At the Nice airport, a sign greets arrivals with “Welcome to the Côte d’Azur” in French, Russian and (smaller type) English, giving an idea of the area’s most regular visitors. But at this year’s Cannes, the yacht count is likely to be down, what with presumably diminished attendance from extremely wealthy Russians. The first person to point that out was a friend before leaving, the second a stranger on the bus from the airport to Cannes—one of a pair arriving to raise financing for four features in development and a fifth in post, which they said was “more of a […]
As, just before heading to the airport, I post this brief list of films we at Filmmaker are especially excited to see at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, cinema’s most prestigious annual event is already having something of a bumpy opening, with a new (for those who didn’t experience its debut in last year’s low-key mid-pandemic edition) ticketing system returning all manner of “504 Gateway” errors and obscure messages, some of which contain their own brutal poetry: “Validation of viewstate failed… Purpose, purpose…” (Press has seen some alleviation as those badges are now redirected to a new server, while market […]
I was lucky to catch Alison Pill on Broadway, 16 years ago, in The Lieutenant of Inishmore, and then became enamored with her work in shows like In Treatment, The Newsroom, Devs, and movies like Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and Milk, to name just a few. Nowadays she plays Dr. Agnes Jurati on the series Picard, and stars with Sarah Gadon in Michael McGowan’s new film All My Puny Sorrows. She shares what she believes to be the secret ingredient that made that film work, and talks about how adopting a physicality for a character is foundational to her […]
Released in the fall of 1980, while Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of The Shining continued to horrify audiences in theaters, Stephen King’s eighth novel, Firestarter, tells the story of Charlie McGee, a young girl struggling to control her pyrokinetic powers. Her parents knew this would be an issue: years earlier, Andy and Vicky McGee participated in a trial run of a new chemical compound, Lot Six, that embedded telekinetic and mind-controlling powers that shady government officials now wish to end. A run in with Rainbird, who had also been experimented on and now acts as a hired assassin wiping out […]
Czech That Film, the annual festival highlighting the best of recent Czech cinema, is now in the midst of its 11th edition. The festival has customarily travelled to over 20 cities, but given the ongoing pandemic, this year’s edition is partially online, with films available to stream on the Artinii platform. From the website: The event was established to accommodate increased interest in Czech cinema and culture in the United States and is dedicated to raising profile of current Czech films at an international level. It provides an opportunity for American enthusiasts of global cinema to experience successful new Czech […]
In my print issue article (now online) on two ultra-low-budget filmmakers, I described Tzvi Friedman’s Man as an “an eerily austere New York-set serial killer drama with a (possible) science-fiction twist and impressive formal control.” As the film finishes post-production and begins submitting to festivals, Friedman, who is making his feature debut with Man, has sent Filmmaker an early teaser from the film that aptly showcases its depiction of dread-filled urban anomie and assured tone. As I write in my piece, “The film was inspired when Friedman was locked out of a Brooklyn apartment where he was sleeping and wound […]
One of New Zealand cinematographer Nigel Bluck’s first breaks as a young DP came shooting 2nd unit on the original Lord of the Rings trilogy. He had one feature film under his belt and little visual effects experience, but Bluck learned on the job and persevered through nine months of bluescreen-draped soundstage work. Two decades later, the now-seasoned Bluck faced another new challenge with The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. “I’m not a comedy guy, normally,” said Bluck. “This is the warmest and funniest movie I’ve ever shot.” It’s definitely the Nicolas Cage-iest movie anyone has ever shot. The Oscar winner plays […]
In 2007, Michelangelo Frammartino was scouting locations for Le Quattro Volte in Alessandria del Carretto, whose mayor took him to the Bifurto Abyss, one of the world’s deepest caves. That, along with a follow-up expedition in 2016, planted the seed for Il Buco, Frammartino’s third feature. In the time since, Frammartino has become an avid speleologist, and Il Buco is ostensibly a recreation of the initial exploration of Bifurto in 1961, at the outset of Italy’s “economic miracle.” Frammartino juxtaposes it with the day-to-day life of an aging shepherd, giving the film an elegiac tone as it mixes pastoral myth […]
Held back even longer than No Time to Die, Top Gun: Maverick is the last major film repeatedly delayed by the pandemic to see release. In that time, it’s already taken on multiple unintended resonances, like the irony of this sequel to an uber-patriotic property getting denounced for appeasing communism by Ted Cruz. In December 2020, Cruz took to the Senate floor to decry, among other films proving Hollywood’s unseemly deferral to China, Maverick. Referring—accurately in terms of enrollment rates—to the original as “maybe the greatest Navy recruiting film ever made,” he noted that the Taiwanese flag had been removed from […]