It remains unclear at what point this century cyberpunk — a science-fiction subgenre that emerged largely from the pens of William Gibson and Philip K. Dick — leapt from the realm of speculative to historical fiction; everywhere one looks, it seems that moment has arrived. Many (if not most) westerners live connected to a cyberpunk meta-narrative of their own making these days. We can all be certain, in the era of Edward Snowden, that our digital lives are being recorded. A dystopian view of computing and information technology’s potential, along with a skeptical eye toward vision of “technological as social progress” that corporate propagandists hurl […]
“Hard, Fast, and Beautiful” is the title of a dedicated Ida Lupino program at the recent 53rd Vienna International Film Festival. The program is named in honor of Lupino’s film, which New York Times critic Bosley Crowther reviewed in 1951. “It simply recounts the quick parabola that a girl tennis player describes in becoming a tennis champion and then chucking it all for love,” he wrote of the “trite and foolish” script. Hard, Fast, and Beautiful was Lupino’s third directorial attempt. Well, technically, it was her fourth. When director Elmer Clifton had a heart attack in 1949 during Not Wanted, Lupino […]
When I meet Tippi Hedren in Vienna, we’re with a handful of other journalists for nearly an hour-long roundtable interview. There are less than ten of us, but after a series of interruptions, digressions, poking, and prodding, the pack feels more like an encroaching swarm. But Hedren is no stranger to this kind of journalistic interrogation. The recent Viennale programmed a tribute to her and invited Hedren from her home on the Shambala Preserve in California for her first visit to the capital of Austria. The animal rights activist also worked with both Alfred Hitchcock and Charlie Chaplin, so Hedren’s presence at […]
I first became aware of director Bethany Rooney’s work via her episodes of two of the most visually arresting series on network television, Arrow and The Originals. On each of these series – specifically, the “State vs Queen” episode of Arrow and the “When the Levee Breaks” episode of The Originals – Rooney exhibited a sophisticated sense of composition, lighting, and color surpassed only by her deft hand with actors. As I dug further into Rooney’s oeuvre while catching up on several other series this fall, I learned that those two shows were the rule, not the exception — performers […]
In Living in Oblivion, Tom DiCillo’s 1995 triptych of the agony and ecstasy of indie film production, Murphy’s cinematic law is in full effect. Prima donna actors. Uncooperative smoke machines. Blown lines. Soft focus. Booms in the frame. However, the film’s most soul-crushing moment comes when the camera isn’t even rolling. It arrives when the faux film’s director, played by Steve Buscemi, takes a moment to run lines with his two lead actresses. And of course — with the camera sitting idle and the cinematographer off set vomiting out-of-date milk from the meager craft services table — the scene comes […]
It was a little over half a decade ago that I read at one of Audacia Ray’s intimate Red Umbrella Diaries events on the Lower East Side. Since then this sex worker storytelling series founder – whose resume also includes stints as a bodyworker, escort, and executive editor of $pread magazine – has become one of the foremost voices of sex work advocacy through her Red Umbrella Project (RedUP), harnessing the media to de-stigmatize the oldest profession in the world. Now, after waging battle against violence and for the public health of those in a long-marginalized industry, she’s executive produced The Red […]
US in Progress is a biannual event held in June during the Champs-Elysées Film Festival in Paris and in October during the American Film Festival in Wroclaw. It’s a five-year-old industry event that aims to strengthen transatlantic film collaborations and partnerships between European industry and emerging American filmmakers. The fifth US in Progress recently held in Wroclaw featured six films in various editing and post-production stages. The participants included: Mike Ott and Nathan Silver, Actor Martinez Shaz Bennett and Melanie Miller, Alaska is a Drag Zachary Shedd and Daniel Patrick Carbone, Americana Benjamin Kruger, It Had to Be You Joel […]
This weekend (November 12 – 14) the SNOB [Somewhat North of Boston] Film Festival takes place in Concord New Hampshire. Earlier this week we talked to Jay Doherty, Executive Director of the festival about its history, what sets it apart from other festivals, and some of the films being shown. Filmmaker: How did the SNOB Film Festival start? Doherty: This is the 14th annual festival. It started with a group of people who were interested in bringing independent film to central New Hampshire. They started the Somewhat North of Boston film festival as kind of a joke that a lot […]
Few directors in the history of American film have presented a perspective on the human condition as complex, varied, and compassionate as that of John Sayles. The quintessential independent filmmaker, he once said, “I’m interested in the stuff I do being seen as widely as possible but I’m not interested enough to lie.” He has remained true to that ethos from his directorial debut, The Return of the Secaucus Seven, to his most recent gem, Go For Sisters. No one tells the truth with as much humor, pain, sympathy, irony, or expansiveness as Sayles, a man to whom no aspect […]
When a dormant spaceship hovering above the Earth comes to life again, strange things begin to happen in the abandoned bowling ally where Birdy (played by the diminutive actor Daniel Tadesse) and his partner Candy live. This sets Birdy off on a hero’s journey through strange landscapes and the detritus of contemporary civilization. Spanish director Miguel Llansó’s Crumbs, a post-apocalyptic surrealist Ethio-sci-fi odyssey, is filled with stunning landscapes, backdrops and characters – futuristic Nazi Teutonic knights, reliquaries to Michael Jordan, Santa Claus. It’s laced with a refreshingly nutty surrealism reminiscent of Alejandro Jodorowsky and Luis Buñuel, stunning cinematography by Israel Seoane […]