tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70564537325625010482009-01-01T01:19:35.124-05:00Webmasterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03643468321632241172noreply@blogger.comBlogger52125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056453732562501048.post-81913220547610994952008-12-01T14:41:00.006-05:002008-12-01T14:55:18.158-05:00

How couldn’t you be existential in space? Cut off from Mother Earth, becoming a machine of sorts with only memories of holidays to pass the time? In the lovably lo-fi sci-fi Christmas On Mars, psych rock band The Flaming Lips have invented a straight-to-DVD film that could be a lost cousin to 2001, but born on the other end of the budget universe. Stuck on Mars with the gravity control device

Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056453732562501048.post-33534721563870653732008-11-24T12:12:00.011-05:002008-11-24T15:05:38.998-05:00

The Talented Mr. Ripley by way of Somerset Maugham, Henry May Long is a drama about two men, Henry May and Henry Long, set in the upper crust and under belly of 1887 New York City. Long is obsessed with the golden child May, and via constant surveillance has come to know his secret debt and drug addiction. He convinces May to care for him for three months, as an illness takes his toll, in

Scott Macaulayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04728573558664904533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056453732562501048.post-65105874458320803132008-11-21T09:49:00.003-05:002008-11-21T10:19:09.511-05:00

All of Catherine Hardwicke’s four feature films –- Thirteen, The Lords of Dogtown, The Nativity Story and now Twilight –- have been about teenagers. They have also all been about real people, and all but Thirteen cover stories and characters already known to the public. Twilight is a teen vampire love story based faithfully on the Stephanie Meyer’s book trilogy, starring Kristen Stewart as the

Scott Macaulayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04728573558664904533noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056453732562501048.post-69636173173265580482008-11-06T14:37:00.019-05:002008-11-06T18:29:13.264-05:00

Back in 2004, director Darren Lynn Bousman was taking his violent horror script The Desperate to a number of studios, only to be told it was too grisly for mainstream viewers. Enter Saw creators James Wan and Leigh Whannell, who loved The Desperate and immediately contacted Bousman about reworking the script into a sequel to their Saw franchise. This began a partnership that saw Bousman direct

Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056453732562501048.post-38409607068292348212008-10-10T15:25:00.010-04:002008-10-10T16:15:33.288-04:00

Picking a favorite Mike Leigh film can be a frustrating and exhilarating challenge. They’re all so uniformly excellent, so hilarious (Life Is Sweet), moving (Secrets & Lies), angry (Naked), honest (Meantime) and compassionate (Vera Drake) that the body of work begins to take on a holistic value -- each movie a nuanced iteration of one director’s worldview. Overseeing improv sessions with a

Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056453732562501048.post-80709625207391716682008-09-27T12:28:00.010-04:002008-09-28T10:07:25.641-04:00

Following is the text for Ted Hope's keynote address at the Film Independent Filmmaker Forum on September 27, 2008. Thanks to Ted for allowing us to reprint his speech. A THOUSAND PHOENIX RISING How The New Truly Free Filmmaking Community Will Rise From Indie’s Ashes I can’t talk about the “crisis” of the indie film industry. There is no crisis. The country is in crisis. The economy is in

Scott Macaulayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04728573558664904533noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056453732562501048.post-1830703585957173712008-09-23T10:37:00.009-04:002008-09-24T15:34:22.707-04:00

My name is Ryan Bilsborrow-Koo and this is my guest post for the just-concluded Independent Film Week here in New York. Along with Zachary Lieberman (co-creator of The West Side), I spoke on Monday’s panel “Your Film Online,” and I wanted to expand here on some thoughts I shared during that panel — mostly in response to the prevailing wisdom that “the sky is falling” on independent film. (This

Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056453732562501048.post-57461244192792764402008-09-19T10:00:00.000-04:002008-09-19T10:00:01.470-04:00

The four-to-five week run of New York Film Festival screenings and press conferences each fall functions as something of an annual end-of-summer camp for a certain caste of mostly local film journalists. The series of videos shot, directed, edited by and usually starring Jamie Stuart which document this ritual should be, then, something of a camp yearbook... except that over the years Stuart

Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056453732562501048.post-41524452074493774122008-09-10T11:00:00.001-04:002008-09-10T11:00:00.785-04:00

