts and media. The next SOS takes place in London in April 27-30, 2011. You can learn more about their related activities, including their journal, “The Soundtrack,” at their website. -
caboose
Montreal-based independent publishing company that specializes in cinema publications. Owned and operated by Timothy Bernard. caboose also has initiated a fascinating project called “Planetary Projection,” an ongoing meta-commentary on the history and evolution of film projections as experienced by projectionists the world over.
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FIAF
Site for the Journal of Film Preservation. Amazingly, the site includes full text (pdf file) access to the excellent association journal.
View all Associations & Organisations →
Blogs
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Bright Lights Film Journal
Once a print magazine, now an intelligent journal of film criticism. Equally compelling with popular film and the more esoteric. Manages to nicely blend a scholarly yet readable approach to a variety of subjects ranging in equal measure from the horror genre to experimental cinema.
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The Artifice
Slick, likeable, readable online journal that covers a wide range of entertainment areas, including Film, TV, animation, Games, Arts, Literature, and Art.
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Ubuweb
A wholly independent, wonderful resource on the avant-garde, poetry (in all its forms) and, to quote Ubuweb, “outsider arts.” Includes many sounds, music, books, essays, poems, interviews, radio spots, and critical works that have been salvaged from obscurity, or at least made readily available through their website.
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Tim Cawkwell’s Cinema
A sounding board for former filmmaker Tim Cawkwell, on the more esoteric and contemplative aspects of film thought (religion, theology, the imagination, etc.). Cawkwell writes with the general reader in mind, not necessarily the arcane academic. As his logo states, “Intelligible writing about intelligent film.”
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Vertigo
Vertigo is an international film magazine covering the best of independent and experimental film. This is the recently added online version of its hard copy magazine of the same name, which has been documenting global screen culture since 1993.
By Way of Montreal
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European Films.net
Privately run website aimed at promoting European cinema. Covers films that are in-production and recently released across the world. Good source of production credit information with an extensive archive of film reviews.
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Screening the Past
One of the few refereed online film journals.
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Images: a journal of film and popular culture
Intelligent analysis of popular genres. Includes an excellent “In Focus” section on Italian Gothic Horror film.
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The Artifice
An intelligent, broad ranging cultural criticism journal which impressively covers such diverse popular art areas as art, literature, film, TV, comics, manga, games, and anime. Pleasing jargon free writing that is informed, personal and critically astute.
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Film Sound
Extensive, one stop location for everything you wanted to know about film sound.
DVD Review Sites
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Infliction Film
Website where you can get information on films made or produced by Mitch Davis, who also programs for Fantasia, and the Cinema du Parc theatre. Great links page.
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Oddity Cinema
As the title suggests, Oddity Cinema is a webzine which tackles the weird and the wonderful in bite-sized morsels of critical commentary, capsule reviews, interviews, trailers, plugs for upcoming releases, etc. What sets it apart from most online review sites is its interactivity, with readers able to add their own comments to reviews. The design is colorful and attractive, yet remains functional and easy to navigate.
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Panorama-cinema
A Quebec based French language webzine with impeccable taste and an astute critical sense. Their individual film reviews may not be exceptionally long but treat each word as a precious commodity in distilling the necessary elements of the film. The zine has spread out to include interviews, podcasts, and has recently emerged as a publisher, thus far with two books under its wing: their first L’Humanisme D’Après-Guerre Japonaise (Humanism in Post-War Japan) and the second Vies & Morts du Giallo (Lives and Deaths of the Giallo). I have looked at the latter and am impressed with its scope and scholarship. It is an important contribution to the critical literature on the giallo.
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Who’s Who of Victorian Cinema
Excellent website dedicated to pre-cinema and early cinema. The site is based on a book entitled Who’s Who of Victorian Cinema edited by Stephen Herbert and Luke McKernan, which can be purchased through the website.
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Film-Philosophy
Film academia meets the web. The most extensive free online archive of book reviews and theoretical essays.
Filmmakers
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Bright Lights Film Journal
Once a print magazine, now an intelligent journal of film criticism. Equally compelling with popular film and the more esoteric. Manages to nicely blend a scholarly yet readable approach to a variety of subjects ranging in equal measure from the horror genre to experimental cinema.
