Authors — Michael Nordine
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Five Questions with Alps Director Yorgos Lanthimos
Yorgos Lanthimos attained “one to watch” status as soon as his disturbing, divisive, and hilariously funny Dogtooth premiered at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. That film — which went on to win the Prix Un Certain Regard and score an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film — has something of a companion piece in Alps, which opens this Friday at Cinema Village in New York City. Concerning a group of grief surrogates who help the bereaved by impersonating their recently-departed loved ones, the film is similar to its predecessor in its off-kilter tone and refusal to fit into any one genre or […]
by Michael Nordine on Jul 11, 2012 -
LAFF 2012: CREATIVE NONFICTION
In a very real way, Birth Story: Ina May Gaskin and the Farm Midwives presents the other side of the Pincus coin: where that film teeters near death, Sara Lamm and Mary Wigmore’s documentary focuses on birth. Gaskin, regarded as the “mother of authentic midwifery,” has been present for over 1,200 births, written four books, and lectured across the U.S. and abroad since founding the Farm Midwifery Center in Tennessee in the early ’70s—no slim resumé. Lamm and Wigmore have compiled a great deal of footage from the period – bearded men wielding guitars, fuzzy camerawork, and hippie gatherings are […]
by Michael Nordine on Jun 23, 2012 -
LAFF 2012: FAMILY MATTERS
The North American premiere of Woody Allen’s To Rome with Love was the big to-do Thursday night in downtown Los Angeles, and not just because it opened the L.A. Film Festival: Allen doesn’t often visit the city (not even when nominated for an Oscar), making his personal introduction of this latest work something of a coup for the fest. And while it would be wrong to call a new film by the endlessly prolific director a cinematic “event” in the same vein as, say, the arrival a new Terence Davies project, so too would it be wrong to think it […]
by Michael Nordine on Jun 19, 2012 -
Five Questions with Breakfast With Curtis Director Laura Colella
25 New Faces alum Laura Colella’s Breakfast with Curtis unfolds at its own pace, not unlike the leisurely chats it spends so much time documenting. Colella, who wrote, directed, and acted in the film, used her own home as a shooting location and cast her real-life neighbors and housemates in prominent roles. Centered around a bookseller named Syd (Theo Green) who enlists the help of his young neighbor (Jonah Parker, in the title role) to record a series of video diaries for his business, the story hinges on the subtle interplay between family and friends as they cautiously come closer […]
by Michael Nordine on Jun 14, 2012 -
4:44 Last Day on Earth — A Hammer to Nail Review
(Abel Ferrara’s 4:44 Last Day on Earth premiered at the 68th Venice Film Festival. It’s being released theatrically by IFC Films on March 23, 2012.) A number of recent films have collectively suggested that the more global, or even cosmic, the crisis, the more intimate the response. This was done most recently in Perfect Sense but also last summer’s Another Earth and, to a lesser extent, The Tree of Life, about which it might be more accurate to say that the cosmic is crafted from the intimate. (Melancholia breaks from this trend somewhat, and its cold remove is part of what makes it so disconcerting a film.) This art-house apocalypse continues in […]
by Michael Nordine on Mar 22, 2012 -
The Kid with a Bike — A Hammer to Nail Review
(Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s The Kid with a Bike premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, where it shared the Grand Prix with Once Upon a Time in Anatolia. It is being released theatrically by Sundance Selects on 03.16.12.) The Kid with a Bike is propelled by eruptive moments nestled between long stretches of calm. That it is seen through the eyes of a child too young and confused to understand as much about himself as the viewer does would appear to make the eponymous bicycle rider’s case an ironic one, but it mostly just makes it sad. Every time […]
by Michael Nordine on Mar 15, 2012 -
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy — A Hammer to Nail Review
(Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy premiered at the Venice Film Festival. It is being released theatrically by Focus Features on 12.09.11.) Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy plays out like a long game of chess whose pieces are constantly being moved across the board without ever reaching checkmate. Each of the many players thinks himself a king, but one by one they’re shown to be little more than glorified pawns. The narrative they collectively form is at once dense but fluttering, broken into tiny fragments whose value as clues and signifiers is constantly being called into question and, once thoroughly vetted, reassembled into something […]
by Michael Nordine on Dec 8, 2011 -
Martha Marcy May Marlene — A Hammer to Nail Review
(Martha Marcy May Marlene earned Sean Durkin a Best Director award at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, where it was picked up for distribution by Fox Searchlight. It opened theatrically on Friday, October 21, 2011. Visit the film’s official website to learn more. EDITOR’S NOTE: HTN co-founder Ted Hope is an executive producer on the film.) Looking at Elizabeth Olsen, you know exactly who she’s related to. It’s a trait that lends the actress both familiarity and strangeness—as though you know her but you don’t. It also makes her perfect for the title role in Sean Durkin’s Martha Marcy May […]
by Michael Nordine on Oct 27, 2011 -
The Arbor — A Hammer to Nail Review
“Time heals all wounds,” goes an old adage with which everyone involved in The Arbor would likely take issue. Clio Barnard’s cinematic assemblage on English playwright Andrea Dunbar is certainly a document of sorts, but to call it a documentary would be to slight it: The Arbor is equal parts fact, reenactment, and archival footage. Adding to the genre-blending is a series of audio interviews recorded with Dunbar’s siblings, children (particularly Lorraine, in many ways the main “character” of the film), and acquaintances which Barnard then had actors lip-synch onscreen. The result is at first off-putting, eventually immersive, and unlike any […]
by Michael Nordine on Apr 28, 2011 -
Redland — A Hammer to Nail Review
(Redland is distributed by Zyzak Film Company. After playing at several festivals in 2009, it opened theatrically at Laemmle’s Sunset 5 in Los Angeles on Friday, March 11, 2011. See here for a list of future showings.) Though the influence of its cinematic forebears is readily apparent, nary a film comes to mind whose approach is as singularly visual as Asiel Norton’s Redland. Words prove woefully insufficient in conveying its imagistic intensity, but a few descriptions nonetheless come to mind: an aged photograph come to life, key aspects of which are out of focus or otherwise difficult to discern; a […]
by Michael Nordine on Mar 17, 2011