New York-based film critic Godfrey Cheshire was attending a Christmas gathering with his family in North Carolina when he received some surprising news from his cousin Charlie. Midway Plantation, the ancestral home of their extended family since the 1840s, was to be transplanted to a new location. In the name of progress, the city of Raleigh was expanding a highway and strip malls. If the

Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056453732562501048.post-164238350800744352008-08-19T14:18:00.003-04:002008-08-20T10:20:33.220-04:00

This piece by filmmaker Barbara Schock appeared in our Summer, 2005 issue. The phenomenal painter, teacher and film critic Manny Farber called his film class “A Hard Look at the Movies.” It was the first upper-division college class I took. I’d transferred from a small college in the Midwest to the University of California at San Diego, and I’d never seen a foreign film, unless you count the

Scott Macaulayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04728573558664904533noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056453732562501048.post-22649122103400469872008-08-15T00:10:00.005-04:002008-08-19T10:18:12.228-04:00

This article, written by Bergen Swanson, originally appeared in our Winter, 2002 issue YOU'VE DONE IT! The screenplay you've been slaving over for months has finally been optioned by an edgy production company noted for offbeat films. Or, the movie that has consumed your life for the past two years has been picked up by a noted distributor. Emptying out your savings, selling your comic book

Scott Macaulayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04728573558664904533noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056453732562501048.post-81448951902144803352008-07-16T13:28:00.007-04:002008-07-16T13:52:02.667-04:00

The 54th edition of the notorious Flaherty Film Seminar (June 21-27) kicked off with some steamy words from president Patti Bruck. “We’re not here to discuss film,” she insinuated; “we’re here to argue about film.” Begun in 1955 when Robert Flaherty’s widow Frances gathered filmmakers, critics, and musicians to discuss the potential of the moving image, the Seminar has evolved into one of the

Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056453732562501048.post-6011917707807948982008-07-07T11:05:00.006-04:002008-07-07T11:35:09.657-04:00

Canada’s Patricia Rozema has had an eclectic career, spanning films as diverse as her 1987 debut Cannes feature, I've Heard the Mermaids Singing to her Yo Yo Ma feature, Six Gestures: Suite No. 6 for Unaccompanied Cello to her 1999 Jane Austen adaptation, Mansfield Park. The themes and approaches of these films — Rozema’s concentration on adult eroticism, feminism, religious skepticism, and

Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056453732562501048.post-62392835900290803272008-05-21T17:08:00.018-04:002008-05-22T13:49:26.529-04:00

Turkish-German filmmaker Fatih Akin's The Edge of Heaven is a fierce, generous melodrama of boundaries and passions, of blood and yearning, the second of a trilogy about émigré culture patterned after Fassbinder's "BRD Trilogy" (The Marriage of Maria Braun, Lola, Veronika Voss) of post World War II German history. His fiery prior feature, Head-On, is the "love" component, with Edge comprising "

Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056453732562501048.post-71028892251348755342008-04-29T14:57:00.007-04:002008-04-30T17:23:26.214-04:00

The following essay by David Gordon Green on Todd Rohal’s The Guatemalan Handshake accompanies the film's DVD release from Benten Films out today. I am plagued by two mothers of frustration: 1. POWER PROBLEMS: Who controls the switches? Who pushes the buttons? How do I get to be large and in charge like Arsenio Hall's portly alter ego Chunky A? 2. LOST AND FOUND: Why did you leave? Where

Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056453732562501048.post-40209855411979131862008-03-18T11:11:00.011-04:002008-03-18T16:02:47.812-04:00

Over the course of eight feature films, Olivier Assayas has built a solid international reputation as a director of stylish, naturalistic thrillers and social dramas that team with sensuality. Assayas is a boundlessly resourceful director and in his most recent film, Boarding Gate, a lower key, appealingly absurd riff on the same erotic, globalization-era techno thriller he first brought us in

Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056453732562501048.post-79136793903792163452008-03-17T13:36:00.016-04:002008-04-09T10:34:57.733-04:00

Though her short-film and documentary projects have a clearly articulated social conscience, director Patricia Riggen says she prefers to make moving films that tell a story with “big emotions.” Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, Riggen began writing scripts for television after a stint in the world of newspaper journalism, and eventually became vice chairman of short-film production at the Mexican

Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056453732562501048.post-46147529111419858322008-02-08T12:34:00.002-05:002008-02-25T12:20:08.593-05:00

Last spring we took an exclusive look inside the Sundance Directors and Screenwriters Labs as filmmaker Braden King posted weekly stories about his experience with his project, Here, co-written by himself and Dani Valent. Now, he's graciously given us an insight into what he took away from the Institute, including attending this year's Festival, where he was involved in the New Frontier's

Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056453732562501048.post-10521956317515169752008-02-08T12:10:00.001-05:002008-02-21T01:34:03.510-05:00

Leading up to the Oscars on Feb. 24, we will be highlighting the nominated films that have appeared in the magazine or on the Website in the last year. Howard Feinstein interviewed I'm Not There co-writer-director Todd Hanyes for the Fall '07 issue. I'm Not There is nominated for Best Supporting Actress (Cate Blanchett). Todd Haynes’s first film, a 1985 student short called Assassins

Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056453732562501048.post-73980707432090555712008-02-08T12:09:00.001-05:002008-02-22T12:44:36.063-05:00

TOM WILKINSON AND GEORGE CLOONEY IN TONY GILROY'S MICHAEL CLAYTON. COURTESY WARNER BROS. PICTURES. Leading up to the Oscars on Feb. 24, we will be highlighting the nominated films that have appeared in the magazine or on the Website in the last year. Nick Dawson interviewed Michael Clayton writer-director Tony Gilroy for our Director Interviews section of the Website. Michael Clayton is

Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056453732562501048.post-54233528862910420552008-02-08T12:08:00.002-05:002008-02-21T09:54:05.815-05:00

PAUL BREMER (LEFT) AND GENERAL JAY GARNER. Leading up to the Oscars on Feb. 24, we will be highlighting the nominated films that have appeared in the magazine or on the Website in the last year. Scott Macaulay interviewed No End in Sight director Charles Ferguson for the Summer '07 issue. No End in Sight is nominated for Best Documentary. In the current debate over the Iraq war, Charles

Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056453732562501048.post-9707538502228845062008-02-08T12:07:00.001-05:002008-02-21T09:54:21.926-05:00

Leading up to the Oscars on Feb. 24, we will be highlighting the nominated films that have appeared in the magazine or on the Website in the last year. Nick Dawson interviewed Beaufort co-writer-director Joseph Cedar for our Web Exclusives section of the Website. Beaufort is nominated for Best Foreign Language Film. This was a particularly exceptional year for Israeli cinema. Dror Shaul's

Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056453732562501048.post-68425492334837292362008-02-08T12:05:00.001-05:002008-02-19T08:12:04.541-05:00

Leading up to the Oscars on Feb. 24, we will be highlighting the nominated films that have appeared in the magazine or on the Website in the last year. Scott Macaulay interviewed Away From Her director Sarah Polley for the Spring '07 issue. Away From Her is nominated for Best Lead Actress (Julie Christie) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Sarah Polley). Whether it is as the paralyzed survivor in

Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056453732562501048.post-28596104797155488842008-02-08T12:04:00.001-05:002008-02-19T10:38:32.965-05:00

SYLVIE TESTUD WITH MARION COTILLARD (RIGHT) AS EDITH PIAF IN LA VIE EN ROSE. Leading up to the Oscars on Feb. 24, we will be highlighting the nominated films that have appeared in the magazine or on the Website in the last year. Scott Macaulay interviewed La Vie en rose star Marion Cotillard for the Spring '07 issue. La Vie en rose is nominated for Best Lead Actress (Marion Cotillard), Best

Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7056453732562501048.post-32694421530423326002008-02-08T12:00:00.001-05:002008-02-14T02:56:41.596-05:00

Leading up to the Oscars on Feb. 24, we will be highlighting the nominated films that have appeared in the magazine or on the Website in the last year. Ray Pride interviewed The Savages writer-director Tamara Jenkins for the Fall '07 issue. The Savages is nominated for Best Lead Actress (Laura Linney) and Best Original Screenplay (Tamara Jenkins). Note-perfect, Tamara Jenkins’s The Savages

Jason Guerrasiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14958031172216065142noreply@blogger.com0