As with life, beginnings are easy but endings are hard. At least, that’s what one might take away from the two very different running times of videos screenwriter Michael Arndt (Toy Story, Little Miss Sunshine) has posted about these crucial elements of any movie. His “beginnings video” runs eight minutes while his video on endings has a whopping feature-length running time! Using three films as his examples — Star Wars, The Graduate and Little Miss Sunshine — Arndt talks about internal and external conflict, philosophical resolutions and much, much more. As the screengrab above illustrates, Arndt is heavy into structure, […]

With a Gus Van Sant retrospective currently playing at New York’s Metrograph Cinema until July 12, we’ve reposted the three interviews we did with the director for his celebrated “death trilogy.” Comprised of Gerry, Elephant and Last Days, these three films — all based on actual news reports, dealing with mortality and shot in a long-take style influenced by directors such as Béla Tarr and Chantal Akerman — constitute one of cinema’s most audacious, radical and rewarding change-ups from a director who has had at least one foot in mainstream cinema. All three films are part of the Metrograph series, […]

The following interview was originally published in our Fall, 2003 print edition. When I first interviewed Gus Van Sant, he had just finished editing his feature Gerry and was preparing to launch it at the Sundance Film Festival. A radical left turn from the two studio films, Good Will Hunting and Finding Forrester, that preceded it, Gerry mixed together movie stars (Matt Damon and Casey Affleck), the “long-take” style of such filmmakers as Béla Tarr and Chantal Akerman and a simple yet metaphorically rich scenario taken from the news headlines. Working without a formal script but with the remarkable director […]

For once the words “visionary director” on a trailer are not a misnomer. From Panos Cosmatos, who made our 25 New Faces list back in 2011, comes the first trailer for his ’80s-set revenge drama Mandy, starring Nicolas Cage and Andrea Riseborough. I can’t overemphasize how much I love this film. There are scenes in it that are beautifully, meaningfully lodged in my memory. Just watch now.

The following interview with director Jim McKay was published during last year’s BAMcinemafest and is being rerun today as his feature En el Séptimo Día is in release from Cinema Guild. The film can currently be seen at the IFC Center in New York and the Laemmle Music Hall in L.A. Many other cities are scheduled over the next two months, including, on Friday, the Roxie in San Francisco. Jim McKay, whose early, mid ’90s/early-aughts features (Girls Town, Our Song, Everyday People and Angel) were empathetic and involving New York dramas suffused with a love of neighborhood and feeling for […]