Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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Director Aurora Guerrero on Mosquita Y Mari
Though Aurora Guerrero made Filmmaker magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film” list in 2006, the director behind this year’s Sundance-premiering, award-winning Mosquita y Mari – which most recently took both Outstanding First U.S. Dramatic Feature Film, as well as Outstanding Actress in a U.S. Dramatic Feature Film for its lead Fenessa Pineda, at Outfest – was a welcome new face to me when I caught the film earlier this year. A tale of two Chicanas coming of age in working-class L.A., Guerrero’s feature debut is breathtaking in its understatement, less your typical “queer flick” than a continuation of the […]
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A BAD CAREER MOVE: REMEMBERING GORE VIDAL, 1925 – 2012
Sometimes the most upsetting news comes in twos. It was only a few years ago that, in what was surely the toughest one-two punch to cinephiles in modern history, we lost Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni on successive days. Now, it’s happened again: two days after Chris Marker’s passing, Gore Vidal has died. A prolific screenwriter (he was such a good script doctor that, at one point in the 1950s, MGM had him on their weekly payroll) and sometimes-actor (screen appearances included roles in Gattaca and Bob Roberts), his contributions to the film world were notable (Caligula aside – yikes!). […]
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The Blue Velvet Project: Confession
Confession With just 9 posts to go, I herein and forthwith offer my final confession. As author of The Blue Velvet Project—which owes a moral debt to the Dogme 95 movement, whose practice of constraint was an inspiration—I feel obligated to make this public statement of confession regarding the rigors of the project. This is done in the spirit of Thomas Vinterberg’s confession regarding his film The Celebration. In post #143, I confess to knowing well in advance that I would not write much at all about the frame in question. I had been saving the William James quote for […]
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Wong Fu Productions on Why Filmmakers Should Embrace YouTube
Our friends at the National Film Society sent over this video interview with the filmmakers who go by the name of Wong Fu Productions. If you don’t know them, what’s wrong with you? They have 1.2 million subscribers and over 190 million views. Here, they give us tips on audience building and navigating the waters of the video sharing giant.
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DRUNK PODCASTING AT CREATIVE CAPITAL
The above scene at the Creative Capital retreat this weekend brought back a lot of memories. The arts funding organization’s semi-annual retreat was held at Williams College in Williamstown Massachusetts, and on the final evening the outdoor barbecue got drizzled out. So, it was moved indoors, and afterwards the cafeteria space became a party space, where artist grantees and consultants danced to Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love.” A level up, Cinemad’s Mike Plante set up his microphones and recorded a podcast. The ’80s music, the party, and radio — it was like one of my own evenings in college, where I’d […]
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SLAVOJ ZIZEK ON “MELANCHOLIA”
Slavoj Zizek views Melancholia as a profoundly optimistic film. (I agree.)
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Filmmakers Also Die: Remembering Chris Marker
In Sans Soleil, a cine-essay from 1983 that feels like it’s from 2083 (and remains the paragon of the form), the narrator speaks of an idea for a film. This imaginary film would be about a man on our planet, from the year 4001 AD, who comes back in time to our era and is moved by the realization that in our time, people are capable of forgetting. You see, this time-traveler comes from a future where forgetting is impossible, where humans have figured out how to condition the brain to remember everything. In this future society, memories hold none […]
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IN PRODUCTION: “PROXY,” “THE BUTLER,” “SOMEONE MARRY BARRY” and “THE SPECTACULAR NOW”
“In Production” is a regular column which focuses on notable independent films that are currently shooting. Shooting from mid-July in Eastern Indiana, Scalene director Zack Parker’s Proxy is a suspense thriller about Esther (Alexia Rasmussen), a pregnant woman who joins a support group after being attacked one night and strikes up a dysfunctional relationship with a fellow victim (Alexa Havins). Parker’s last feature Scalene, which is set for release on Blu-ray, DVD and VOD on July 31st, received glowing reviews for its clever use of the fractured narrative – potentially one of the most over-used cinematic devices of the past three decades. Parker has […]
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The Blue Velvet Project, #145
Second #6862, 114:22 Jeffrey, taking the gun from the Yellow Man’s jacket pocket, as Frank is in the bedroom, shooting. In addition to Jeffrey and the Yellow Man, there is the camera, or at least its presence, invisible in accordance with classical cinema’s codes, which, even after the deconstructive storms of postmodernism, are themselves invisible, having been absorbed into the very technologies that make film possible. In Blue Velvet, for the most part, the camera does not call attention to itself; most of its movement is motivated, aligned with, and justified by corresponding movements in the film’s narrative. And yet […]
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Movie Business Shrinking
A curious occurrence took place in the wake of the Aurora, CO, mass killing on the opening night screening of the latest Batman release, The Dark Knight Rises. Revenue from opening weekend ticket sales was $211.8 million, slightly less than the $222.2 million for The Dark Knight. This was the highest box office gross for a conventional 2D movie for 2012. While the large turnout for the movie can be linked to a response to the shootings as much as the appeal of the movie, the numbers hide a darker truth. The movie business is shrinking. Ticket sales and DVD […]
