Columns
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Back to One, Episode 107: Sidney Flanigan
She had never attempted acting before Eliza Hittman cast her in Never Rarely Sometimes Always, but Sidney Flanigan’s quietly devastating performance feels like a revelation, something truly miraculous. On this episode she talks about bravely stepping into the role, giving herself over to instinct, and dipping into the well of her own emotional life to power Autumn’s journey. Her’s is a heroic story of release and acceptance all actors can find inspiration in. Back To One can be found wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Stitcher. And if you’re enjoying what you are hearing, please […]
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Back to One, Episode 106: Talia Ryder
Talia Ryder gives a remarkable performance opposite Sidney Flanigan in her very first feature film, Eliza Hittman’s Never Rarely Sometimes Always. It’s the kind of subtle, assured, measured work you wouldn’t expect from a teenager. She talks about the benefits of getting vulnerable with Flanigan before shooting and how being deliriously tired actually came in handy when shooting all night in Port Authority. Plus she explains what’s up with that suitcase, and much more! Later this year you can see her in Steven Spielberg’s highly anticipated remake of West Side Story. Back To One can be found wherever you get […]
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From the Filmmaker Newsletter: When Do We All Go Back to Work?
Each Friday, Filmmaker sends out a free newsletter containing an original Editor’s Letter as well as news of film openings, events, etc. (the latter mostly streaming and online, these days). The Editor’s Letters usually aren’t posted online, but here’s the April 17 edition, which links to a Deadline piece and considers the question everyone in film production is asking at the moment. If you’d like to receive the Filmmaker newsletter, you can subscribe for free here. — SM When do we all go back to work? While provisional answers to this question are suggested every day in the newspapers and […]
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“What’s Happening in the Vertical Version?” Mark Pellington on Quibi Series/Film Survive
Director Mark Pellington has spent a great deal of his career addressing the complexities of grief, memory and reconciliation, but with his new film Survive he explores these themes on a larger canvas than ever before, placing his preoccupations in the context of an adventure tale that is sweeping in its physical scale yet every bit as emotionally penetrating as more intimate Pellington character studies like Nostalgia and I Melt with You. Richard Abate and Jeremy Ungar’s script tells the story of Jane (Sophie Turner), a traumatized young woman who plans to commit suicide in the bathroom of a plane […]
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“As a Pilot Director, You Must Load the Toolbox for All the Directors that Come After You”: Director Michael Robin on All Rise
The courtroom drama has been a staple of network television since Perry Mason and never really gone away, which makes the CBS series All Rise’s achievement of breathing new life into the genre truly impressive and exciting. An ensemble drama anchored by Simone Missick as a young judge out to challenge conventional wisdom, All Rise deftly explores complex ethical questions relating to race, class, gender and power via a sprawling examination of the lawyers, judges, clerks, cops, and defendants whose lives intersect in an LA courthouse. Following Jean Renoir’s dictum that everyone has their reasons, series creator Greg Spottiswood and […]
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Almodovar’s Lockdown, J.G. Ballard’s World, Aphex Twin, Hal Willner and Spin-Off Podcasts: 4/8/2020 Links
Are you looking for a trusted, socially-distanced source to provide you with semi-regular cultural recommendation links during this time of pandemic? Okay, well, I’m not really either. My inbox too is full of check-ins and missives from journalists and curators seeking to maintain a digital relationship by supplying Netflix watchlists and the like during this awful interregnum. So consider these posts as much an activity for me as you as I revive this column by highlighting a few things that may provide some degree of interest, empathy or wisdom. Some things to shift your attention away from the cable news […]
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Back to One, Episode 105: Hannah Marks
Mega-talented multi-hyphenate Hannah Marks started writing Banana Split when she was still a teenager. It was loosely based on her real life. She rewrote it with her writing partner Joey Power as her acting credits piled up in stuff like The Runaways, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. Then, after she co-directed her first feature (with Power), After Everything, she was able to get Banana Split made with herself in the staring role, directed by Benjamin Kasulke. In this half hour, she talks about the ups and downs of standing her ground and seeing the dream of […]
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Back to One, Episode 104: Miriam Shor
Miriam Shor is unrecognizable as Lorraine Ela in the powerful new Netflix film Lost Girls. It’s the kind of performance that doesn’t feel performed, that doesn’t get recognized often because it’s invisible. We talk about that phenomenon this half hour, and break down a hilarious moment from the show Younger, where Shor played the beloved character Diana Trout. She talks about the importance of feeling like she is in collaboration with a director, and how being cast in a role you don’t think you’re “right for” can help you grow. Plus much more! Back To One can be found wherever […]
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“People Live on Hope When There’s Limited Freedom”: DP/Director Gonzalo Amat on The Man in the High Castle and SEAL Team
Two of the most elegantly directed and photographed shows on television and streaming right now—and two of the most disparate in terms of their visual style and tone—share a common filmmaker, cinematographer and director Gonzalo Amat. I first became aware of Amat’s work as director of photography on The Man in the High Castle, Amazon’s bold and nerve-shredding adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s sci-fi novel that imagines an alternate America ruled by Japanese and German powers following a US loss in World War II. In its fourth and final season, The Man in the High Castle jumps between multiple realities […]
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Filmmaker’s Spring, 2020 Issue Online and Un-Paywalled
Filmmaker‘s Spring 2020 issue is now online, arriving in mailboxes, and at whatever newsstands and bookstores that are still open amidst the Coronavirus pandemic. And because so many of us are working from home, sheltering in place, or on some form of lockdown, we’ve released every article from the paywall and are also providing to all a link to a free PDF of the entire issue. As Managing Editor Vadim Rizov wrote in a tweet, the issue’s runlist is one organized around something of a now-phantom slate of films and topics. Going to press at the end of February, the calendar […]
