This past June I had the pleasure of sharing the stage with Fritz Kiersch (Director of Children of the Corn) at the deadCENTER Film Festival in Oklahoma City following a screening of the film PressPausePlay. Our task was to discuss the questions posed in the film which is explores the digital revolution of the last decade and its influence on the creative culture. The film puts forth the notion, as described on the PressPausePlay site, that this “digital revolution has unleashed creativity and talent of people in an unprecedented way, in turn unleashing unlimited creative opportunities,” and ponders these fundamental questions, “does democratized […]
The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced today that Alexander Payne‘s The Descendants (pictured) will be the closing night film for this year’s New York Film Festival. NYFF’s main slate was also unveiled and includes David Cronenberg‘s A Dangerous Method and Pedro Almodóvar‘s The Skin I Live In, which both will be screened as special gala presentations; Simon Curtis‘ My Week With Marilyn, which will have a centerpiece screening; and Roman Polanski‘s Carnage, which will open the fest. Read the complete lineup below. NYFF’s 49th edition will take place Sept. 30 – Oct. 16. General public tickets will become available […]
One of Russia’s most celebrated filmmakers, Marina Goldovskaya, had led a colorful and peripatetic life as a nonfiction filmmaker specializing in docu-diaristic portraits of poets, artists, leaders and everyday people. Currently head of the documentary program at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, and Television, Goldovskaya was also eyewitness to a half century of turbulent history, which she has spent the past 40 years meticulously archiving on celluloid and digital video. After attending the State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in the 1960s, she quickly established herself as a leading cinematographer in a business dominated by men, a fertile period she details […]
Second #235 What is this? Where are we? In a weird, dreamlike echo of the Amity Island billboard (defaced with the black shark fin) from Jaws, the Welcome to Lumberton billboard is a nest of contradictions. Instead of a shark fin, there should be a monster lurking in the background pine trees. The woman looks to be freeze-dried straight out of the Cold War, and brings to mind Shelley Winters as Charlotte Haze in Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita (1962). Could the awkward wave of her hand be any more artificial or uninviting? For a moment, we seem to have gone back […]
I am overwhelmed and excited by the response from our last post…this truly is the conversation in action, and the reason I wanted to start this column. We also just got the word that our panel for SXSW is up on their site and ready to vote for. If you want to see us bring the conversation to SXSW then vote here! Many thanks in advance! In keeping with the idea of necessity and budget constraints from Nicole’s piece, I present to you with Mark Stolaroff. Mark is the fella behind the No-Budget Film School in L.A. and he’s here […]
It’s extremely difficult to type the words “my favorite Kubrick film” because I honestly feel I could put that down while writing about any of them. But what I can say about Stanley Kubrick’s Hollywood calling card The Killing is it’s the one film of his that I’m most nostalgic about. Film noir. Jim Thompson’s words. Sterling Hayden’s “when men were men” bravado. The contract studio picture was on the way out and the New Hollywood of Bogdanovich, Ashby and Nichols were breaking down the doors. But before that (and likely escalating the emergence of New Hollywood) there was Kubrick. […]
Last year we were flattered when The Grand Cinema in Tacoma, Washington asked if they could put together a screening series of our 2010 25 New Faces of Independent Film. It was an amazing turnout with The Grand screening films from 22 of the 25 and 11 of the filmmakers making the trip to attend. Well, The Grand is doing it again! Beginning this Friday and running until the 25th, The Grand Cinema will screen 20 works from this year’s 25 and it sounds like they will once again have a bunch of the filmmakers on hand. If you live […]
Last month, I travelled to San Diego to spend three days at Comic-Con, the massive annual gathering of fans of sci-fi, fantasy, horror, comics and related pop culture. It was my first time to the event and I was there to screen my new sci-fi short Digital Antiquities at the Comic-Con Independent Film Festival. I’ve been to many festivals with my films, but Comic-Con was an experience like no other. The scale of the event and passion of the fans were overwhelming, and as an indie filmmaker I found the experience both incredibly inspiring and deeply humbling. DIGITAL ANTIQUITIES In […]
Second #188 Jeffrey’s father has just suffered a stroke while watering his front yard, and has fallen to his back, writhing in pain, the hose that he still holds—in a sad and funny and helpless way—spraying water all around. That shot is followed by this one, as the camera pans slowly down, the background a blur, capturing the water in mid-air as Bobby Vinton sings “Blue Velvet,” which he had released in 1963, several months before the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The song, written by Bernie Wayne and Lee Morris, dates back to 1950. Wayne was a prolific composer, […]
Imagine a village of peasants in a mountainous jungle region of El Salvador that would be completely devastated by bombs during the Civil War (1980-92), and most of its inhabitants, including teenaged boys and girls, brutally murdered by the National Guard. Or better yet, let filmmaker Tatiana Huezo imagine it for us and update it in her unforgettable documentary, The Tiniest Place, one of the finest docs I’ve seen over the past year. The puebla is Cinquera, which was suspected by the government of being a hotbed of leftist guerrillas. Several families, many of which lost most of their children, […]