Columns
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“I’m at a Precarious Age. I Don’t Know How Much Longer I’ll Get to Have This Life”: Cécile Tollu-Polonowski on Multitasking in the Berlin Film Industry
I am at Tempelhofer Park on a cold Saturday morning in Berlin. An airport reconstructed by the Nazi government in the 1930s, Tempelhof today is an epicenter of kite flying, urban farming, summer barbequing, and most impressively, unrestricted dog romping. My mother is a dog-walking regular at several public parks in Ohio and has witnessed a good many leashed vs. unleashed dog controversies over the years. As I take in the expansive landscape of Tempelhof, I’m subliminally considering the transformation from Third Reich austerity. I’m distracted by the notion that these Berlin canines are experiencing a freedom that American pooches […]
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“You Have to Learn Fast if You Want to Stand Out”: Lorna-Lee Sagebiel on Film Sales
I’m on my terrace watching what will probably be my last New York sunrise before I move to Berlin. Later, I learn that my early morning insomnia coincided with not just any sunrise, but a total lunar eclipse, which is technically called syzygy — when the sun, earth, and moon are aligned to form an almost or exact straight line. I couldn’t have contrived an experience more poetic — my final New York sunrise, my first and probably last syzygy. Like all perfect New York moments, this feels like the most perfect New York moment, which is another way of […]
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“Be Patient and Try Not to Hold Grudges”: Marjon Javadi on Acquisitions and Production
I am at Mystic Journey Bookstore in Venice during my very first trip to Los Angeles, feeling appropriately like a Lost Angel. My close friend Marjon has fled New York, not for beachy weekends but for a career opportunity. With our trendy Intelligentsia coffees in tow, we pore over astrological renderings on the back sofas of Mystic Journey, and conversation takes a familiar turn. The Sheryl Sandbergs and Sophia Amorusos of the world may be providing smart macro-level discourse on workplace age, sex, and gender politics, but there’s an equally vital conversation, I am discovering, happening between young women confronting […]
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Load & Play
Portrait of Jason Milestone Films — November 11 One-man show, fueled by one scotch bottle, in Shirley Clarke’s living room, one tough night only: Portrait of Jason is a spontaneous monologue delivered by hustler/aspirant cabaret artist Jason Holliday. Prompted and interrogated by a sometimes-exasperated crew, Jason is sharp on race and sex and self-deluding about himself. If his bravado is a necessary survival skill for survival as a queer black man in mid-20th-century America, there’s still a queasy charge in experiencing repeated whiplash as a viewer pinging back and forth between empathy and revulsion. This second volume in Milestone’s restorations […]
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Super 8
1. Solstice The independent video game studio Moacube’s ambitious follow-up to its well-regarded Cinders is a mystery set in an enclosed city, one in the middle of a desert constantly torn apart by blizzards. To remedy the lack of minority representation in video games, Moacube has made the majority of the characters minorities and offered up a gay male protagonist. The ambitious game has been in development for a few years, but the six-chapter saga will be out before year’s end or early next year. 2. The Absolution of Roberto Acestes Laing Critic — and occasional Filmmaker contributor — Nicolas […]
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Has the Cinematic Water Cooler Run Dry?
Sex, lies and videotape; Pulp Fiction; The Blair Witch Project; Juno — they are now the stuff of indie film legend. Movies that came out of nowhere (although that’s not entirely true) and became not just crossover hits, but cultural phenomena, spawning think-pieces in The New York Times, TV talk-show fodder and conversations around the water cooler. Yes, they made money along the way, but we remember them as much for the zeitgeist they captured as their box office. These days, we can still point to the occasional breakout. This year, Richard Linklater’s Boyhood has benefited from that mysterious magical […]
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Film Studies for the 21st Century
In 2008, film scholar Catherine Grant started a blog titled Film Studies for Free as a venue for collecting and sharing links to interesting examples of film and media scholarship available online. Between university positions, she was unsettled by the thought of losing her faculty privileges — such as access to the library — and wanted to stay connected with academia. By launching the site, she quickly discovered a burgeoning community of other scholars in the blogosphere, as well as a readership that expanded beyond the university. “I guess I didn’t really understand how it would take off,” she says […]
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The Art of Narrative Deduction
In 1887, an eccentric detective named Sherlock Holmes appeared in print for the first time. A literary creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Holmes and his companion Dr. Watson captured the imaginations of readers and quickly grew in popularity. Fifty-six short stories and four novels later, Doyle’s work has seen numerous adaptations. From films to television to stage plays, Sherlock Holmes has stood the test of time. But beyond the fiction, Doyle’s stories have had a lasting impact on the way that crimes are solved. Holmes’ obsession with protecting crime scenes from contamination and his use of chemistry, ballistics, bloodstains […]
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YouTube, We’re Watching You
As I pull up to the front of the convention center, a man in a fluorescent vest struggles with some orange cones. I roll down my window to see if there is room in the parking garage, but before I can ask he says. “We’re full. Twenty thousand people, too many cars. Welcome to VidCon.” As I try to talk, the long line of vehicles behind me begin to honk. Drowned out, I drive off. It was only five years ago that more than 1,400 YouTube creators and fans crammed into a hotel in Century City, Los Angeles. The first […]
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Sometimes You Die
Ryan Green’s son, Joel, was diagnosed with terminal cancer just before his second birthday. There were surgeries. Chemo. Joel’s eyes turned in. He lost his hearing. After work done on his spine, he had to learn to walk again. But he didn’t die, and Green wanted to show the world “the miracle” that was his son. That Dragon, Cancer, due out later this year on the Android console OUYA, is hard to play. It’s not hard because the controls are difficult, or because there are millions of screens of data to manage or because of puzzles that hurt your brain […]
