Fall 2015: Click here to read interviews with Carol‘s Todd Haynes, The Heart of a Dog‘s Laurie Anderson, Sergio Andrés Lobo-Navia on how to prepare your film for a festival and more…
For its 25th anniversary year, the IFP Gotham Independent Film Awards served up an eclectic mix of nominees from films all over the budgetary and aesthetic map. The best picture nominees include two films budgeted well under $1 million — with one of them shot on an iPhone — and are split between titles consisting of star-driven casts and casts comprised of total newcomers. The Best Feature nominees announced today are Todd Haynes’s Carol; Marielle Heller’s The Diary of a Teenage Girl; Josh and Benny Safdie’s Heaven Knows What; Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight; and Sean Baker’s Tangerine. Heller’s film, in addition, […]
At no point in Todd Haynes’ Carol is the word “lesbian” heard — nor “homosexual,” the now-arcane “homophile” or any other period-appropriate descriptor of the LGBTQ spectrum. This is the love that literally dare not speak its name, a conspicuous absence viewers will automatically fill in (especially after seeing dozens of headlines and articles bluntly/reductively identifing the film as a “lesbian drama”). Depending on your POV, this resistance to labeling is either an accurate depiction of period repression, or oddly up-to-the-minute given increased aversion to categorical sexual labels and regular terminological resets. As in Safe, Far From Heaven and Mildred Pierce, […]
For the first time in recent memory, it’s extremely difficult to select the top of the crop at this 53rd edition of the New York Film Festival (September 26-October 11), a question of too many contenders. I am not taking into consideration the tentpole films that anchor the festival, or any big studio movies, like Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies. That’s another kettle of fish. Down below I list what I consider the crème de la crème (appropriate phrase, considering the usual Gallic slant) and review those titles briefly. Since they will all have commercial runs, I’ll be reviewing at length […]
I wonder what some time-traveling filmmaker would think of IFP’s Independent Film Week, which commences tomorrow up at the Bruno Walter Auditorium at the New York Performing Arts Library. The non-profit IFP — formerly “Independent Feature Project” and now “Independent Filmmaker Project” — has done some version of its Film Week for nearly the entirety of its 35-year history. For much of that time it wasn’t called “Film Week,” but, nonetheless, events occurred annually over a few days in the Fall, and these events served to advance the interests of independent filmmakers by, initially, providing them with a market for […]
Today, IFP (Filmmaker‘s parent organization) announced the full lineup for the annual Screen Forward: IFP Conference. Taking place this year from September 20-25 at Lincoln Center, the program consists of several different sections. Among Industry Talks, you’ll find a discussion with longtime collaborators David Wain and Michael Ian Black, whose resurrected Wet Hot American Summer has recently made a splash on Netflix, and one with Christine Vachon, the Killer Films producer whose latest project is Todd Haynes’ forthcoming, keenly anticipated Carol. Some other highlights, as noted in the press release: *“Who Needs the Boys Club?” a discussion on inequality and the misperceptions […]
Straight from the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s admirably thorough press release, here’s the main slate of this year’s New York Film Festival — 26 films strong, heavy on Cannes titles, and with Steven Spielberg’s second ever appearance in the fest (following the work-in-progress surprise screening of Lincoln in 2012). Opening Night The Walk Robert Zemeckis, USA, 2015, 3-D DCP, 100m Robert Zemeckis’s magical and enthralling new film, the story of Philippe Petit (winningly played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and his walk between the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, plays like a heist movie in the grand tradition of Rififi and Bob le flambeur. Zemeckis […]
As much as I love Breaking Bad, The Wire, Mad Men and Twin Peaks, as great and as groundbreaking as those shows were, they still are not cinema. The recent explosion of quality long-form cable series has taken the TV form to a new level of artistry and craftsmanship. A show like Mad Men is not only thrilling because of its commentary on its era, but because of the zeitgeist energy created by everyone watching the show, talking about it and sharing opinions on social media. Today, perhaps more than ever, a new season of a quality show becomes a […]
Cannes by Aaron Hillis The same way New Yorkers love to bitch about living in what they also proclaim to be the world’s greatest city, the Cannes-accredited can spend nearly two weeks in the south of France watching nothing but prestigiously vetted films and have the nerve to call it a “so-so year.” But if that was a too-common sigh, it’s partly because the festival’s main competition had few unanimous hits, which is neither unusual nor taking stock of the parallel pleasures within the Un Certain Regard, Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week sections, or out-of-competition premieres of innovative multiplex fare […]
Dear Sugar Radio For those who worried that, after her Wild success, Cheryl Strayed’s lucid and literate advice column “Dear Sugar” was no more, fear not. “Dear Sugar” has been resurrected, this time as a podcast co-hosted by “Mr. Sugar,” the writer Steve Almond. The original “Sugar,” in fact, and Strayed’s recruiter, Almond adds a probing rhetorical counterpoint to Strayed’s personal counseling, making Sugar 2.0 a multilayered conversation about such topics as ditching friends, cheating and families good and bad. Produced by WBUR, Dear Sugar Radio can be found on iTunes. The Graduate School Mess On the heels of last […]