Margin Call
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Drive, He Said: A Most Violent Year
The guy’s a tease. Up until the end of Margin Call (2011), the debut feature of A Most Violent Year director J.C. Chandor (All is Lost), our moral compass in the story of a New York investment firm at the onset of the 2008 financial crash is brainy risk analyst Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto). The young MIT graduate is so upright that he not only disentangles the masked electronic numbers signaling impending doom for those who can least afford it but also allies himself with the mid-level powers who prefer to forestall than cash in. In the penultimate sequence, once […]
by Howard Feinstein on Dec 30, 2014 -
A Speck in the Ocean
At sea — we have all felt it, paradoxically unmoored even in our hyper-connected age. In only two pictures, that sense of disconnection, emotional confusion and fear is the metier of New York-based writer/director J.C. Chandor. His 2011 debut film, Margin Call, was a tightly focused drama about Wall Street traders fighting for their financial lives amidst the economic meltdown. Unfolding over 24 hours, Margin Call is a talky and claustrophobic movie plumbing the specific ethical quandaries of our current political moment. Assuredly directed and extremely well-acted, it would seem to have set Chandor up to make any number of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 21, 2013 -
2011 IN FILM: A DISASTER ODYSSEY
For many supposedly serious cinema folk, there is no secret pleasure more pleasurable than the disaster film. What makes the genre so familiar – predictable plotlines, one-dimensional characters and an ever-present threat that only kills the people who deserve it – is also what makes it so damn fun. In the late ’90s, people cheered when the alien spaceship blew up American monuments. A full decade after September 11th, it’s still hard to imagine that happening now. During the past decade, disaster films have become more serious, less The Towering Inferno and more District 9, but it is only in the […]
by Mary Anderson Casavant on Dec 20, 2011 -
WHAT’S IN MY INSTAPAPER: SUNDAY MORNING LINKS, 12/4/11
I haven’t done one of these in a while — a roundup of a few things I’ve stored in my Instapaper for weekend readings. As the year goes on, Melancholia is emerging as my favorite film of 2011. Part of the reason, I think, is that the discourse about it is becoming more and more interesting. Whereas Von Trier’s Cannes comments dominated the dialogue following its opening, now not just critics but viewers are grappling with the film’s meanings. From the Occupied Territories Tumblr comes “Depression, Melancholia, and Me: Lars Von Trier’s Politics of Displeasure,” an extraordinary essay in which […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 4, 2011 -
“TAKE SHELTER” & “THE ARTIST” LEADS SPIRIT AWARDS NOMS
With last night’s Gothams Awards ceremony in New York, awards season is now in full swing. Adding to the momentum, Film Independent just announced the nominees for its 27th annual Independent Spirit Awards. Leading the pack with five nominations each is Jeff Nichols’ apocalyptic southern gothic, Take Shelter and Michel Hazanavicius’ silent romance, The Artist. Next in line, receiving four nominations, were Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive and Mike Mills’ Beginners (which split Best Picture with The Tree of Life at the Gothams last night). J.C. Chandor’s Margin Call will receive the annual Robert Altman Award, given each year to one […]
by Jane Schoenbrun on Nov 29, 2011 -
“MARGIN CALL,” “CIRCUMSTANCE” BOOKEND 40th NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS
In a release sent out today the Museum of Modern Art and the Film Society of Lincoln Center announced the full lineup for the 40th edition of New Directors/New Films, which will take place March 23 – April 3. Highlighting 28 feature films (24 narrative, 4 documentaries) from 22 countries, ND/NF will open with J.C. Chandor‘s investment banker drama, Margin Call. His debut feature stars Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Demi Moore, Stanley Tucci and Jeremy Irons. Closing the festival will be Maryam Keshavarz‘s Circumstance, which looks at today’s Iranian youth culture through the eyes of two teenage girls. The film […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Feb 16, 2011
