After reading that Warner Bros was streaming The Dark Knight and soon thereafter the Harry Potter films though Facebook, I immediately thought it was a genius move. More information is shared on Facebook, and this would be a great way to close the window between discovery and consumption. In addition, on Facebook distributors and filmmakers are provided very meaningful analytics — and then, of course, there’s the monetization aspect. In Part One of this two-part email interview I talk to David Raycroft, co-founder and Vice-President of Product and Operations of Milyoni, the company that made this all happen. He talks […]
The ending of Brian De Palma’s Blow Out hits you in the chest like a hammer. It’s not supposed to be this way; American studio movies don’t end like that. But of course it’s the heartbreaking denouement that has partially helped to make the film endure in the 30 intervening years since its commercially disastrous release, though one can certainly fathom how it alienated audiences at the time (for the record, some critics were passionate defenders; it’s just that most viewers don’t savor being implicated in the spectacle of violence as it is quickly transformed into tragedy). As De Palma […]
Singer Poly Styrene (Marian Joan Elliott-Said), best known for her work in the iconic punk band X-Ray Spex, died today from breast cancer at 53. From Dangerous Minds: Poly upended every stereotype of the female rock and roll front person. She looked like an innocent school girl but when she opened her mouth she had a soul searing wail that made John Lydon sound like a squealing mama’s boy with his dick stuck in a zipper. Poly had one of the greatest punk rock voices in all of rock and roll. From banshee to wounded vulnerability, Styrene emoted with a […]
Ambitious and generally without a dull moment, the fourth Off Plus Camera International Festival of Independent Cinema unfurled from the 8th through the 17th of this month with little of the inconvenience and national tragedy that marked last year’s affair. Having been interrupted by the volcanic explosion that grounded planes across Europe last April and shortened by the tragic plane crash which killed an entire generation of Polish political and civic leaders, the third edition was a ragtag affair with few guests and an anarchic spirit that few festivals are able to generate. This year the festival was running at […]
Rocks. That’s what you get when you support Mike Plante’s hour-long portrait film, Be Like An Ant. But they aren’t just everyday rocks. They are rocks from underneath the subject of the film’s home, and he has selected, polished and cut them. Here’s how Plante describes his project: The story: Post-Vietnam, Paul bought a trailer for his family to live in. Annoyed by how bad living inside a mobile home during winter could be, he took matters into his own hands and started to build a house – around the trailer. He never made any blueprints. As the house took […]
Amidst all the online talk about DIY and arguments over who is “indie” and who isn’t, sometimes real directors quietly and steadfastly pursuing an independent agenda don’t get the attention they deserve. One such director is Rodney Evans, whose 2004 Brother to Brother ambitiously fused an exploration of the Harlem Renaissance with a contemporary tale dealing with gay African-American identity. Now he’s got a new movie, and he’s using Kickstarter to raise funds for actors’ salaries and equipment rental. Here’s how he describes the picture, titled The Happy Sad. Armed with roses and art, Stan brunches with his girlfriend Annie, […]
A number of former “25 New Faces” are involved with the production of Sarah Daggar-Nickson’s short film, In the Forest One Night. They include the cinematographer Sean Kirby and executive producers Lars Knudsen and Jay Van Hoy. Also involved are producers Tory Lenosky and Andrea Roa, and production designer Amanda Ford. Rewards include the director’s own DVDs and books of poetry, and a pitch-meeting with the two exec producers. According to her Kickstarter bio, Daggar-Nickson “specializes in stories from the darker side of life, where hope shines a little brighter.” I like that. Check out the video and consider supporting.
At the State Theater in Ann Arbor, I fell under the spell of Jane Eyre’s cold naturalism (which made the occasional flashes of heat even hotter), but not all of those seated around me did. Specifically: a woman in the row in front of me who, at the most tender, sexually charged moments in the film would sigh heavily, throwing her head back. When she wasn’t doing this, she was answering her phone calls (at least twice), fidgeting in her seat, or stretching her arms above her head. She had obviously been dragged to the film by her companion, who […]
Opening today at Brooklyn’s gastropub theater, reRun, is David Lowery’s first feature, St. Nick. Here’s Alicia Van Couvering’s introduction to her interview with Lowery for Filmmaker at the film’s festival premiere: There is almost no dialogue in the first half of David Lowery’s feature debut, St. Nick. A young boy and a girl enter an abandoned house, clean it up, build a fire, forget to open a window and fill the house with smoke, figure out a chimney and watch the embers turn into flames. They sleep, they forage for food; somehow they survive, until reality starts bearing down on […]
Deep in the heart of the ongoing trend of immensely popular adapted art-house material, there lies a kernel of Hollywood thinking. Films like The Millennium Trilogy or Never Let Me Go subscribe to the same model as blockbuster hits like The Harry Potter series or Watchmen, meticulously attempting to follow the original text in order to satisfy fans of the source material. Adapted from Wajdi Mouawad’s monologue-heavy stage play, Incendies is the rare anomaly of a film that attempts to evoke not the most accurate recreation of its source material, but the most accurate interpretation. Director Denis Villeneuve, the French-Canadian […]