| Filmmaker Magazine

Julie Gavras, Blame It On Fidel

NINA KERVEL-BEY IN JULIE GAVRAS’ BLAME IT ON FIDEL. COURTESY KOCH LORBER FILMS. Anyone wanting to prove that a there is a “cinematic gene” need look no further than Julie Gavras. The daughter of legendary director Costa-Gavras, most famous for films like Z (1968) and Missing (1982), and movie producer Michèle Ray-Gavras, Gavras initially resisted working in film and enrolled in law school. However, her desire to tell stories on film proved irrepressible. After a stint as an assistant director in France and Italy, Gavras started making documentaries, most notably The Pirate, the Wizard, the Thief and the Children (2002). […]

by Nick Dawson on Aug 3, 2007

THE LOW DOWN

Here’s the trailer for a music doc I’m excited to see — Adam Bhala Lough’s (whose Weapons I really liked at Sundance this year) and Ethan Higbee’s film on Lee Scratch Perry.

by Scott Macaulay on Aug 2, 2007

IS THIS THE FUTURE OF THEATRICAL EXHIBITION?

Over at his CinemaTech blog, Scott Kirsner posts a video interview with Mark Stern, owner of Big Picture, the Seattle-based company that runs “21 and older” theaters that are more like private clubs or studio screening rooms than today’s multiplexes.

by Scott Macaulay on Jul 31, 2007

MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI, 1912-2007

The great Michelangelo Antonioni, director of such films as L’Avventura, Red Desert, Blow-Up and The Passenger, died in Italy yesterday. He was 94. The New York Times in its obituary quotes Jack Nicholson’s remarks on the director when he presented him with a career Oscar: ‘In the empty, silent spaces of the world, he has found metaphors that illuminate the silent places our hearts, and found in them, too, a strange and terrible beauty: austere, elegant, enigmatic, haunting.” As they did for Ingmar Bergman, another art-house titan who, stunningly, died just a few hours before Antonioni, The Guardian has set […]

by Scott Macaulay on Jul 31, 2007

INGMAR BERGMAN, 1918- 2007

One of the titans of 20th century cinema has passed away. Ingmar Bergman died at his home off the coast of Sweden at 89. Here’s the AP report. A growing list of links at GreenCine offers many perspectives on and remembrances of the great director, including the following passage from Mervyn Rothstein’s obituary in the New York Times: Mr. Bergman dealt with pain and torment, desire and religion, evil and love; in Mr. Bergman’s films, “this world is a place where faith is tenuous; communication, elusive; and self-knowledge, illusory,” Michiko Kakutani wrote in The New York Times Magazine in a […]

by Scott Macaulay on Jul 30, 2007

PERSONALITY BECOMES YOUR STYLE

There’s a new issue of Sight and Sound up and now the BFI has posted selected pieces online. One is a great interview Amy Taubin did with Gus Van Sant about Van Sant’s thoughts on — and similarities to — Andy Warhol. While Taubin refers to Van Sant as “the most Warhol-like filmmaker around,” Van Sant says his original inspirations were quite different than the work of the great conceptual and Pop artist. When I started to try to make films, though, the scripts I wrote were John Cheever-esque stories about the place I came from – upper middle class, […]

by Scott Macaulay on Jul 28, 2007

ZERO!

On the day of its opening the new Lindsay Lohan movie, I Know who Killed Me, has managed to score a big fat zero on Rotten Tomatoes. Maybe as the critics who were denied permission by Tri-Star to pre-screen the movie for reviews catch up with it the score will edge up… but, for the moment, the pic seems to have scored the unattainable. In our long-tailed world of a million and one tastes, it would seem impossible to make a film that simply nobody likes. If you believe the tomato squad, however, it’s been done. As for me, well, […]

by Scott Macaulay on Jul 27, 2007

David Stenn, Girl 27

DAVID ROSS AND PATRICIA DOUGLAS IN DAVID STENN’S GIRL 27. COURTESY RED ENVELOPE ENTERTAINMENT. In most people’s eyes, David Stenn’s first film as a director marks the start of his third career, but to him it’s a continuation of what he’s been doing all along: storytelling. Chicago native Stenn started writing for Hill Street Blues after graduating from Harvard, then moved on to more TV writing, most notably on teen guilty pleasures 21 Jump Street and Beverly Hills 90210. In 1988, he published an acclaimed biography of 1920s film icon Clara Bow, and followed it in 1993 with an exhaustive […]

by Nick Dawson on Jul 27, 2007

NYSE: LGF

Maybe companies have been doing this for a while, but I’d never seen it before until tonight. On the subway poster for the live-action Bratz movie, there’s a tag at the bottom where a website URL might normally be. “NYSE:LGF” it says, handily giving the tween girl Bratz audience the stock market symbol for distributor Lion’s Gate Films. Other news from Lions Gate: the distributor has purchased a stake in indie distributor Roadside Attractions, which previously released its films through the IDP partnership. Shares of Lions Gate moved up by almost a point today to close at 11.21.

by Scott Macaulay on Jul 26, 2007

BLADE RUNNER’S HAPPY ENDING

After years of fanboy speculation and internet chatter, Blade Runner: The Final Cut will debut theatrically in New York and L.A. on October 5 and on DVD from Warner Home VideoDecember 18. The slow-burning classic will receive three separate DVD editions: a two-disk Special Edition, a four-disk Collector’s Edition, and a five-disk Ultimate Collectors Edition. I first saw Blade Runner on its theatrical release many years ago. At the time I was underwhelmed. As a big Philip K. Dick fan, I didn’t like the noir tone that replaced the schlubby melodrama and cosmic satire of Dick’s novel. Over the years, […]

by Scott Macaulay on Jul 25, 2007

Cookie	Duration	Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional	11 months	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy	11 months	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.

Cookie	Duration	Description
cfmrk_cic		Used by Cloudflare to route user traffic for this Site.
sparrow_id		Installed by Cloudflare. Used to identify individual clients behind a shared IP address and apply security settings on a per-client basis. It does not store any personal identifiable information.

Cookie	Duration	Description
OAGEO		Installed by the Revive Ad Server. Used to cache geolocation (session, deleted when closing the browser)
OAID		Installed by the Revive Ad Server to distinguish users.

17709 Results for “”