Matteo Garrone’s masterwork Gomorrah is notable for what it is not. There is no macho camaraderie amongst thugs in social clubs as seen on The Sopranos. And there is nothing romantic about ‘the life’ of mobsters. While American audiences have been accustomed to the portrayal of gangsters having facile access to money, power and women with seeming impunity, they will be treated to a coarser, realistic depiction of the Naples crime syndicate known as the Camorra. Based on the eponymously named novel by Roberto Saviano, Garrone’s film bears more than a passing resemblance to socio-economic and cultural milieu of Luis […]
For his debut feature Tom Quinn took the hours of footage he shot of family and friends talking about dealing with divorce for a psych class as inspiration to create a touching story that meshes domestic issues with the culture of his native South Philadelphia. After placing 13th in Philadelphia’s Mummers Parade, which is held every New Year’s Day where local clubs in elaborate costumes compete for prizes and bragging rights, the South Philadelphia String Band are stuck in a rut as their losing ways have gone on for decades now. For Mike (Andrew Conway) and his son Jack (Greg […]
Filmmaker Kyle Henry was one of our “25 New Faces” in 2006 on the basis of his excellent debut feature, Room, and now he’s blogging about his fascinating follow-up, Fourplay. Executive produced by Jim McKay and Michael Stipe, and produced by Jason Wehling, Fourplay is a series of short films highlighting sexual transgressions, and, as the blog makes clear, the final product may be compiled into a feature, released as a series of shorts, or may be part of some other, more fluid kind of format. From the description of the film on the blog: Four transgressions, four transmissions, four […]
A few weeks ago I attended a reception at Ira Deutchman’s house in which Columbia University‘s new Focus in Creative Producing was announced, and I’ve been remiss in posting here about what is a really promising and, in these times, necessary course of study up on Morningside Heights. From the press release: Building upon a strong record of faculty and alumni recognition at the Oscars, Sundance and other film festivals, Columbia University School of the Arts is expanding its master of fine arts film program. Film: Creative Producing, a newly introduced course of study, will train the next generation of […]
I came across this short video of Doug Rushkoff speaking at the Web 2.0 Expo, and in it he echoes some of the things he spoke about at the DIY Days in Philadelphia, which I attended back in June. In that keynote as well Rushkoff hopskotched through the creation of central currency, detailing the role of governments in controlling the our ability to exchange value. It’s a lot to cover in 12.5 minutes, and while I’m no expert in economic history, there’s plenty to quibble with in his broad shorthand. Like, as a colleague pointed out after his Philadelphia lecture, […]
Contributing Editor Brandon Harris has posted on his blog a new preview of Filmmaker and MoMA’s annual “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You” program, which unspools at the museum this week. Screening will be the five films that will be competing for the Gotham Award we sponsor on December 1. (For schedule and film descriptions, visit MoMA’s site.) Brandon writes that this year’s program is the strongest we’ve put together in the six years of doing this series, and I agree. This isn’t to say that previous years haven’t been strong, but in the past we’ve always […]
It didn’t used to be all reality shows. In 1990 MTV aired Buzz, an experimental video art collage show by director Mark Pellington. Genesis P-Orridge, William Burroughs, RU Sirius, David Byrne, and other transgressive thinkers (oh yes, and Jon Bon Jovi) were all featured in the debut show, which was openly inspired by Bruce Conner and other experimental filmmakers. Boing Boing noticed that the first episode has been been posted to YouTube, and I’ve embedded the clips below.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have announced the 15 films that have made the shortlist for Best Documentary. Two of the most prised docs of the year made the list: Louie Psihoyos‘s The Cove and Robert Kenner‘s Food, Inc., as well as a few lesser known titles like Anders Ostergaard‘s Burma VJ and Matt Tyrnauer‘s Valentino: The Last Emperor. But surprisingly excluded were Michael Moore‘s Capitalism: A Love Story and James Toback‘s Tyson. The 82nd Academy Awards nominations will be announced on February 2. Best Documentary Shortlist: The Beaches of AgnesAgnes Varda, director Burma VJAnders Ostergaard, director […]
The Sundance Institute announced today the 13 artists selected for the New Frontier section at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. These works will be shown at New Frontier on Main, open to the public Thursday, January 21 through Saturday, January 30, 2010. (The full list of artists are below.) One of the artists chosen this year is actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt (pictured), who we discovered last year has an interest in the new media/digital artists on the Web as he’s created the site hitRECord.org. In the Spring 2009 issue we talked to him about the site, which at the time was […]
Forty-plus years into a still-vital, ever-proliferating filmmaking career, Werner Herzog has aged gracefully into the role of the sage adventurer, still fearlessly exploring the terrain between documentary and fiction as well as the vanishing point between charismatic eccentricity and full-blown psychosis. Born in Munich, raised in the Bavarian Alps, and lumped early on with other avatars of the New German Cinema, Herzog has ceaselessly chronicled the obsessions of dreamers and renegades both real (God’s Angry Man) and imagined (Stroszek, The Wild Blue Yonder), as well as social outcasts whose quest for ecstatic truth leads to madness, self-destruction, or sometimes, in […]