Over at her Risky Business blog, Ann Thompson writes about the Academy ruling that producers Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa of Bona Fide Films will not be eligible to accept the Oscar if their film Little Miss Sunshine wins Best Picture. This seems to deeply suck. They are the guys who developed the material early on, championed the directors and brought it to financiers Big Beach. But because of the Academy’s “rule of three,” they have been nixed from eligiblity in favor of Mark Turtletaub, David Friendly and Peter Saraf. I’m not saying that any of the other producers should […]
Over at the Sundance 2007 main page, Bob Fisher talks with d.p. Amy Vincent about Black Snake Moan.
As you can tell from my post below, I didn’t like the Sundacnce Competition film Grace is Gone. At the time, I thought I was in the minority but in the last few days a number of reviews and criticisms have come out faulting the film for its disingenuously “even-handed” use of the Iraq war to kickstart what is ultimately a conventional indie film road movie. The weird thing about the movie is that star John Cusack has been a vocal opponent of the war, and my guess is that its makers are also sensitive anti-war folk. (I don’t know […]
BLACK SNAKE MOAN. This article is part of Filmmaker’s Sundance 2007 Special Coverage. In Black Snake Moan Christina Ricci plays Rae, a nymphomaniac wracked by vivid memories and dreams of being sexually abused during her childhood. Also in Craig Brewer’s follow-up to his Sundance-hit Hustle and Flow is Samuel L. Jackson, who plays Lazarus, a God-fearing farmer who picks at his guitar, sings blues songs about sin, and, after a chance encounter, attempts to oversee Rae’s salvation. Some filmmakers might have taken the success they had with a film like Hustle and Flow and hightailed it straight to the world […]
PADRE NUESTRO. This article is part of Filmmaker’s Sundance 2007 Special Coverage. Padre Nuestro exemplifies the modern, international face of American independent cinema: the first-time director, Christopher Zalla, was born in Kenya, raised overseas (and is fluent in Spanish), schooled at Columbia, and created a stylish thriller that begins in Mexico and winds up in New York City. A smart film that — one could argue — uses its border-hopping protagonist’s stolen identity as a metaphor for globalization, Padre Nuestro will certainly spark debate at Sundance. Padre Nuestro screens at Sundance in dramatic competition. Can you say a little bit […]
Two more interviews by James Ponsoldt up on our Sundance home page. David Kaplan talks about his animated The Year of the Fish. And: Chris Zalla discusses his Padre Nuestro.
Mike White’s comedy The Year of the Dog, which premiered in Sundance this week in the Premieres section, shares a premise with the similarly titled Joan Didion memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking. That is, when one is grieving, one experiences a kind of insanity, the “magical thinking” of Didion’s title. One’s relationship to the rest of society as well as one’s self is occluded by the memory of the deceased. Of course, Didion’s departed was her husband, the novelist John Gregory Dunne. It’s typical of White’s unsettling wit that the protagonist of his film – a retiring and unmarried […]
I was saddened to see over at Pitchfork Media that Uwe Nettelbeck, one of the founders of the great German art rock group Faust has died. Here’s Pitchfork: Nettelbeck, a producer and one-time music journalist, founded Faust in Wümme, Germany in 1971. The group was one of Virgin Records’ first signings and went on to record several highly-influential albums over the next few years, including the seminal Faust and Faust IV, before disbanding in 1975. Several of the original members have since regrouped under the Faust banner to tour and record. No further details of Nettelbeck’s death are known at […]
YEAR OF THE FISH. This article is part of Filmmaker’s Sundance 2007 Special Coverage. A veteran of Sundance with his short films — including the cryptic, menacing fairy tales, Little Red Riding Hood (starring Christina Ricci and Quentin Crisp!), Little Suck-A-Thumb, and The Frog King — which are regularly shown to film students as examples of exemplary short-form filmmaking, David Kaplan returns to the festival with his first feature, Year of the Fish. At once a singular New York immigrant story, as well as a re-imagining of the fairy tale (Kaplan’s real-world, adult conception of children’s stories can bring to […]
THE SIGNAL. This article is part of Filmmaker’s Sundance 2007 Special Coverage. Making a feature film, independent or otherwise, isn’t easy (understatement of the century). The seemingly impossible hurdle of gaining financing — not to mention the tiny details of actually executing the film and then seeking distribution — seem Herculean enough to scare off most would-be filmmakers. Now imagine directing a feature film with two other directors. Suicidal, right? Well, that’s exactly what three of Atlanta’s finest — Dan Bush, David Bruckner, and Jacob Gentry — did. The ballsy trio arrives at Sundance with their terrifying horror film, The […]