Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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Nostalgia For The Light — A Hammer to Nail Review
(Nostalgia For The Light is now available on DVD and Blu-ray thanks to Icarus Films. It opened theatrically in New York City on March 18, 2011. Visit the film’s official page at the distributor’s site to learn more.) Writing about masterpieces is always difficult, yet in the case of Patricio Guzman’s Nostalgia For The Light, it’s almost crippling. On the one hand, there is enough information and emotion contained within this film’s 90 minutes to justify several thick, glowing texts of appreciation. It’s not merely that Guzman guides us on a journey that tackles just about every grand issue known […]
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NICOLAS WINDING REFN NARRATES A SCENE FROM “DRIVE”
We here at Filmmaker haven’t been able to stop talking about Drive since we saw it a few months ago. Nicolas Winding Refn‘s first foray into the mainstream is a fresh take on the crime thriller with an amazing ’80s electronica score and just enough violence and gore to settle the appetite of those who loved Bronson and Valhalla Rising. Over at the New York Times, Mekado Murphy produces this excellent video piece narrated by Refn that breaks down one of the getaway scenes in Drive. Want more Refn talking about Drive? Check out our interview with the Danish director. […]
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Francis Ford Coppola Talks to Toronto at TIFF
Last Sunday, a sold-out audience awarded Francis Ford Coppola a standing ovation when he strolled into the 548-seat Cinema 1 at TIFF’s Bell Lightbox, the new multiplex at the center of the world’s largest film festival after Cannes. To the adoring audience, Coppola smiled warmly and cracked, “I’m very embarrassed I left my black shoes on the plane,” as he sat down at center stage in tan shoes and a dark suit with TIFF Festival Director Cameron Bailey. This event was a rare 85-minute chat directly with his audience and enjoyed all the hype of a red-carpet premiere. In fact, […]
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IFC BUYS LYNN SHELTON’S “YOUR SISTER’S SISTER”
indieWIRE reports that IFC Films has bought Lynn Shelton‘s You Sister’s Sister. The film, which stars Emily Blunt, Rosemarie DeWitt, Mark Duplass and Mike Birbiglia, premiered this week at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film follows Jack (Duplass), who still reeling over the death of his brother a year earlier, gets a suggestion from Iris (Blunt), his best friend and dead brother’s ex, that they take a trip to his father’s cabin to get his bearings. And there he’s unexpectedly confronted by Hannah (DeWitt), Iris’ sister. IFC plans to release the film in 2012. Read our interview with Lynn […]
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JAMES FRANCO & GUS VAN SANT ON “MEMORIES OF IDAHO”
One of the free programs at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival that caught our eye was James Franco and Gus Van Sant‘s installation, Memories of Idaho, which acts as a meditation on Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho and its lead actor River Phoenix. Here’s a discussion Franco and Van Sant had this past weekend with Noah Cowan at the Bell Lightbox about Memories of Idaho. If you’re in Toronto the installation will be at the Lightbox until Sept. 18. Here’s more about it from the TIFF release: In 1991, Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho and its […]
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OPENING NIGHT FILM & PANELISTS CHOSEN FOR FILM INDEPENDENT FORUM
Drake Doremus‘ Sundance Grand Prize winner Like Crazy will be the opening night film for the 7th annual Film Independent Forum, according to the non-profit. Taking place Oct. 21-23 at the Director Guild of America in L.A., Like Crazy (which Paramount Vantage opens on Oct. 28) will kick off the the three-day forum for emerging and established independent filmmakers that covers production, distribution, documentary and new media. Speakers for the 2011 Film Independent Forum include: Sara Bernstein, HBO Documentary Films Laura Bickford, producer, Duplicity, Che Josh Braun, Submarine Lisa Callif, Donaldson & Callif, LLP Juan Devis, KCET Public Media Arthur […]
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SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL U.S.A. THEATERS ANNOUNCED
In 2010 the Sundance Institute began Sundance Film Festival U.S.A. where a handful of films from that year’s fest screened in select theaters nationwide on one day during the festival. Today Sundance announced the theaters that will take part in the 2012 edition on Jan. 26. The cities and theaters participating are: –Ann Arbor, MI – The Michigan Theatre –Boston, MA – Coolidge Corner Theatre –Brooklyn, NY – BAM –Chicago, IL – Music Box Theatre –Houston, TX – Sundance Cinemas Houston –Nashville, TN – Belcourt Theatre –Orlando, FL – Enzian Theater –San Francisco, CA – Sundance Kabuki Cinemas –Tucson, AZ […]
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FAMILIAR PLEASURES AT TORONTO: “YOU’RE NEXT” AND “SLEEPLESS NIGHT”
When you go to a film festival, you’re hoping for the new — films with a radical cinematic language, or content you’ve never seen before. A film that might have provided that to me at the Toronto International Film Festival has proven elusive. (I missed, for example, Steve McQueen’s Shame — the only oversold press and industry screening I’ve encountered so far.) But sometimes in your quest for new sensations you can be gobsmacked by the familiar, especially when it’s done very, very well. Indeed, the two most satisfying films I’ve seen so far at the festival are straight-up and […]
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The Blue Velvet Project, #17
Second #799, 13:19 “Jeffrey can connect different worlds,” David Lynch has said. “He can look into Sandy’s world, he can look into Dorothy’s world, he can get into Frank’s world.” The secret subtext to this scene is Life Begins for Andy Hardy (1941), starring Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, number 11 in the movie series, where Andy learns that adult life is dark and impure and trip-wired with temptation and so struggles mightily to gear-shift his life into reverse. Andy, in New York, away from his future wife Betsy Booth (Judy Garland), is tempted by the “wolfess” Jennifer Hicks (Patricia […]
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TORONTO: WOMEN IN CHAINS
I heard a woman complaining in the women’s bathroom after Trishna. “But she just did what he said for two hours! It was like looking at a sphinx.” Later that day I found myself staring into the eyes of a thirteen-year-old Russia girl named Nadya as she dutifully trudged across the floor, on display in front of a group of Japanese fashion designers, close to paralyzed with alienation and helplessness. The latest by Michael Winterbottom, Trishna follows Freido Pinto as a very poor oldest daughter of a rural Indian family in an adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Victorian novel Tess […]
