Authors — Sean Malin
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Strangers On This Road We Are On: Mia Lidofsky On Her Facebook Watch Series
Mia Lidofsky is the creator and executive producer of Strangers, a strikingly profound seven-episode series now in its first season on an intriguing new platform, Facebook Watch. Lidofsky is a former assistant to her series executive producer Jesse Peretz (director of The Chateau and My Idiot Brother and a producer on Girls), and an associate producer of People Places Things and Tig. In 2015, Lidofsky was selected for the AFI Conservatory Directing Workshop for Women, where she created the series pilot. The director and co-director of several episodes of the first season (along with partner/filmmaker Celia Rowlson-Hall, a 25 New […]
by Sean Malin on Oct 2, 2017 -
Something Sinister
As the industry and media have increasingly placed a spotlight on the filmic achievements of female directors, the recent rush of celebrated genre films masterminded by women — Julia Ducournau’s Raw, Alice Lowe’s Prevenge, Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook and Karyn Kusama’s The Invitation, among them — has been cited as a welcome phenomenon, but it’s not an altogether new one. A network of female-driven genre film festivals that celebrate the activities and influence of women in the genre cinema community have been running for, in some cases, decades. Filmmaker and programmer Briony Kidd says, drily, “The idea that it might […]
by Sean Malin on Jun 16, 2017 -
Creative Fraternity: Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio on their SXSW Doc, May It Last: A Portrait of the Avett Brothers
Two decades of writing, producing, and finally directing some of the most commercially and critically successful films in the world have given Judd Apatow enough cachet to make nearly anything. After his directorial debut, The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005), took in more than $175 million in domestic gross revenue, his Apatow Productions produced an ongoing string of gargantuan hits, including Knocked Up (2007), Superbad (2007), Bridesmaids (2011) and Trainwreck (2015). But it is only within the last three years that Apatow has moved into a seemingly unlikely genre: documentary film. Last year saw his first nonfiction work as co-director with Michael […]
by Sean Malin on Mar 15, 2017 -
The Best Short Films on Television in 2016
At the start of this year, I opened an account with Letterboxd, a social platform that allows you to keep track of the films you watch. I work as a critic and edit a criticism website, so readers and subscribers often write me asking about what I have seen, especially when I do not publish my sentiments about a major film on any outlet. As of mid-December, I have listed about 200 movies (and a few limited series, including Netflix’s Easy and the ESPN sensation OJ: Made in America) as “watched” since I saw Darius Clark Monroe’s brilliant short film, […]
by Sean Malin on Dec 20, 2016 -
In Austin, Building Community While Waiting for Festival Acceptance — or Rejection — Letters
Many of our filmmaker colleagues are at this very moment hoping to learn when they will screen their new projects to audiences for the first time. Come January, the semi-official season of festivals kicks off with the Sundance Film Festival and International Film Festival Rotterdam, both in late January; followed immediately by Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin in early February; and in March, the South by Southwest Festival. This past week, those admitted to Sundance were notified after a panicky period of several months, and we’ll learn collectively later today which movies the official lineup includes. Regardless of the real path these […]
by Sean Malin on Nov 30, 2016 -
There’s a Critic On Set!
In the nearly ten years I have worked as a film critic and journalist, the sources and stability of my income have severely varied. Freelance movie reviewing for multimedia outlets, like The Rotten Tomatoes Show on the now-defunct Current TV, or Medium Rare TV in San Francisco, kept me afloat through film school. Then in Sydney, Australia, internships in advertising and radio paid well enough for me to start and support a boutique film blog, CineMalin: Film Commentary and Criticism. But in Austin, Texas, where I moved for graduate school some years ago, employment options for professional film writers are […]
by Sean Malin on Oct 20, 2016
