Short and simple: in under a minute, Kevin B. Lee makes the case for 2016 as belonging to Kristen Stewart — she’s got four high-profile movies this year.
Director Jim Jarmusch sat down with New York Film Festival Director Kent Jones for this year’s On Cinema master class, to discuss some of his favorite films and directors, including Samuel Fuller, Abbas Kiarostami, Aki Kaurismäki, Robert Wise, Nicholas Ray, and others. You can watch the entire one-hour conversation in the video above. Jarmusch had two films at the 54th New York Film Festival: Main Slate selection Paterson starring Adam Driver, and Gimme Danger, a documentary on Iggy Pop and the Stooges, which will open at the Film Society of Lincoln Center on October 28.
Revealing enough but not too much is this first teaser trailer for Pablo Larraín’s Jackie, for me, one of the best films of the year. Natalie Portman stars as the widowed First Lady, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, in the days following her husband’s assassination. In addition to being a bold psychological portrait, it’s also a clear-eyed dissection of the Camelot myth, referenced here, ironically, through Richard Harris’ singing.
Vimeo has announced it is extending its flagship Staff Pick channel into a year-long online film festival and has added new laurels honoring films selected as Best of the Month and Year, plus weekly premieres. “The Vimeo Staff Pick channel represents the most progressive and imaginative filmmaking direct from our community of world class filmmakers,” said Peter Gerard, General Manager, Vimeo. “The iconic Staff Pick laurel has helped launched the careers of many filmmakers coming up through the Vimeo platform and we’re excited to continue to honor and elevate our Staff Picked filmmakers with two new levels of prestige, while also […]
Predictably, there’s no footage of the new Twin Peaks in the latest teaser released, but you do get Lynch’s longtime composer Angelo Badalamenti playing one of the show’s original themes solo over footage of the woods, a picture of Laura Palmer and the still-unchanged title logo.
Jim Jarmusch’s latest film, Paterson, premiered to acclaim at the Cannes Film Festival in May and now, courtesy of Yahoo Movies, it’s gotten its first trailer (above). The film stars Adam Driver (Girls, The Force Awakens) as Paterson, a poet/bus driver who lives an uneventful life with his pregnant wife (Golshifteh Farahani) in Paterson, New Jersey. In a report from Cannes, Blake Williams wrote, “It’s a remarkably free form film —so affable and comfortable in its skin —that my registration of time (‘the fourth dimension’; ‘Hmm’) dropped away for much of the first hour; I would have been perfectly satisfied to see it continue, devoid […]
Vidiots, the iconic Santa Monica movie rental store-turned film non-profit, has launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo with the goal of raising $65,000 to keep the doors open and to fund new programs. Just last year, Vidiots was in danger of closing after 30 years in business. Not long after co-owners Cathy Tauber and Patty Polinger announced they were going to have to shutter, they got a last-minute donation from film producer Megan Ellison of Annapurna Pictures. But Vidiots needs to continue raising money in order to launch new programs and initiatives to preserve and provide access to their diverse and […]
Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th, will have its world premiere as the Opening Night selection of the 54th New York Film Festival. The first-ever nonfiction work to open the festival, 13th will debut on Netflix and open in a limited theatrical run on October 7. You can check out its first trailer above. The title of the film refers to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which reads “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.” The film chronicles the history of racial inequality and examines how the U.S. has produced […]
With campus shootings occurring at a frightening frequency, TOWER, the new documentary about the 1966 campus shooting at the University of Texas, is, sadly, timelier than ever. The SXSW Grand Jury and Audience Award winner combines archival footage with rotoscope animation of first-person testimonials to retell the tragedy where a sniper took the lives of 16 people. Directed by Keith Maitland and executive produced by Meredith Vieira and Luke Wilson, TOWER will get a limited theatrical release in October via Kino Lorber. Check out the film’s new trailer above and read an interview with Maitland out of SXSW here.
Producer Shrihari Sathe makes his directorial debut with 1000 Rupee Note, premiering this weekend in New York at the Village East. Sathe, whose credits include Dukhtar, Buffalo Juggalos, It Felt Like Love (and, full disclosure, A Woman a Part, in partnership with me), developed this story based on a short by Shrikant Bojewar, the resident editor of Maharashtra Times, one of India’s major newspapers. Here’s a description: Budhi, a widow, lives in a small village in Maharashtra, India — and her only son has committed suicide. Though poor and left alone in the world, she leads a cheerful life and […]