Authors — Scott Macaulay
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Podcast: Alix Lambert Interviews Westworld Stunt Coordinator Mike Watson
In one of our occasional Filmmaker podcasts, director, artist and writer Alix Lambert interviews here stunt coordinator Mike Watson, whose work can be seen on HBO’s Westworld, which has its season finale tomorrow night. In addition to Westworld, Watson’s over 70 credits include films like Django Unchained, Hail Caesar!, Lost Highway, Rambo 3 and Silverardo. He was also the stunt coordinator for HBO’s Deadworld, which Lambert wrote for, and for the network’s subsequent David Milch series, John from Cincinnati, on which Lambert was an associate producer. In this wide-ranging conversation, the two discuss Watson’s background, what makes a good fight […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 3, 2016 -
Writer Director Sophia Takal on Persona, Female Aggression and Her Psychological Thiller, Always Shine
Following its New York premiere this past Thanksgiving weekend, Sophia Takal’s highly recommended psychological drama Always Shine opens today in 16 markets across the United States. When the film premiered at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, I wrote Sophia Takal makes her long-awaited to follow-up to her microbudget stunner Green with Always Shine, which takes the abstracted psychological thriller aspects of her debut and warps them into, well, a crafty, intelligent and altogether satisfying psychological thriller. It’s Persona meets Mulholland Drive meets Single White Female as a weekend getaway between two old actress friends goes horribly awry. Caitlin Fitzgerald is […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 2, 2016 -
“Translating Interiority for the Screen”: Moonlight Director Barry Jenkins on Wong Kar-wai
Criterion has debuted a new video series, “Under the Influence,” in which, you guessed, directors talk the filmmakers who influence and inspire them. Opening the series is Moonlight director Barry Jenkins on the cinema of Wong Kar-wai. Specifically talking about Chungking Express and In the Mood for Love, Jenkins hails Wong’s ability to do something “they tell you not to do in film school,” which is to “translate interiority for the screen.” Anyone seeing Jenkins’ Moonlight, winner of the last night’s Gotham Award for Best Picture, will recognize the influence of Wong on Jenkins’ own expressive depiction of internal emotions […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 29, 2016 -
Moonlight, O.J.: Made in America, Casey Affleck, Isabelle Huppert Top 26th Annual Gotham Awards
TUESDAY AFTERNOON WRITE-THROUGH In 2008, Barry Jenkins remembered on one of several trips up to the podium tonight at the 26th Annual IFP Gotham Awards, held, as usual, at Cipriani Wall Street, he was in this same room as one of the nominees for Best New Director. He lost that year to Ballast‘s Lance Hammer, and, as he went on to note, he hasn’t made a film in the long eight years following. (Neither has Hammer, actually, although I hear that’s changing.) Until Moonlight. His beautiful, amazingly accomplished and much beloved second feature took home four awards tonight, including the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 29, 2016 -
Filmmaker Black Friday through Cyber Monday Sale: Subscriptions 50% Off!
We tastefully waited until noon to post here our first-ever Filmmaker Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale. (See coupon codes below.) It’s simple and straightforward: subscriptions, both print and digital, are 50% off. That means a print subscription is $9 and a digital subscription is only $5.00. Digital gets you a year of online access to not just the four print editions — which you can read online, through your browser, or which you can download as PDFs — but also all back issues up until 2007. It’s a huge resource. For $4 more, you get all of that and the print […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 25, 2016 -
American Honey, Moonlight, Free in Deed Score as 2017 Independent Spirit Awards are Announced
Jenny Slate and Edgar Ramirez unveiled the nominations for the 2017 Independent Spirit Awards today at Los Angeles’s W Hollywood Hotel. As always, many of the most heralded independent films of the year scored multiple nominations, including Andrea Arnold’s American Honey, Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight, Pablo Larrain’s Jackie and Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea. All these pictures were nominated for Best Picture as well as receiving nominations in several other categories. But one film that has yet to receive distribution in the States — Free in Deed, by 25 New Face Jake Mahaffy — also received many nods, including Best […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 22, 2016 -
Trailer Watch: Brent Green and Sam Green, Live Cinema
What looks to be a stellar high-profile collaboration between two Filmmaker favorites is Brent Green and Sam Green: Love Cinema, running for four nights, December 7 – 10, as part of BAM’s Next Wave series. The two filmmakers aren’t related other than sharing a skill for charismatically fronting live performances blending their movies with live performance and narration. Brent first appeared in Filmmaker way back in 2005, when he led our 25 New Face list that year. We’ve assiduously covered his work since, as we have with Sam Green, whose works include the documentary, The Weather Underground, and then live […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 20, 2016 -
Recommended on a Friday: Manchester by the Sea, Uncle Howard, Off the Rails, Daughters of the Dust, J’Accuse, Pitch
Kenneth Lonergan’s masterful Manchester by the Sea is the high-profile opening of the week, and one strongly recommended by all of us at Filmmaker. The writer/director is our current print issue cover, with James Ponsoldt’s interview now online as well. In his intro, Ponsoldt wrote: Lonergan’s films all feature stand-out performances, and the constellation of actors in Manchester by the Sea — Kyle Chandler, Lucas Hedges, Michelle Williams, Gretchen Mol and Affleck — are beautifully cast. Their family could be your family. The Chandlers’ struggle to find a new normal in the wake of tragedy is surprisingly funny, human, messy […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 18, 2016 -
“Suddenly the World’s Wider, More Exciting, More Engaging”: Criterion’s Peter Becker on the New FilmStruck and Criterion Channel Streaming Service
For film lovers of all stripes, the launch this month of FilmStruck, a new streaming service partnership between Turner Classic Movies and the Criterion Channel, is nothing short of a major event. As Netflix tilts more and more towards television and original programming, and actual movies cycle on and off on-demand services at a dizzying pace, FilmStruck is poised to be a dependable and invigorating destination for anyone wanting to watch a simply great movie at any time of the day or night. FilmStruck will source films from indie distributors such as Janus Films, Zeitgeist, Film Movement, Oscilloscope Laboratories, as […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 15, 2016 -
Trailer Watch: Pablo Larrain’s Jackie
Pablo Larrain’s Jackie is one of my favorite films of the year. You can read my interview with the director in the current print edition of Filmmaker, and you can see more of the film in this new trailer, just out from Fox Searchlight. It’s more revealing than the earlier teaser trailer Stephen Garrett wrote about here, and, in some ways, quite different in tone, foregrounding the political mythmaking element of the story. Check it out above.
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 14, 2016
