Leading up to the Oscars on Feb. 24, we will be highlighting the nominated films that have appeared in the magazine or on the Website in the last year. Lisa Y. Garibay interviewed Juno director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody for the Fall ’07 issue. Juno is nominated for Best Picture, Best Directing (Jason Reitman), Best Lead Actress (Ellen Page) and Best Original Screenplay (Diablo Cody). The pairing of writer Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman was one of complete chance, like one of those cop-buddy movies where the grizzled vet is set up with a renegade newbie and […]
Leading up to the Oscars on Feb. 24, we will be highlighting the nominated films that have appeared in the magazine or on the Website in the last year. Nick Dawson interviewed The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford director Andrew Dominik for our Web Exclusives section of the Website. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is nominated for Best Supporting Actor (Casey Affleck) and Best Cinematography (Roger Deakins). After making only two features, Andrew Dominik deserves to be recognized as one of the most exciting and talented writer-directors working today. Born in […]
Over at Filmmaker Videos, Jamie Stuart‘s latest short from the Sundance Film Festival is up. Starring George A. Romero, Ellen Kuras and Stacy Peralta among others, Stuart shows us how ’08 Sundance looked through his eyes.
We’ve once again asked Jamie Stuart to cover the Sundance Film Festival with his unique brand of filmmaking and create a short that encompasses the people he meets, his creative eye and basically whatever pops up in his head. This year’s film includes George A. Romero, Ellen Kuras, Stacy Peralta and strange text messages. Download the short here by right clicking and choosing Save Target or Save Link. (73M) Please visit Jamie’s site at www.mutinycompany.com.
Tuesday at Sundance I saw two documentaries back to back that each deals with one of this country’s most pressing and complex political issues. Josh Tickell’s Fields of Fuel tackles America’s reliance on imported fossil fuels while Patrick Creadon in his follow-up to Wordplay, IOUSA, wrestles with the exploding United States budget deficit. Both films employ what is now a familiar doc style of exploring political and social issue subject matter: quick editing, talking heads, a chapter-by-chapter structure, use of humorous archival material, and energetic source cue-driven montages. Of the two films, Fields of Fuel is the slicker. It segues […]
Any festival you go to there’s going to be one film that most people don’t get and just spend their time discussing why they didn’t like it and question why it was ever made. Chusy (Anthony Haney-Jardine)‘s Anywhere, USA has become that film at Sundance ’08… but I’m in the minority. I thought it was one of the most fun viewing experiences I had there. Now, I won’t say that I got what Chusy’s three-part so-called autobiography was about because I don’t know if there’s anything to get. All I know is he has a bizarre imagination, gets great performances […]
Below is the complete list of Sundance 2008 Winners: Grand Jury Prize: DocumentaryTrouble The Water — directed by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal Grand Jury Prize: DramaticFrozen River — directed by Courtney Hunt World Cinema Jury Prize: DocumentaryMan on Wire — directed by James Marsh World Cinema Jury Prize: DramaticKing of Ping Pong (Ping Pongkingen) — directed by Jens Jonsson Audience Award: DocumentaryFields of Fuel — directed by Josh Tickell Audience Award: DramaticThe Wackness — directed by Jonathan Levine World Cinema Audience Award: DocumentaryMan on Wire — directed by James Marsh World Cinema Audience Award: DramaticCaptain Abu Raed — directed […]
Though documentaries are always what I’m most excited about when I go to festivals, none at Sundance really jumped out at me this year… except one. Brit filmmaker Chris Waitt came to Park City with a delicious doc that’s so funny and superbly structured it’s hard to believe that it’s non-fiction, but he insists that it’s all real. In A Complete History of My Sexual Failures Waitt has recently been dumped, and having never been good with women he takes the moment of emptiness to examine why his life has been full of failed relationships by deciding to look up […]
I’ve still got most of my Sundance commentary to get up and I’m on my way to the International Film Festival Rotterdam, where I’ll try to file some short reports on the fest and the concurrent Cinemart, which is a great financing conference that plans, this year, to begin a dialogue about how it can be reshaped for the future. (Full disclosure: I’m on the CineMart’s Advisory Board.) From the festival’s Tiger Daily: Eschewing conference and panel formats and instead deploying the tried and tested device of brainstorming towards a consensus, IFFR management and industry experts will sit down this […]
While Jamie Stuart has been here at Sundance shooting the goings on, NPR has been shooting him for a short video segment that’s now up on their website. We have no idea what Jamie will turn in this year, although we do know that it won’t be all shot in the Albertson’s parking lot.