While in Europe recently I heard about a documentary Martin Scorsese was making about Airbus, the European consortium of British, French, Spanish and German aircraft manufacturers formed in 1970 to rival the dominant American companies like Boeing. Of course, Scorsese recently memorialized an American aerospace pioneer with The Aviator. Today via Variety comes more details about the new project: “Scorsese will team with Spanish docu producer-director Jose Luis Lopez-Linares (Un instante en la vida ajena, Strangers to Themselves), who will take a co-director credit. Per Spanish monthly movie magazine Fotogramas, the doc will establish a parallel between the creation of […]
There are websites that have counted down the days to Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. And then there are fansites that are collectively anticipating Chris Nolan’s new Batman Begins. At Filmmaker, we are counting down the days to Rubber Johnny. The six-minute Chris Cunningham video will be released by Warp Films on June 6 in the form of a DVD and accompanying 40-page book. In the meantime, however, there’s this review and interview over at Pixelsurgeon. Synopsizing the film, the site writes: “The titular Johnny is a mutant kid stuck in a wheelchair who is shut in the dark […]
Adam Bhala Lough is one of our 25 New Faces alumni, and his feature Bomb the System opened in New York this weekend. Here are quotes from an interview with him in the Gothamist. On the difficult of making sympathic graffiti artist characters: “…anyone who’s walked up to their apartment in NY and saw a fresh tag on their door, literally dripping because it just went up, and got pissed off, they’re going to bring that hatred to the movie. A lot of people even asked me, ‘why did you even bother making a movie about graffiti writers? They’re horrible […]
Via Variety comes more details about the long-awaited June 17 opening of IFC Film Center in Manhattan at the site of the old Waverly Theaters. The IFC has assembled a high-powered advisory board to lend its clout to the venture. Writes Willa Paskin in the trade, “Helmers Steven Soderbergh, Alfonso Cuaron, Richard Linklater, Kevin Smith, Errol Morris, John Sayles, Rebecca Miller and Gary Winick will be among those serving on the center’s advisory board. Nonhelmers Noah Cowan, Cynthia Swartz and Dan Talbot also are members. “According to IFC prexy Jonathan Sehring, board members will mainly be involved with programming, ‘be […]
As I sit here working my CD changer has just slid over to the Mysterious Skin soundtrack, which has not left the platter since I received a promotional copy about a week ago. From its first seesawing notes, Robin Guthrie and Harold Budd’s distinctive style, echoing their classic The Moon and the Melodies, evokes the 4AD and Budd ambient releases that provided a dreamy backdrop to many of our adolescences years ago. Writes Skin director Gregg Araki, “I have been a huge fan of Robin Guthrie and Harold Budd since the glory days of the 80s when 4AD, the Cocteau […]
While James Marsh’s film The King plays at the Festival de Cannes, the Hollywood Reporter relays this odd bit of news regarding ContentFilm, Ed Pressman and John Schmidt’s company that produced the pic: “Edward R. Pressman, co-chief executive officer of London-based ContentFilm PLC, and co-chief executive officer John Schmidt are going their separate ways after four years together. The board of directors of ContentFilm, which went public in December 2003, has voted to abandon film production and continue forward as a library acquisitions company. Schmidt will run the company, which has agreed to buy Fireworks International’s film and television library […]
Below I posted some thoughts about the Xan Cassavetes doc Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession, and now this weekend IFC runs a Z-Channel marathon. Tune in all weekend and see films like the uncut Heaven ‘s Gate, Nick Roeg’s Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession, and the fairly obscure That Most Important Thing: Love..
Ever since he made the independent classic Killer of Sheep Charles Burnett has had more than his share of tough times finding financing for his films. But this news story in Variety may detail his strangest career moment yet: the crew shut-down of his latest feature, Where Others Wavered due to lack of payment by the government of Namibia, where the film is shooting. From the article: “Principal photography started April 25 in the capital of Windhoek on the movie about former freedom fighter Sam Nujoma ( played by “Alias” thesp Carl Lumbly), who helped Namibia gain independence from South […]
Writing in the New York Press, Matt Zoller Seitz (who recently spoke with Jeremiah Kipp for Filmmaker about his own debut feature, Home) uses the occasion of Jet Li’s trip to the U.S. to promote the Rogue Pictures release of Unleashed to pen a lengthy and thoughtful appraisal of the various martial arts genres in the age of globalism and the Internet. From the piece: “In the past decade, the rise of the internet and cheap DVD authoring technology made it harder for repressive governments to regulate pop culture’s ebb and flow. When a noteworthy new release comes out in […]
In Berlin I was walking to the premiere of Duncan Tucker’s Transamerica at the CineStar theaters this February with a friend, the head of a small indie distributor, when he got a phone call. The sellers of a film his company had bid on earlier in the festival had accepted his offer, and he had to turn back and meet them immediately to close the deal. I walked on and caught the film, which, if you’ve read my Berlin coverage in the print magazine this issue, I thought was sincere, empathetic and with an appealingly gentle humor. My only qualm […]