Authors — Sarah Salovaara
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2014 Sarasota Film Festival Award Winners
I made the un-journalistic decision to forgo last night’s closing awards ceremony at the Sarasota Film Festival for a screening, but judging by the recipients alone, the event was a successful one. Sarasota’s programming, while eclectic and strong, can prove an interesting match for its respective audience. I witnessed about 10 walkouts during the astonishing Stray Dogs, and when the credits arrived after a languid 138 minutes, someone shot up in the back of the theater to wonder, “did anyone like that film?” I chuckled but did not raise my hand. Other hybrid, art house films faired better. Nearly every local I […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Apr 13, 2014 -
Trailer Watch: A Most Wanted Man
A few weeks back, we ran a trailer for The Drop, James Gandolfini’s final film. Philip Seymour Hoffman had a handful projects in the can at the time of his passing in early February, two of which premiered barely a week before at Sundance. There’s John Slattery’s directorial debut, God’s Pocket, and Anton Corbijn’s A Most Wanted Man, the latter of which released its first trailer today. Corbijn caught my eye with the somehow still underseen Joy Division biopic Control, and has since been swept up into Hollywood’s political drama camp, first with The American and now with A Most Wanted Man, which centers on post 9/11 German-American intelligentsia. […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Apr 11, 2014 -
Catering to an International Audience: The Case of Oppressed Majority
The New York Times recently ran a story on the newfound viral status of a 2010 French short called Majorité Oprimée (Oppressed Majority). The film depicts a day in the life of a schlub who goes about his duties in a parallel Parisian society where women reign supreme. While the daddies run day care, their wives run topless. The protagonist eventually shoulders his fair share of sexual harassment and abuse in an exercise that begins with a touch more subtlety. The majority of the article discusses arguments over the role of gender in France’s workplace, but also of note to filmmakers is the fact […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Apr 9, 2014 -
Questionable Safety History of Midnight Rider Production Company Lends New Light to Sarah Jones Case
A few more details have emerged over at Deadline regarding the on-set negligence that led to 2nd AC Sarah Jones’ death in Doctortown, GA. Midnight Rider was the third feature to be shot in the Savannah area by director Randall Miller and his Unclaimed Freight production company, and it appears that this tragic instance of reckless conduct was no isolated incident. During filming of 2012’s CBGB, Miller and his crew reportedly dropped a grand piano down a homeowner’s staircase without permission, and went the entire shoot without a safety bulletin. They illegally removed a stop sign, blacked out another, and didn’t bother […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Apr 8, 2014 -
Born Out Of Necessity: Monica Peña on Ectotherms and its Immediate Post-Fest Streaming Launch
For most filmmakers, having a feature on the festival circuit is bookended by anticipation. There’s the nervous feeling that no one will ever agree to show the film, then the nervous feeling that the screening will go over terribly, followed by the anxiety-addled wait to hear from a distributor that your film will make it out of the enclave and into the public. For her debut feature, Ectotherms, a no-budget take on four Miami teenagers ambling across their sun-blasted landscape on the way to a black metal concert, Monica Peña decided not to make waiting an option. After the film’s […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Apr 4, 2014 -
The Limits of Supernatural Subversions: Under The Skin and A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
The following essay contains spoilers. As far as premises go, Under The Skin’s most alluring intimation of Scarlett Johansson rolling around the slick Glasgow streets, seducing men left and right, is actually not as titillating as it sounds – unless you’re one for inverted gender plays (not for nothing is she perched behind the wheel of a predatorial white van). Each would-be sex scene instead succumbs to alien interpretation. As smoothly as she rolls down the car window, inquiring after irrelevant directions, Johansson’s Laura takes the man in question not to bed, but to another dimension. She moves backward on […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Apr 3, 2014 -
Trailer Watch: James Gandolfini’s Last Film The Drop
Adapted from Dennis Lehane’s short story Animal Rescue, Michaël Roskam’s English-language debut The Drop also marks James Gandolfini’s final film appearance. Transposed to New York from Lehane’s preferential Boston setting, The Drop finds Tom Hardy (doing his best Ryan Gosling) and Gandolfini on the hunt for a stolen deposit from the nightly dive bar “drop.” Gangsters, guns, dogs and a Noomi Rapace romance ensue. Obviously no stranger to the mob, Gandolifini appears a bit softer around the edges here than in his iconic Soprano role. The Drop will be released by Fox Searchlight on September 19.
by Sarah Salovaara on Apr 2, 2014 -
Watch: Cinematography In The 21st Century
Emmanuel Lubezki, Christopher Doyle, Bruno Delbonnel, Roger Deakins, Robert Richardson, Janusz Kaminski all in one place? This video, strewn together by editor Erick Lee, features clips from the work of internationally illustrious cinematographers over the past decade. Interestingly, there is very little handheld to be had, with most of the stylized shots achieved on a dolly.
by Sarah Salovaara on Apr 1, 2014 -
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Doron Weber on Science on Screen and Live Distribution
Last month, I wrote an article about the rise in live supplements to theatrical screenings. Turns out, this is hardly a novel idea. Coolidge Corner, an arthouse theater smack dab in the Boston suburb of Brookline, has been merging the two formats for nine years running. With the help of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Coolidge spearheaded the Science on Screen series, in which selected films are programmed alongside specialists who contextualize the narrative within science and technology, which is not necessarily as straightforward as it sounds. Take, for instance, a recent screening of 8 Mile, which was followed by professors […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Mar 31, 2014 -
Trailer Watch: Manakamana
Ahead of its April 18 release at New York’s IFC Center, the Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab’s latest outing, Manakamana, now has a proper trailer. Directed by Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez, the documentary captures several 10-minute tram rides to the titular Nepalese shrine through a fixed camera, mounted before the passengers. Spray spoke about the extended metaphor in a wonderful profile on the Lab in Boston Magazine. In the article, the reticent founder Lucian Castaing-Taylor also talks his plans to make a narrative-doc hybrid about sex and cannibalism. If it looks anything like Leviathan, it should be interesting.
by Sarah Salovaara on Mar 28, 2014
