Filmmaker Videos
-
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.
-
Red Band Trailer Watch: Sean Baker’s Tangerine
Sean Baker’s Tangerine went into Sundance with two secrets of sorts kept firmly under wraps. Festival materials noticeably left off that the film starred two transgender actresses and — the eventually headline grabbing news — that it was shot on an iPhone 5S. The first red band trailer gives you a square look at both starring components, as the added graphics and musical effects play its kitschy style to the hilt. An episodic comedy about a jilted prostitute on the hunt for her pimp, Tangerine is set for release by Magnolia on July 10.
-
Watch: Reinaldo Marcus Green’s Stop
A selection of this year’s Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals, Reinaldo Marcus Green’s Stop is now available online, courtesy of Conde Nast’s steaming platform The Scene. As intimated by the title, Green’s short is a very topical examination of stop and frisk policies, told over the course of one evening as a pair of friends are intercepted by the police on their way home, in a display of economical and emotionally weighty filmmaking. Check it out above.
-
Kickstarter: An Exclusive Clip from Laundry Day
Director Randy Mack is quoted in my “How to Find a Producer” article, discussing the production scene in his hometown, New Orleans. Now, he’s on Kickstarter raising funds for the completion of his dark comedy, Laundry Day. Set over the course of 24 hours in a New Orleans bar, the film is, says Mack, a something cross between Magnolia and Barfly. In an email, he writes, “Laundry Day is a feature-length dark comedy about a bar fight in a 24-hour bar/laundromat/night club between a musician, a gutter punk, a drug dealer, and a bartender. The nonlinear story explores the incident […]
-
Watch: David Lowery’s Pioneer
Technically speaking, not much happens in Pioneer, David Lowery’s 2011 short about a man who tells his son a bedtime story. The action is confined to one room as it cuts between the two actors, but the yarn spun by Will Oldham’s character, and the subtle inflections in the pair’s performance along with a textured sound design, make the film as charged as any meticulously choreographed exchange. Listen closely, and you can even discern some early seeds of Ain’t Them Bodies Saints in the mix.
-
Trailer Watch: Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens
It’s here, it’s unavoidable, and it won’t tell you much unless you want to see how Harrison Ford and Chewbacca are looking these days. It’s the second trailer for J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, which will open December 18, and it’s just fine.
-
Trailer Watch: Andrew Bujalski’s Results
Still one of my Sundance highlights, Andrew Bujalski’s Results is nearing theaters on May 29. An off-kilter, comedic take on the love triangle, Results concerns two trainers (Cobie Smulders and Guy Pearce) and their wealthy new client (Kevin Corrigan). You can check out my take from Sundance here, and Vadim Rizov will have an interview with Bujalski in the Spring issue.
-
Watch: Exclusive Clip from Garrett Bradley’s Below Dreams
As Tribeca gears up for this year’s edition, one of last year’s Viewpoints selections, Garrett Bradley’s Below Dreams, opens in New York and Los Angeles. In the exclusive clip above, Bradley follows one of the characters of her atmospheric tryptic, Jamaine, as he hitches a ride home from a friend. Bradley had the following to say about the conception of Jamaine: In following Jamaine’s story I had hoped to replace the public imagination around African American men with gold teeth, seen on street corners and stoops or in transit with a real presence that could be heard and not just seen. The role that […]
-
Watch: Eduardo Williams’ Remarkable Short Could See a Puma
Lincoln Center’s keenly anticipated “Art of the Real” series on boundary-pushing contemporary documentaries kicks off tonight with a shorts program which includes a new short film by Eduardo Williams. To whet your appetite, I highly recommend watching his remarkable 2011 short Could See a Puma, which appears to be his second film. I couldn’t possibly improve on the IMDB synopsis: “The accident leads a group of young boys from the high roofs of their neighborhood, passing through its destruction, to the deepest of the earth.” This is bold, formally adventurous filmmaking that really seems to be something new — if […]
-
Trailer Watch: Asghar Farhadi’s About Elly
A couple years ago, there was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal about the distribution trials behind Jonathan Levine’s first film, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, which changed hands four times before finally seeing a release seven years following its TIFF premiere. About Elly, Asghar Farhadi’s Silver Bear-winning precursor to A Separation, experienced a similar quagmire when its original distributor, Here Films, went out of business. Thankfully, some six years later, Cinema Guild has untangled the rights issues and is now distributing the film on its original 35mm print. Check out the trailer above.
