Chen Kaige’s seldom screened third feature (1987), about the experiences of an uneducated young man who’s assigned to teach at a village school in Yunnan and gets fired after he throws out the Maoist textbook and gains his students’ confidence. It sounds well worth checking out. (JR) Read more
Bert Stern’s film of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival (1960; his only film) features Thelonious Monk, Louis Armstrong, Eric Dolphy, Chuck Berry, Dinah Washington, Mahalia Jackson, Anita O’Day, Gerry Mulligan, Chico Hamilton, and many others. Shot in gorgeous color, it’s probably the best feature-length jazz concert movie ever made. Despite some distracting cutaways to boats in the opening sections, it eventually buckles down to an intense concentration on the music and the audience’s rapport with it as afternoon turns into evening. Jackson’s rendition of The Lord Read more