Authors — Scott Macaulay
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Trailer Watch: 95 and 6 To Go, Directed by Kimi Takesue
Screening yesterday at DOC NYC and now headed to RIDM is Kimi Takesue’s 95 and 6 To Go, both personal and metafictional in its story of a filmmaker, Takesue, and her recently widowed grandfather finding common ground within the director’s unproduced featured screenplay. Here’s the film’s synopsis: In 95 and 6 To Go, a resilient widower’s memories become intertwined with the fictional screenplay his granddaughter is writing, revealing the fine line between life and art, rumination and imagination. Filmmaker Kimi Takesue captures the cadence of daily life for Grandpa Tom, a retired postal worker born to Japanese immigrants to Hawai’i […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 13, 2016 -
DOC NYC: Five Questions for The Guys Next Door Directors Allie Humenuk and Amy Geller
Shot over three years, The Guys Next Door looks at what the filmmakers, Allie Humenuk (Shadow of the House) and Amy Geller (For the Love of Movies) dub “a real Modern Family” — a gay male couple parenting a child and forming an extended family with that child’s surrogate mother. Premiering today at DOC NYC, and co-presented by NewFest, the film catches its principal characters at a time when their commitments to each other are challenged by circumstance, geography and subtle changes in our society. Filmmaker: First, how did the two of you — Amy and Allie — wind up […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 13, 2016 -
DOC NYC: Five Questions for City of Joy Director Madeleine Gavin
World premiering last night at DOC NYC, City of Joy tells the story of a center for young women in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo dedicated to helping them overcome the aftermath of rape, abuse and traumatic violence. Directed by Madeleine Gavin, well known in the independent film world for editing films like Mean Creek, Meadowland and, most recently, Nerve, the film documents the relationship between the center’s three founders — Nobel Peace Prize nominee Dr. Denis Mukwege, a Congo doctor; The Vagina Monologues playwright and actress Eve Ensler; and Congolese human rights activist Christine Schuler-Deschryver — while also […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 12, 2016 -
Recommended on a Friday: National Bird, Uncle Kent 2, The Love Witch, DOC NYC, L.A. Rep Screenings and More
This week writing “Recommended on a Friday” is a way of tempering myself before tackling this week’s newsletter, which will be some form of screed about the election. Depending on your reaction to the surreal and seismic week, you may or may not be in the mood to go to the movies. If you are, however, there’s a lot in theaters we can recommend. I’ll start with 25 New Face Sonia Kennebeck’s National Bird, a provocative, thoughtful and cinematically ambitious documentary about the U.S. Air Force’s drone warfare program that focuses on the impact the program has had on the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 11, 2016 -
Trailer Watch: The Prison in Twelve Landscapes
When it played Art of the Real last year, Astra Taylor singled out for Filmmaker the absolutely essential documentary, The Prison in Twelve Landscapes. She wrote: Story has crafted a profound and political film that, while not sensational, is quietly shocking — even if you are already steeped in the project’s central theme. By taking an innovative and unexpected approach to the subject of mass incarceration, Story reveals just how deeply entrenched the problem of over-policing is…. The Prison in Twelve Landscapes is an impressive, genre-subverting work, and one that deserves to be seen on the big screen. It is […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 4, 2016 -
Recommended on a Friday: Peter and the Farm, Robert Bresson, The Prison in Twelve Landscapes, The Chase
What’s happened to Filmmaker’s “Recommended on a Friday” series? Just three columns in and our mix of picks consists largely of repertory and home viewing choices. If you’re in New York, there are several series going on worth your attention, first and foremost BAM’s “Bresson on Cinema” series that features several Bresson titles — Pickpocket, Diary of a Country Priest and A Man Escaped, among them — alongside films that Bresson’s work was somehow in dialogue with. The latter includes a diverse group of classics including Bicycle Thieves and Battleship Potemkin. Bresson’s precise, ascetic style and his work’s near devotional […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 4, 2016 -
Watch: A Scorsese Fast Dolly Zoom-In Supercut
From faces to guns to cocaine to pasta sauce, the fast dolly zoom-in is one of Martin Scorsese’s go-to expressive camera moves. Here, Jorge Luengo Ruiz compiles four-minutes of them in what is both great mid-day cinematic eye candy as well as something of a critique. Ruiz writes: Martin Scorsese’s penchant for a specific kind of zoom, one where he runs the camera right up to the face of his subject, falls somewhere in between the subtle and the obnoxious. Seduced as we are by the style and panache of Scorsese’s oeuvre, we let this habit of his pass us […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 1, 2016 -
Chicago Newcity Names the 2016 Film 50
I’m a couple of weeks late posting about the latest edition of the Chicago Newcity Film 50 because, well, it’s a dense read — think Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces times two, made all the more impressive because one person, Ray Pride (also a Filmmaker Contributing Editor) pens all the profiles. A list of 50 people who comprise a composite snapshot of the Windy City’s community of media creators (this year, Pride’s preamble states, the list devoted itself to artists as opposed to producers and programmers), the Chicago Film 50 is both an insightful read and a great resource. Writes Pride, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 31, 2016 -
Watch The Way It Should Be, Snapchat Doc about Queer Women of Color, Today Only
Appearing today only on this “Now This” section of Snapchat is The Way it Should Be, a short (naturally) doc about love and friendship between queer women of color by Chanelle Aponte Pearson and Terence Nance. The second entry in POV Snapchat Films, The Way It Should Be can be watched in less than five minutes, and it’s perfectly conceived for Snapchat’s vertical video format. Swiping left takes you to an image page with a chapter heading graphic. Swiping up takes you to a minute or so of video content that ranges from talking head interviews to short, music-video style […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 30, 2016 -
Alamo Drafthouse Downtown Brooklyn Opens Feature-Rich New York Theater
After a week-long soft open, Alamo Drafthouse opens today its first theater in the New York area, the Alamo Drafthouse Downtown Brooklyn. Snuggled away on the top floor of a brand new shopping mall, and following an escalator trip that takes you past a Target and a Century 21, the new seven-screen Drafthouse is feature-packed in more ways that one, offering state-of-the-art projection (including, in one theater, 35mm), Dolby 7.1, programming mixing mainstream arthouse with local, repertory and genre events, and, of course, food and drink. The latter is served up in the theaters as well as in the House […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 28, 2016
