Returning to the Anthology Film Archives following an opening night event at Kush Lounge is Cinekink NYC. No rebel posturing here, just an eclectic selection of docs, fiction and experimental works dealing with some form of alternative sexuality. This year’s fest kicks off tonight at Kush Lounge with an opening party and screenings of JX Williams 1964 short, The 400 Blow Jobs. According to the catalogue, “While banished to the Hollywood blacklist, JX Williams wrote and directed over 200 stag films in the 1950s and 60s, including this wicked homage to Francois Truffaut.” Also on the bill: Loretta Hintz’s Sheep […]
Hot off the hard drive, here is the latest episode of the New Breed’s Park City series. This one pulls together producers and directors to talk about the strategic, pro-active steps they are taking to connect their films to audiences. The official word: SABI filmmakers Zak Forsman and Kevin K. Shah pick up with Ted Hope where he left off in the last episode to further explore the solutions that are emerging for independent filmmakers. He is joined by Mynette Louie (Children of Invention) and new interviews with Sultan Sharrief (Bilal’s Stand), Lance Weiler (HiM), and Scilla Andreen (IndieFlix). NEW […]
Leading up to the Oscars on March 7, we will be highlighting the nominated films that have appeared in the magazine or on the Website in the last year. Jason Guerrasio interviewed The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus co-writer-director Terry Gilliam for our Winter 2010 issue. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is nominated for Best Art Direction (Art Director: Dave Warren and Anastasia Masaro; Set Decoration: Caroline Smith) and Best Costume Design (Monique Prudhomme). An elderly man pulls his carriage to the curb and prepares to put on a show. Onlookers watch with a mixture of bewilderment and vague familiarity; the […]
UPDATE 2/16: Screen reports that the remake rumors are just that. The biggest news so far to come out of the Berlin Film Festival is on a film that was made 36 years ago. Spreading all over the blogs, Lars von Trier and Martin Scorsese are supposedly mulling over the idea of remaking Taxi Driver with Robert De Niro to reprise the role of Travis Bickle. In Variety, Gunnar Rehlin reports: The idea behind the project is similar to the film The Five Obstructions that von Trier and Danish helmer Jorgen Leth made in 2003. In that film, von Trier […]
One independent film I’ve been aware of for some time (it’s described in the press materials as “a labor of love five years in the making”) and was happy to see in the SXSW line-up is David Robert Mitchell’s The Myth of the American Sleepover. It’s Mitchell’s feature debut, it was produced by Adele Romanski, and it was shot on the RED One by Medicine for Melancholy‘s James Laxton. Check out the trailer below. The Myth of the American Sleepover – Official Trailer from Strike Anywhere on Vimeo.
Leading up to the Oscars on March 7, we will be highlighting the nominated films that have appeared in the magazine or on the Website in the last year. Nick Dawson interviewed In the Loop co-writer-director Armando Iannucci for our Director Interviews section of the Website. In the Loop is nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay (Iannucci, Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell and Tony Roche). Scottish writer-director Armando Iannucci has made a slow and steady progression toward becoming a film director. The Glasgow-born Italian Scot originally was planning to become a priest (like Martin Scorsese) but the lure of the entertainment world […]
Film titles? If you’re like many independent filmmakers, by the time you get to them you are low on post funds and you suddenly wind up with a newfound artistic appreciation of Woody Allen’s career-long white serif font on black approach. To inspire you to set aside some money during budgeting for a title sequence that will be as groundbreaking as your movie, check out Forget the Film, Watch the Titles, a website devoted to the art of title design. There are articles and videos about 130 different titles sequences and 70 different designers, including star title designer Kyle Cooper, […]
Beautiful Darling, James Rasin’s documentary on the life of actress and Warhol superstar Candy Darling, premieres at the Berlin Film Festival this week. In it, actress Chloe Sevigny voices Darling. From the film’s website: Beautiful Darling, a documentary film, pays tribute to the short but influential life of an extraordinary person — the actress Candy Darling, born James Slattery in a Long Island suburb in 1944. Drawn to the feminine from childhood, by the mid-Sixties James had become Candy, a gorgeous, blonde actress and well-known downtown New York figure. Candy’s career took her through the raucous and revolutionary Off-off-Broadway theater […]
Leading up to the Oscars on March 7, we will be highlighting the nominated films that have appeared in the magazine or on the Website in the last year. Jason Guerrasio interviewed Food, Inc. director Robert Keener for our Spring 2009 issue. Food, Inc. is nominated for Best Documentary. As the grill sizzles in the background a waitress rattles off the specials of the day when a voice interrupts her. “I think I’ll have a hamburger,” says the man looking up from his menu. Sitting at a diner counter in Anywhere, USA, the order comes from the most unlikely of […]
Leading up to the Oscars on March 7, we will be highlighting the nominated films that have appeared in the magazine or on the Website in the last year. Livia Bloom interviewed Bright Star writer-director Jane Campion for our ’09 Toronto Film Festival coverage. Bright Star is nominated for Best Costume Design (Janet Patterson). Chaste is not a word often associated with the films of Jane Campion. From the boudoirs of The Portrait of a Lady to the rough frontier bedrooms of The Piano (1993), Campion is known for her steamy, sultry visions of intimacy. But in her latest film, […]