Authors — Vadim Rizov
-
Revisiting Robin Williams in The Birdcage
I didn’t particularly intend (or want) to contribute to the inevitable avalanche of Robin Williams memorial writing online today, but I dropped by last night to visit a friend who’d just put on The Birdcage, which seemed the most appealing of the instant tribute options on Netflix Instant, so here we are. The bedrock tools powering Williams’ patented babble of voices were his formidable mimicry skills and the kind of physical dexterity great athletes have that makes the extremely difficult look very simple. His capacity to assimilate dozens of disconnected reference points and appearances was favorably comparable to Peter Sellers, […]
by Vadim Rizov on Aug 12, 2014 -
Watch: The First Footage Shot with the Blackmagic URSA
In his dispatches from NAB this year, Joey Daoud noted the 4K Blackmagic URSA as one of the conference’s big announcements: URSA’s ergonomics definitely look more like a traditional ENG camera than Blackmagic’s Production cameras, but it’s got some interesting twists. First off the flip out monitor is huge – about the size of an iPad. It’s also got two touchscreens on both sides of the camera to change settings, check image, pull up scopes and monitor levels. Today our friends at No Film School drew our attention to the first publicly shared footage shot with the URSA, though note […]
by Vadim Rizov on Aug 11, 2014 -
Watch: A 33-Minute Dustin Hoffman Interview from 1975
Today is Dustin Hoffman’s 77th birthday, as good an opportunity as any to post this 33-minute interview from 1975. Conducted with patient professionalism and minimal intrusiveness by veteran interviewer Michael Parkinson, the conversation starts with lots of long pauses and deadpan stares from Hoffman, who claims his real name is Clare Boothe Luce. Loosening up, he deadpans that his “first fantasy was to be a sex symbol film star,” discusses how he drew upon his high school fear of buying “male prophylactics” for the scene in The Graduate when Benjamin Braddock nervously checks into a hotel, recounts his first sexual […]
by Vadim Rizov on Aug 8, 2014 -
Commemorate Nixon Resignation Day with 1972’s Another Fine Mess
The obvious viewing choice to commemorate today being the 40th anniversary of Richard M. Nixon’s resignation would probably be either Oliver Stone’s expansive, feverishly/ludicrously compelling Nixon or Robert Altman’s more compact but no less outlandish Secret Honor, a paranoid monologue barked by an increasingly intoxicated Philip Baker Hall. In a more ironic vein, you might turn to Nixon’s own viewing choices: he watched 528 movies during his time in office. An apt favorite might be Patton, which he viewed three times prior to initiating the bombing of Cambodia (he told David Frost the movie didn’t influence his decision), or his […]
by Vadim Rizov on Aug 8, 2014 -
Stray Links, 8/4-8/7: Foreign Blockbusters, Film Preservation and Grazing Goats
Here’s this week’s links round-up of film reading and other assorted pieces: • “My main impression was that Batman looks like he’s wearing a small tank turret on his head. The fans were apparently pleased with what they saw.” Kristin Thompson’s level-headed report from Comic-Con has enthusiasm for Peter Jackson, less so for Zack Snyder, and a detailed overview of the on-the-ground administrative logistics of the fantasy gathering behemoth. • Roaring Currents, a war film/biopic of Admiral Yi, one of Korea’s most historically revered figures, is doing massive, record-setting business at home. The movie inflates the scope of Yi’s (still […]
by Vadim Rizov on Aug 7, 2014 -
Watch: Enrique Pacheco’s Tips for Time-Lapse Photography
Thanks to our friends at No Film School for pointing us to this useful video from DSLR workshop instructor Enrique Pacheco, which covers the basics of time-lapse photography in under three minutes. His useful tips include the importance of checking the position of the sun, moon and stars before shooting, why you should use an intervalometer, how to avoid flicker, and the importance of a simple ND filter.
by Vadim Rizov on Aug 6, 2014 -
Watch: David Lynch’s New Rouge Louboutin Commercial
David Lynch recently confirmed that he has no plans to direct a new film, but he’s still available for commercials. Rouge Louboutin is a $50 nail polish inspired by the Ballerina Ultima, the tallest shoe Louboutin has ever designed. You can see where this is going: the video is about as festishistic as it gets, filled out by CGI landscapes that look more like The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus than anything in Lynch’s filmography.
by Vadim Rizov on Aug 5, 2014 -
Rip Torn and the Indignities of Product Placement
Forty-ish years on, Rip Torn’s thoughts on the demeaning nature of product placement (as told to Studs Turkel in his classic oral history Working) remain relevant, with no contemporary amendation necessary: I remember doin’ a television show, oh, about ten years ago — I haven’t worked on network television for about eight years. I was smokin’ a cigar. I was playing a Quantrell-type character, so I had a long Cuban cigar. I got up on a horse and we had to charge down a hill. It was a long shot. The director and the producer both hollered, “Cut! Cut! What’re […]
by Vadim Rizov on Aug 4, 2014 -
Watch: Abel Ferrara Plays Guitar and Sings with Italian Band Statale 66
This one’s just for fun: while awaiting the premiere of Abel Ferrara’s keenly anticipated biopic Pasolini, you can watch the writer/director taking lead guitar and vocals with Italian band Statale 66 on a lightly bluesy number lyrically heavy on Louisiana swamps and other familiar images. Ferrara self-described himself as “a failed rock ‘n roller” in an interview earlier this year, where he recalled his youthful time with a band that “never made it out of the garage”: My uncle had a club and we were auditioning for him. When we got done he was like, “You wanna make money in […]
by Vadim Rizov on Aug 4, 2014 -
Watch: Walter Murch Talks Editing with Jon Favreau
“Cutting is not just something that we have to do because of the discontinuous nature of the way we shoot films,” Walter Murch muses in this clip from a recent conversation with Iron Man/Chef director Jon Favreau. “We actually, both as filmmakers and as audiences, like these sudden juxtapositions of concepts.” Editing, of course, is Murch’s beat — his livelihood and the subject of multiple books he’s both written and been interviewed for. A little overlap with past comments is to be expected, and his thoughts about understanding editing as what happens when you blink and your eye moves from […]
by Vadim Rizov on Aug 1, 2014
