Remember The Third and the Seventh, that amazing piece of architectural CGI by Alex Roman that I blogged about in January? If you don’t, don’t worry — I’ve reposted it below. Just up is a new piece by Roman that’s a stunning one minute of slow-motion images that are pure CGI. Titled “Above Everything Else,” it’s a spot for kitchen countertop manufacturer Silestone. Writes Motiongrapher: Although this spot is 100% CG, the beauty of the shots distract the viewer from this amazing fact. Each composition is elegantly balanced: light counterweights dark, chaos challenges order. The sparse soundtrack creates a sense […]
When I was in a high school in Tennessee, a classmate of mine started crying while discussing a short story about Vietnam. Through her tears, she explained that the soldiers battling for their lives reminded her of all the unborn babies who’d been killed that week. What those of us not on the frontlines of the abortion battle often forget is that for those who feel passionately on the subject, abortion is not just an issue, it’s the only issue. In 12th and Delaware, last night’s entry into the Stranger than Fiction canon, directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady take […]
Famously defeated and laid waste by the Romans in the third century B.C., the ancient metropolis of Carthage has bequeathed its name to two notable features of modern Tunis. One is a swanky suburb where the villas of diplomats skirt the rudimentary but scenic ruins of the old imperial capital. The other is the biannual Carthage Film Festival, or Journées Cinematographiques de Carthage (Oct. 23-31, 2010), which bills itself as “the dean of all African and Arab” festivals. Founded in 1966, it is a capacious event, with an international purview that encompasses, say, the latest from Abbas Kiarostami and Woody […]
Plenty of associations come to mind when one thinks of a Claire Denis film; the French auteur’s work is intelligent, nuanced, and frankly, often slow. Denis approaches her films like a sculptor, beginning with the giant block of matter that is a life (or lives) and whittling the irrelevant away until she finds a character’s essence. So it comes as something a surprise that the final act of Denis’ latest, White Material, plays out as something of a suspense thriller; Denis has worked in genre filmmaking before (notably Trouble Every Day), but typically inverts and eschews genre convention. However, while […]
One of my favorite movies of all time, Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter, has been released on Blu-Ray and SD by Criterion today. Here’s a piece I wrote back in 2001 on the film in the context of a review of Simon Callow’s BFI monograph. François Truffaut queasily likened The Night of the Hunter, actor Charles Laughton’s 1955 directorial debut, to a “horrifying news item retold by small children.” Quoted in Simon Callow’s new British Film Institute monograph on the film, Truffaut goes on to offer a bit of middlebrow advice proving that the confluence of film criticism […]
The sixth edition of the Eurasia International Film Festival (Sept 21-25) in Kazakhstan was a showcase of films from Central Asian and Turkish-speaking countries, but what particularly stood out in its various programs was the strong output of Kazakh films, a result of increasing government and private backing in project development, production and post-production facilities. High above Kazakhstan’s former capital and current cultural center Almaty, construction crews were racing to finish buildings for the 2011 Asian Winter Games in the foothills of the majestic Tien Shan mountain range. A country larger than Europe, Kazakhstan spans the oil-rich coast of the […]
The IFP announced earlier today that two indie film stalwarts will be co-hosting this year’s Gotham Independent Film Awards: Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson. Veterans of the stage and screen (both large and small), Clarkson is coming off a busy year where she received rave reviews for playing the lead in Cairo Time and starred in Hollywood projects Shutter Island and Easy A (which Tucci also starred in). Tucci, who received a Gotham Awards tribute last year, was nominated for a Best Supporting Oscar last year for his performance in The Lovely Bones and will be seen next in Burlesque. […]
The Amazonas Film Festival wrapped its 7th edition Thursday night with an unbelievable showcase of one of the state’s most proud traditions. After handing out the jury awards (listed below), the stage in the Teatro Amazonas became the site for an astounding carnival known as the Parintins Folk Festival, which brought roars of applause from the locals and wide-eyed curiosity to those attendees visiting abroad and are used to the usual stale closing night film fest pleasantries. The Parintins Fest is one of the largest folklore festivals in the world, and on this evening the Amazonas Fest gave a small […]
A few characters and a house — it’s one of the most durable movie starting-points, especially for first-time filmmakers. The latest to use the economy and natural dramatic focus of this concept is producer-turned-director Joe Infantolino, whose Helena from the Wedding opens today. Newlyweds Alex and Alice invite another couple for a New Year’s party at their mountain cabin. But when the quite beautiful and very single Helena is added to the mix, relationship fissures ensue. Helena from the Wedding is a deftly directed and very well acted film, a modest yet rewarding debut from Infantolino, whose producer credits include […]
In the ’90s, Sarah Jacobson was a rising indie filmmaker. Beginning with her half-hour short film I Was A Teenage Serial Killer in 1993, she garnered enough underground critical success to make her feature debut, Mary Jane’s Not a Virgin Anymore, a coming-of-age tale about a teenage girl’s loss of virginity and her friends’ experiences with their first times. Jacobson was set to move on to bigger films, but she sadly passed away from endometrial cancer at age 32 in 2004. To carry on her life’s work and support for fellow filmmakers, Jacobson’s mother and film producer Ruth Jacobson and […]