Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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4:44 Last Day on Earth — A Hammer to Nail Review
(Abel Ferrara’s 4:44 Last Day on Earth premiered at the 68th Venice Film Festival. It’s being released theatrically by IFC Films on March 23, 2012.) A number of recent films have collectively suggested that the more global, or even cosmic, the crisis, the more intimate the response. This was done most recently in Perfect Sense but also last summer’s Another Earth and, to a lesser extent, The Tree of Life, about which it might be more accurate to say that the cosmic is crafted from the intimate. (Melancholia breaks from this trend somewhat, and its cold remove is part of what makes it so disconcerting a film.) This art-house apocalypse continues in […]
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FIRST TEASER UNVEILED FOR DAVID CRONENBERG’S “COSMOPOLIS”
Now that the film has come and gone, I seem to be in the minority of those who thought that David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Mind, with its viral take on the philosophy of psychology, was his most Cronenbergian film in years. But based on the just-released teaser, perhaps that crown may be more appropriately placed on his upcoming Don DeLillo adaptation, Cosmopolis. Even at only 30 seconds, many of them filled with title-cards, there’s a sense of brainy spectacle here that we haven’t seen in the director’s work in a while.
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ALBERT MAYSLES, JORGEN LETH & BLONDE REDHEAD TEAM FOR KICKSTARTER PROJECT
Filmmaker has its own curated page on the Kickstarter site, spotlighting projects worthy of your attention (and financial assistance). But I thought it would be a good idea to also flag up The Commentator, which I had previously been unaware of and is fast approaching its fundraising deadline. (At the time of writing, it has just under two days to reach its target but is still less than 50% funded). Here’s the description of the film from its Kickstarter page: In 1976 Danish filmmaker Jorgen Leth made the legendary sports and cycling film, A Sunday in Hell, about the Paris Roubaix cycling […]
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The Blue Velvet Project, #92
Second #4324, 72:04 Frank’s 1968 Dodge Charger with pop-up headlamps, stretching the screen horizontally as far as it will go. There are three in the front of the car, and three in the back including Jeffrey, who is riding bitch. They are tearing through the night, towards Ben’s, where, in an act of dark magic, Frank will literally disappear from the screen. But before that, there’s the journey that begins with a cut that takes us from the hallway of Dorothy’s apartment to the frame above, at second #4324. The shot breakdown over the next roughly 30 seconds proceeds like […]
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JAMIE STUART DISASSOCIATES SUNDANCE
For Jamie Stuart, Sundance 2012 was a schizophrenic affair. Find out why in this video he made while covering the festival for Cinelan’s Focus Forward initiative. Appearances by Filmmaker‘s founding publisher, Karol Martesko-Fenster, Filmmaker correspondent, d.p. and director David Leitner, Morgan Spurlock, Jessica Yu, Frank Langella and more. Sequelized from Focus Forward Films on Vimeo.
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A MAKER’S DOZEN: NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS
Don’t be fooled: Paranoia, alienation, and irrepressible ghosts of the past are some of the common threads among the features in the 41st edition of New Directors/New Films. No one could mistake it for a series of frothy comedies or unchallenging genre fare: feel-good is hardly an operative term. What is unmistakable is that, to my mind, it remains the finest, most original film festival in New York. These mostly first and second films from around the world are edgy but accessible, fresh but polished. A combination of fiction, docs, and animation, they are not intended to soothe but rather […]
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MUSIC VIDEO: SPIRITUALIZED’S “HEY JANE”
Directed by AG Rojas, the near 11-minute music video for Spiritualized’s “Hey Jane” is an epic day-in-the-life of a transsexual stripper raising two young children. It is NSFW with sexual and violent content.
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MEDIA CURRENT: ARE YOU BEING THROTTLED?
Do you watch movies via a wireless connection on your laptop, tablet, smartphone or even TV set? If so, have you received a love letter from your service provider informing you to either go on a digital data diet or plan to pay more to suck down more streaming 1s and 0s? If not, it will arrive shortly. The leading wireless companies are changing the usage and pricing models they have long used, shifting the industry from one with “unlimited” plans to “limited” deals. These new limited plans tier data downloads to the ability to pay. AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Virgin […]
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TOP 10 PITCHING TIPS FROM SCRIPT TO SCREEN
Following on from the Top 10 Screenwriting Tips from Script to Screen post, I thought I’d write a companion piece on pitching, as Saturday’s Script to Screen conference also featured “Pitch Intermission” sessions in which a panel of experts fielded pitches and then offered advice on how the screenwriters could hone their spiel. The industry figures giving their insider expertise were: Ron Simons, the producer of Gun Hill Road and Night Catches Us; Dana O’Keefe, a sales agent at Cinetic; Dia Sokol, a producer of both MTV reality shows and Mumblecore movies; and David Young, head writer at CollegeHumor.com. Below are […]
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The Blue Velvet Project, #91
Second #4277, 71:17 1. This is the first time that Frank, Dorothy, and Jeffrey appear together in the same frame. 2. “Oh, you’re from the neighborhood,” Frank says. “You’re a neighbor. Well what’s your name neighbor?” 3. The ratings for “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” peaked in 1985, the year before Blue Velvet was released. 4. It’s not only Frank’s eyes that terrify, but his voice, tinged with sarcasm, delivered in Dennis Hopper’s flat, Midwestern accent. And then, buried in the soundtrack, there’s a low, faint rumbling, like the sound of thunder arriving from hundreds of miles away, having crossed vast, empty […]
