This one is pretty straightforward: in honor of Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps, a supercut of 39 stairwells and their varied treatment across film history.
A surprise critical hit for Netflix, the twisty sci-fi/horror/thriller/etc. series Stranger Things has also gained a great deal of attention for its knowing, deliberate references to classics of ’70s and ’80s genre films. Ulysse Thevenon has put together this split-screen video essay, with Stranger Things on the left and its reference point on the right. For another thorough overview in written form, check out Scott Tobias at Vulture.
The ever-divisive Lars Von Trier is re-examined by Lewis Bond in this thorough video essay, which examines the way the Danish provocateur breaks down rules about the forms of cinema and then recombines them. Comes with lots of context and an amusing press conference clip of Willem Dafoe explaining on-set improv in Antichrist, where he didn’t even know if he’d be naked or not before starting a scene.
When a dog dies on screen it is universally portrayed as upsetting. The demise of a cat, meanwhile, is often used as a gag. Over at Fandor Keyframe, Jacob T. Swinney takes a look at the discrepancy in emotional response when an animal dies on screen.
Natalie Portman optioned the rights to Amos Oz’s bestselling memoir A Tale of Love and Darkness more than eight years ago. The Israeli-born actress reportedly met with the writer before adapting the screenplay herself. Now the film, written, directed, and starring Portman, gets a trailer (above). Shot by veteran Polish DP Slawomir Idzia, the Hebrew-language film tells the story of a troubled young mother, Fania Oz (Portman), as she raises young Amos (Amir Tessler) during the turbulent early days of the state of Israel. Focus World will release the film, which premiered at Cannes last year, in theaters on August […]
In The Seventh Fire, first-time director Jack Pettibone Riccobono follows the relationship between Rob, a gang leader on a Native American reservation, and his 17-year-old protégé, Kevin. Their connection becomes increasingly complicated when Rob heads to his fifth stint in jail. The film boasts an impressive set of executive producers in Terrence Malick, Natalie Portman and Chris Eyre. The Seventh Fire opens at the Metrograph in New York on July 22, and at the Laemmle Royal in Los Angeles on July 29. I talked to Riccobono about the difficulties of having a subject sentenced to jail time while shooting, presenting the […]
In his latest video essay, Jacob T. Swinney goes the extra mile to highlight the Coen brothers’ use of green in their films by desaturating everything that isn’t green to black and white (or at least as close as possible).
Following a heartfelt public campaign to convince Bruce Springsteen — or, perhaps, his battery of lawyers, publishers and master owners — to let him affordably release his short film, Thunder Road, director Jim Cummings prevailed. The result is that this excellent short, fully deserving of Sundance’s Best Short prize, is now screening online, for free. Cummings himself stars as a young man who decides to evoke The Boss while eulogizing his mom at her funeral, and the short is an example of a game-changing work that can make a career. (Cummings is on every agent’s radar now as an actor […]
For those of us who can’t make it out to the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, Adam Savage of Mythbusters gives us a brief tour of their Stanley Kubrick exhibition and reveals himself to be quite the Kubrick fan. Listen and watch as he views cameras from Barry Lyndon, costumes from 2001 and more.
For the film collective:unconscious, producer Dan Schoenbrun brought together five directors to film each others dreams. Lily Baldwin, Frances Bodomo, Daniel Patrick Carbone, Josephine Decker and Lauren Wolkstein contributed the short films making up this unusual feature, which premiered earlier this year at SXSW. collective:unconscious will be released online for free in partnership with BitTorrent Now on August 9. Concurrently, the film will open for a weeklong theatrical run at Brooklyn’s Made in NY Media Center by IFP starting Friday, August 5. Check out the wild trailer in the meantime.