Authors — Vadim Rizov
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“I Don’t Ever Want to Cheat on a Woman Again”: Actor Michael Murphy on An Unmarried Woman, Altman and The American Experience
Actor Michael Murphy is perhaps best-known for his collaborations with Robert Altman, which practically spanned the director’s entire career. But, for a brief moment, he wasn’t known primarily for his turn as a political organizer in Nashville or other Altman roles, but for playing an adulterer. In two consecutive films — An Unmarried Woman and Manhattan — Murphy was the archetypal heel of the moment. That time has passed; Murphy is now often called upon to playspoliticians, judges and ambassadors, parts which take advantage of his patrician/WASP-esque appearance: he looks like someone to the establishment manor born. Woman‘s place in […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jun 22, 2015 -
Spy: The Third Feature by Paul Feig, Our George Cukor
During his career, George Cukor was often referred to as a “women’s director” for his facility with foregrounded female performers: Katharine Hepburn in no less than 10 collaborations, Jean Simmons in The Actress, the women in The Women. By that logic, Paul Feig is our Cukor: beginning with Bridesmaids (since we’ve confined I Am David and Unaccompanied Minors to the rubble of collective amnesia), he’s established himself as a specialist in female-led comedy, following up with The Heat and now Spy. In interviews prior to Bridesmaids‘ release, he mused that the film better not bomb or he’d have messed it up for women in comedy for decades. If none […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jun 4, 2015 -
The Five Cardinal Virtues of Tu dors Nicole
Upon its Cannes premiere and ever since, Stéphane Lafleur’s Tu dors Nicole (You’re Sleeping Nicole) was instantly and endlessly pegged as the Québécois equivalent of Frances Ha. Understandable, given that it’s a black-and-white portrait of two close girlfriends’ extended falling-out as one conspicuously matures while the other flounders aimlessly. Still, Nicole‘s tempered acridness and emphasis on the annoyances of minimum-wage jobs taken upon reluctant entrance to the working world makes Ghost World a closer point of reference. Despite taking place at a post-undergrad time in its characters’ lives, the vibe is similarly very high school (minus the unpleasantness and pain that can come with that terrain): […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jun 1, 2015 -
Aloha/Defending Cameron Crowe
If you’re a dedicated Cameron Crowe fan, you may have been forced to spend part of the last 15 years repeatedly explaining why. Since Almost Famous, Crowe’s non-documentary feature output has included two movies instantly/violently rejected by both critics and the public (Vanilla Sky, Elizabethtown) and one semi-soft family film that got a parody Twitter account and endless derision months before release solely due to the admittedly risible title We Bought a Zoo. His latest, Aloha, also has a dumb title and arrives savaged by Amy Pascal in emails made public as part of the Sony hack and ominously unscreened for press until the week […]
by Vadim Rizov on May 28, 2015 -
Watch: Bill Murray on David Letterman’s First NBC Show, 1982
Given the overwhelming surplus of articles about David Letterman’s retirement, career and final show tonight, there barely needs to be anything said here. Bill Murray was the guest on last night’s penultimate show, which is fitting, as he was the first guest on Letterman’s first NBC show in 1982. They antagonized each other, watched a panda video and then Murray performed Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical,” which is basically everything you need for good television.
by Vadim Rizov on May 20, 2015 -
Trailer Watch: Arabian Nights, The Three-Part, Six-Hour Follow-Up to Tabu
Miguel Gomes — the wildly talented director of Tabu and Our Beloved Month of August — will be premiering his new film at Cannes. Technically, Arabian Nights might be considered three separate films, since it’s six hours long and in three volumes. As The New York Times‘ Rachel Donadio explained in a fine profile last year, the film examines the Portuguese recession and its fallout on citizens through a dozen stories. The trailer is lively.
by Vadim Rizov on May 12, 2015 -
Khalik Allah and Kevin B. Lee on Online Platforms vs. Festival Programming
Kevin B. Lee’s Transformers: The Premake and Khalik Allah’s Field Niggas are radically different films. Lee assembles footage of the making of Transformers: Age of Extinction and related materials to delve into how Michael Bay’s hyper-blockbuster took over cities all over the globe and made deals with their governments to save money; Allah’s film is an hour-long piece of street portraiture from 125th and Park in Harlem, giving voice to the routinely marginalized. What they have in common is that they both initially launched online before receiving festival play. Lee’s film is still online, while Allah has pulled his movie […]
by Vadim Rizov on May 12, 2015 -
Watch: Mel Gibson and George Miller Talk Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, 1985
Given how much public perception of Mel Gibson has shifted in the last 30 years, this 1985 interview with the star and director George Miller is kind of a trip. Sitting down together to discuss/promote Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, the duo are first asked to describe each other’s strengths. Gibson says Miller is so focused you could drive nails through his feet while he was working and he wouldn’t notice; for his part, the director says Mad Mel is an actor, not just a “personality.” It’s a relaxed, collegial sitdown. Other highlights: Gibson on getting into a harness and discussing the finer […]
by Vadim Rizov on May 7, 2015 -
Watch: Insanely Physical Stunts and On-Set Footage of Mad Max: Fury Road
Many on-set, behind the scenes videos alternate extremely mundane footage of the business of getting coverage with actors rotely reciting how amazing and wonderful everybody involved in this production is. Not so this casually intense assemblage of work on Mad Max: Fury Road, which begins with a car flipping over. What follows is not quite as routinely life-threatening, but it’s still incredibly physical filmmaking. $150 million, it seems, will buy you the budget to stand in the desert, sling a camera around on a very flexible boom, and have some guys swing around on poles.
by Vadim Rizov on May 5, 2015 -
“Addressing Their Wounds is a Revolution”: Laurent Bécue-Renard on Of Men and War
Laurent Bécue-Renard’s Of Men and War is an immersive look at group therapy conducted at a California residential facility for young soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Their stories are, predictably, horrific — a man trying to catch a fellow soldier’s brain as it fell out is typical — and it’s extremely difficult for others to understand what they’re experienced. Veterans talk amongst themselves in often grueling sessions, storming out for a smoke when it becomes too much. One man says he only gets three questions from civilians: did you kill someone, why did you kill them, and if there was any way not to kill […]
by Vadim Rizov on May 4, 2015
