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Watch: Jesse Eisenberg Talks “Holocaust Tours with Lunch” and A Real Pain
A Real Pain, courtesy of Sundance Institute.
In a newly released featurette, writer/director/actor Jesse Eisenberg, actor Kieran Culkin, producer Emma Stone and others discuss Eisenberg's Sundance-premiering feature, A Real Pain, out Friday from Fox Searchlight. It's a comedy/drama about two cousins navigating long suppressed tensions while on a Holocaust remembrance tour to Poland, and one obvious question to ask is in what order those two elements occurred within the development process? Was Eisenberg attracted to the Holocaust tour concept first, or wanting to explore the family rivalry? That question is answered, along with more, in the above clip.
Light Matter 2024, Experimental Film East Coast Festival, Announces Lineup for Fourth Edition
Grace Mitchell's The Year
Curated by occasional Filmmaker Magazine contributor James Hansen, the experimental film festival Light Matter has announced the lineup for its fourth edition, being held this November, including the opening of a new gallery exhibition by Jodie Mack. From the press release: Recognized as “a major East coast showcase for experimental film and video” (Michael Sicinski, In Review Online), the Light Matter Film Festival returns with its fourth annual showcase dedicated to emerging and established international artists in experimental film, video, and media art. The 2024 edition also celebrates the expansion of Light Matter into an international co-production across two continents. From November 1-3 in Alfred, NY, Light Matter will present seven programs over three days, including the opening of Ultraviolet, a major… Read more
Considering the Oscar Best Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay Categories
Challengers (©MGM/Courtesy Everett Collection)
At this stage in the season, when it is entirely too early to make any meaningful predictions about what the Oscar nominees (much less the winners) will be, I like to look back at the Academy’s recent history to identify trends that can give us an idea of what voters are into, generally speaking. It’s not an exact science, of course — the contenders are drastically different every season — but there is one trend that I’ve noticed shaking out over the last decade or so: The Oscars for best original screenplay and best adapted screenplay are more likely to go to a director, either with a solo screenwriting credit or as part of a writing team. Let’s look at the last 10… Read more
“When I’m a Director, I’m a Painter”: Titus Kaphar on Exhibiting Forgiveness
Exhibiting Forgiveness (Courtesy Roadside Attractions)
Titus Kaphar’s artwork can be found across the nation at the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum, Yale University and the Mississippi Museum of Art; his painting Yet Another Fight for Remembrance might be his most recognizable, as it was commissioned by TIME Magazine as a response to the Ferguson unrest following the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer. The MacArthur Fellowship recipient continues to examine contemporary Black life in his feature film debut, Exhibiting Forgiveness. Actor André Holland stars as Terrell, an acclaimed painter living with his singer-songwriter wife Aisha (Andra Day) and young son Jermaine (Daniel Michael Barriere). While his agent urges him to complete a new exhibition, right off the heels of his last,… Read more
Watch: An Exclusive Clip from Mark Cousins’s Forthcoming My Name is Alfred Hitchcock
My Name is Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock, the director as well as self-analyzing critical observer, is evoked in the latest documentary from Mark Cousins, titled, appropriately, My Name is Alfred Hitchcock. During the pandemic lockdown, Cousins was invited by producer John Archer to make a film about the great director timed to the 100th anniversary of his debut film. Cousins set about watching all of Hitchcock's films in chronological order, reading various critical book as well as works by his daughter and The Birds actress Tippi Hedren, all the while filling up notebooks of thoughts, reflections and details. That research and viewing produced a script, and voicing its first-person monologue is not some AI program but, uncannily, actor Alistair McGowan. Says Cousins, "In the opening… Read more
“Nostalgia for When Things were Terrible”: Conner O’Malley, Danny Scharar and Jack Bensinger on Rap World
Rap World
There’s an honesty to Rap World, the feature debut of co-directors Conner O’Malley and Danny Scharar, beyond its vérité stylings. With Scharar playing the director, Ben, Rap World is a mockumentary following three friends—Matt (O’Malley), Casey (Jack Bensinger) and Jason (Eric Rahill)—from Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania, as they trudge through one long night in a quixotic attempt to make a rap album. It is January 11th, 2009: a month earlier The Dark Knight was released on home video, in nine days George W. Bush will leave office, the Great Recession looms and America feels like it is on the cusp of some kind of change. But this is all of peripheral concern for the main trio: they’re plagued with overbearing parents, minimum… Read more
Revolution and TikTok Stick Nation: On Ben Russell and Guillaume Cailleau’s DIRECT ACTION
Direct Action
A TikTok trend called “Stick Nation” has become one of my favorites. Folks around the world introduce themselves with a simple “what’s up, Stick Nation?,” then present a stick they’ve found. We’ll usually get to hear where they found said stick and if it’s oak, birch or pine. Over the past few weeks, sticks were my route to escapism until I saw a more meaningful use for them in Ben Russell and Guillaume Cailleau’s DIRECT ACTION. The movie begins with a desktop screen as we start to jump back and forth between protests from 2016 and 2018 in Notre-Dames-des-Landes. Since 1970, the French government had plans of developing an airport there, garnering a diverse and large rassemblement of enemies including but… Read more
