After doing a masterful job of getting the entire internet’s attention by simply deleting their entire social media presence, Radiohead dropped an honest-to-goodness new single and music video this morning. Chris Hopewell, who previously directed “There There” for the band, is behind this stop-motion clip (which bears traces of what appear to be 16mm scratches). In keeping with the song name “Burn the Witch,” the video draws on imagery from The Wicker Man and other manifestations of the “old, weird Britain.”
Hunt for the Wilderpeople, the latest film from Taika Waititi — the New Zealand director who brought us What We Do in the Shadows — premiered earlier this year at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. The Orchard picked up distribution rights at the festival and plans to release it in the US on June 24. In advance of the release, the coming-of-age adventure comedy gets a new trailer (above). Based on Barry Crump’s book Wild Pork and Watercress and adapted for the screen by Waititi, Hunt for the Wilderpeople tells the story of Ricky (Julian Dennison), an overweight city kid who gets a fresh start with […]
After 11-year-old Toni (newcomer Royalty Hightower) joins a dance group with older girls, the team begins to experience mysterious spasms. It’s a wholly original – if unlikely – premise for a film and, in the case of The Fits, it succeeds as a compelling meditation on coming-of-age. Written and directed by Anna Rose Holmer, one of Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces of Independent Film, The Fits premiered at the Venice Film Festival and also played Sundance earlier this year. It will hit theaters on June 3rd courtesy of Oscilloscope. Check out the intriguing trailer above.
Over at Fandor Keyframe, Scout Tafoya muses about what makes a great cinematographer. “None of us seems to quite have the same definition of great photography,” he intones. “It seems that none of us agree what a cinematographer is supposed to do, what their relationship is with the image, the camera itself.” He asked dozens of critics to select ten films that feature their version of ideal photography in order to see if there was any common ground among them. He then created a video essay (above) analyzing the films that received the most votes, including The Tree of Life, The […]
One of the highlights of this year’s on-stage conversations at the Tribeca Film Festival was this sit-down between Francis Ford Coppola and his unlikely interrogator Jay McInerney. For years now, Coppola has been kicking around the concept of a “live cinema,” which is tricky to define, but he gets down to brass tacks in this conversation, which lasts just under an hour.
Zach Prewitt rounds up his 20 best sci-fi movies of the century so far in this video essay. For more context (or just to see the list), click here for his accompanying essay (which also includes an explanation of why seemingly obvious contenders Gravity and Interstellar were excluded). Needless to say, if you want to go into these films totally blind, perhaps this is one to avoid.
New York’s Rooftop Films will kick off its 20th annual summer series on May 18 with a screening of Weiner, the winner of the Sundance Film Festival’s 2016 US documentary grand jury prize. Directed by Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg, Weiner will open in theaters May 20 and hit VOD on May 26 via Sundance Selects. As the trailer (above) shows, the documentary follows the now infamous former New York congressman on the 2013 mayoral campaign trail following a sexting scandal. In addition to Weiner, Rooftop Films will present the documentaries Don Juan and Life, Animated, as well as narrative titles Hunt for the Wilderpeople and White Girl. […]
A piece of HD footage shot in 1993 as test footage for the Japanese market has resurfaced on the internet. The effect is a little head-spinning: a recognizably of-another-time New York City, captured with the HD clarity of the present.
“As many viewers of Maya Deren‘s Meshes of the Afternoon and David Lynch‘s Mulholland Drive have recognized, there are many similarities between these two filmmakers,” writes Joel Bocko over at Fandor Keyframe. “An ordinary key is charged with dangerous supernatural power; characters multiply, bending space and time; an Angeleno atmosphere in which daydream becomes nightmare — these are just a few of Meshes‘ and Lynch’s common touchstones.” This video finds the visual connections between Lynch’s work from Twin Peaks onwards and Deren’s best-known short.
Jacob T. Swinney’s latest supercut 100 Years/100 Shots, a compilation of the most iconic shots from some of the most memorable films of the past 100 years, screened as part of Tribeca N.O.W. at the Tribeca Film Festival. “While many of these shots are the most recognizable in film history, others are equally iconic in their own right,” Swinney explains in the video’s description on Vimeo. “For example, some shots pioneered a style or defined a genre, while others tested the boundaries of censorship and filmgoer expectations. If anything, I want this video to be a reminder as to why we all love cinema so […]