Authors — Scott Macaulay
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TIFF 2016: Five Questions for ARQ Writer/Director Tony Elliott
Orphan Black screenwriter Tony Elliott makes his feature debut with the time-twisting dystopian thriller ARQ, premiering today at the Toronto International Film Festival. Employing the now venerable time-loop trope, ARQ features a couple trying to figure out why their world is repeating, and what that has to do with the giant multi-national they were both involved with. Below, Elliott talks about his various cinematic inspirations, what he learned from writing Orphan Black, and how he made a futuristic science fiction film on a very low budget. Filmmaker: Your short film, Entangled, dealt, in part, with quantum physics. Tell me about […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 9, 2016 -
TIFF 2016: Five Questions for The Levelling Director Hope Dickson Leach
In 2007, Hope Dickson Leach landed in the pages of Filmmaker Magazine as part of our annual 25 New Faces list. Her darkly comic brother-sister relationship drama, The Dawn Chorus — about siblings who recreate the plane crash that killed their parents — had been tearing up the festival circuit, and the Columbia Film School grad was developing a feature about a teenage girl who blames Princess Diana for her parents’ divorce. Dickson Leach had been working as an assistant for Todd Solondz on his film Palindromes, and her work was occasionally thought of as having the same satiric stripe. […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 8, 2016 -
Ten Films Not to Overlook at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival kicks off today, and I’m flying up this weekend for what is probably my 20th or so trip. Managing Editor Vadim Rizov arrived yesterday, and he’s already posted his first Critic’s Notebook, a “Zero Edition” in that it surveys four Toronto selections that have premiered elsewhere. As for me, I’ll continue my tradition of forgoing the traditional curtain raiser, focusing instead on ten or so films, mostly premiering American independents, that either I have a strong feeling that you shouldn’t miss or else have some element — director, cast or simply catalog write-up — that […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 8, 2016 -
Missy Mazzoli, Royce Vavrek, and James Darrah On Their Opera Adaptation of Lars von Trier’s Breaking the Waves
Lars von Trier’s fantastically wrenching 1996 film Breaking the Waves has been adapted into a new opera by composer Missy Mazzoli, librettist Royce Vavrek and director James Darrah. Excerpts from the opera will be performed this coming Monday, September 12, at the Guggenheim Museum and then the opera itself will officially premiere in an Opera Philadelphia production in Philadelphia from Thursday, September 22 through Saturday, October 1. At I Care if You Listen, Mazzoli and Vavrek discussed their adaptation. From Vavrek: I have loved von Trier’s film since I first saw it at the age of fourteen. I can remember […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 6, 2016 -
Five Questions about Essay Films and Digital Distribution for The Royal Road Director Jenni Olson
Available today on DVD and digital platforms, Jenni Olson’s The Royal Road is a beautifully crafted essay film that ruminates on several histories — the Spanish Colonization of California, film history and, through voiceover monologue, the director’s own personal story — all set against elegantly composed (in 4:3 16mm) landscape shots captured along the El Camino Real. Olson’s form here recalls the durational cinema of James Benning even as she brings in a wealth of information and references through her audio track, including, at one point, the words of playwright Tony Kushner, who offers a critique of the kind of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 6, 2016 -
Watch: Spike Jonze’s Amazing, Four-Minute Kenzo Perfume Ad
Whether the performer is Bjork or Christopher Walken or even himself, Spike Jonze has committed some amazing dance scenes to film. Add one more to his impressive choreographic filmography with this brand-new Kenzo perfume commercial. To the beat of “Mutant Brain,” composed by Jonze’s brother, Sam Spiegel, actress and dancer Margaret Qualley escapes the suffocating drone of some kind of charity event by cutting loose in the conference hall’s surrounding hallways, staircases and balconies. The dance was choreographed by Ryan Heffington, known for his work with Sia and Maddie Ziegler.
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 29, 2016 -
Trailer Watch: Borbetomagus Documentary A Pollock of Sound
Well into their fourth decade, experimental music trio Borbetomagus remain for the musically adventurous an ear-blistering and essential listening experience. With saxophonists Don Dietrich and Jim Sauter in New York and guitarist Donald Miller in New Orleans, that experience is one caught live on one of the band’s European tours or occasional U.S. one-offs and mini tours. But now moviegoers will have a chance to take in some of Borbetomagus’s impact with A Pollock of Sound, Jef Mertens’s documentary about the band. With commentary from, among others, writer Byron Coley and Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore, the documentary should place […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 28, 2016 -
Music Video: Emily Wells’ “Pack of Nobodies,” Directed by Ben Foster
With five films in theaters this year, including specialty hit Hell or High Water, as well as a turn in the St. Anne’s production of A Streetcar Named Desire, actor Ben Foster is having what’s known as a moment. Now, add one other credit to his enviable run: his directorial debut with a music video for singer Emily Wells, “Pack of Nobodies.” And whereas most music videos feature performance and maybe one narrative storyline, Foster shoots Wells singing as well as five sets of actors in an interlocking series of emotional narratives. From the music video’s press release: The music […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 26, 2016 -
Blumhouse Picks David Lynch’s 10 Scariest Moments
Uncanny, unsettling, disturbing, surreal — David Lynch’s work summons up no shortage of adjectives. But one that gets applied surprisingly rarely is scary. But precisely because of its inflection of horror with the qualities listed above, Lynch’s films can be terrifying in a much deeper way than your normal, well-executed jump-scare thriller. The folks at Blumhouse certainly know horror, and this week site contributor Gregory Burkart posted a nicely curated list of annotated clips speaking to Lynch’s ability to scare, particularly nailing a couple that have long haunted this Lynch fan. The first is from Eraserhead, the “ooh, you are […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 25, 2016 -
“I Think Drama is Often More Interesting if it Springs from Love Instead of Hate or Anger”: Writer/Director Andrew Ahn on Spa Night
Fusing the eroticism of an underground cruising culture with surprisingly heartfelt family drama, Spa Night is the debut feature of Korean-American CalArts graduate Andrew Ahn. Developed at the Sundance Screenwriters Lab, the Film Independent Screenwriters Lab and the Film Independent Directing Lab, the film follows up Ahn’s well-received 2012 short, Dol, which also addresses coming-out within a Korean-American community. In Spa Night, Joe Seo plays David, a gay 18-year-old who hasn’t told his parents he’s gay. Their struggles with their own family business create pressure on him just as he’s drawn to explore his sexuality after discovering a gay hookup […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 18, 2016