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FIPRESCI: The International Federation of Film Critics
Website for the important film critics organization, FIPRESCI. Includes a link-up to their relatively new online film journal, “Undercurrents,” an interesting section where film critics write about film books that influenced their intellectual history, and much more.
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Cinema Scope
Cinema Scope is one of, if not the, best Canadian film magazines on the market, featuring intelligent criticism, festival coverage, and interviews. Their website offers content information on current and back issues, subscription information, and some web only content.
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The Artifice
Slick, likeable, readable online journal that covers a wide range of entertainment areas, including Film, TV, animation, Games, Arts, Literature, and Art.
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Cineroute
A gateway into the National Film Board of Canada’s vast film collection.
Journalism and Criticism
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David Bordwell’s Film Blog
There are many film blogs on the web, some good, some not so good. As you might expect from one of the pre-eminent film scholars of his generation, this one from David Bordwell is good, very good.
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Cineroute
A gateway into the National Film Board of Canada’s vast film collection.
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The Glorious and The Grotesque: Horror Cinema of the 70s and 80s
The first of what we hope to be many websites sponsored by Offscreen. This one looks at the social, political, aesthetic and cultural aspects of one of the high points of American horror, the horror films of the 1970s and 1980s. Included are the many contemporary remakes of this by now classic horror films.
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Index DVD
Independent video distribution label which strongly promotes Austrian (mainly) and East European political and avant-garde artists. Their DVDs are beautiful works of art in themselves, with stylish see-through covers, copious (bilingual) liner notes and artist bios.
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The Criterion Collection
Home of the DVD company committed to the promotion of International cinema. The name has become synonymous with quality, and the yardstick by which other DVD transfers are measured.
View all Journalism and Criticism →
Publishers, Labels, and Retailers
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Cult Epics
Independent DVD label which specializes in esoteric arthouse, erotica, and horror cinema. Their releases are always a labor of love with care, commitment, and excellent supplementary material.
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Reverse Shot
Independent, quarterly film journal with intelligent and eclectic writing. Highlights include selected ‘director symposiums’ where the editorial board features who they feel are expressive voices in the contemporary cinematic landscape. Past symposiums include Jim Jarmusch, Tsai Ming-liang and Olivier Assayas.
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Film Studies For Free
Run by Catherine Grant, this is an invaluable resource which does exactly what its title would suggest: it brings together in one place links to scholarly and intelligent articles and essays on a wide range of subjects that are available for free. The site is dangerous. Why? Well because when you visit this site you will always spend more time perusing the many interesting links and connected tangents than you can afford!
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The Italian Page
A one-stop destination for all things Italy related, spanning culture, art, film, education, travel, health, sports, architecture, and history.
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Cinemasparagus
Craig Keller’s eclectic musings on a broad range of intelligent (with a slant on European), auteurist cinema.
View all Publishers, Labels, and Retailers →
Theory, History, and Analysis
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Ingmar Bergman Face to Face
English version of the award winning Swedish website on Ingmar Bergman, launched on May 22, 2006. An excellent reference site for works by and about Bergman.
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Reverse Shot
Independent, quarterly film journal with intelligent and eclectic writing. Highlights include selected ‘director symposiums’ where the editorial board features who they feel are expressive voices in the contemporary cinematic landscape. Past symposiums include Jim Jarmusch, Tsai Ming-liang and Olivier Assayas.
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FIAF
Site for the Journal of Film Preservation. Amazingly, the site includes full text (pdf file) access to the excellent association journal.
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British Film Institute
Excellent and in-depth site from the venerable British Film Institute. Highlights include the series “BFI Archive Interactive” which includes excellent interactive studies on British cinema. A recent one was Paul Merton on Early British Comedy.
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Ubuweb
A wholly independent, wonderful resource on the avant-garde, poetry (in all its forms) and, to quote Ubuweb, “outsider arts.” Includes many sounds, music, books, essays, poems, interviews, radio spots, and critical works that have been salvaged from obscurity, or at least made readily available through their website.
