Director Harmony Korine has shot the Spring, 2011 Urban Outfitters catalog. From The Fox is Back: “It’s a pretty crazy looking affair. Lots of analog photos that have been fucked up in some way or another. It seems to me like less of a fashion catalog and more of a collection of art, which I think is admirable for UO to be doing.” I can’t find these images on the Urban Outfitters site, but they appear to be all from a print-only piece that arrived in people’s mailboxes this week. Click on the link for scans of many of the […]
Originally posted online on January 19, 2011. The Way Back is nominated for Best Makeup (Edouard F. Henriques, Gregory Funk and Yolanda Toussieng). A pioneering figure of the new independent Australian cinema in the 1970s, 66-year-old Sydney native Peter Weir (The Truman Show) gravitated to Hollywood in the mid ’80s, found success with a handful of well-crafted studio pictures (Witness, Dead Poets Society), and never really looked back. At least that’s how it might appear after a cursory glance at his unusual oeuvre, which encompasses everything from 1975’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (an oneiric film awash in foreboding, in […]
This piece was originally printed in the Fall 2010 issue. Black Swan is nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (Darren Aronofsky), Best Actress (Natalie Portman), Best Cinematography (Matthew Libatique), Best Editing (Andrew Weisblum). Darren Aronofsky was developing a project based on Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s 1846 novella, The Double, when he happened to go to a production of another Russian work, Swan Lake, the 1875 ballet composed by Peter Tchaikovsky. Seeing the ballet’s White Swan and Black Swan played by the same ballerina, Aronofsky experienced what he called a “Eureka” moment, realizing that The Double’s themes of splintering identity and […]
A couple of years ago filmmaker Mike Hedge did a great photo-compilation video out of SXSW and now he’s emailed his list with a new video that’s a diary of his 2010. I like this idea. Rather than my seldomly-updated journal something like this would actually make me want to revisit my own musings on the past. Watch “Every Day is Spectacular” here.
Here Oscar-winner Robert Benton interviews Derek Cianfrance. The piece was originally printed in the Fall 2010 issue. Blue Valentine is nominated for Best Actress (Michelle Williams). As a child, Derek Cianfrance always worried his parents would divorce. When he was 20 his fears were realized. Both upset as well as curious about his own emotional antennae — how he somehow sensed discord in his parents’ relationship — Cianfrance decided to tackle the subject head-on with a movie. After gaining notice in the indie community with his debut feature, Brother Tied, in 1998, Cianfrance got to work on Blue Valentine, a […]
You couldn’t escape it if you tried. Where ever you went, whoever you talked to, and whenever you were on Twitter and/or Facebook for the last few weeks, The New Yorker piece on Paul Haggis and the inner workings of Scientology has been the topic of discussion. The USA Today asked Haggis about the story at a Vanity Fair Oscar party Tuesday night and the Oscar-winning director says he stands by it. Haggis, who was a member of the Church of Scientology for over 30 years, disbanded from the religion in 2009 after the church refused to publicly denounce Proposition […]
These past two weeks I’ve been in Rochester, NY working on the Orphaned soundtrack with all the usual suspects and collaborators. (Let me know if there are issues with the feed. This is an ongoing daily live feed where I will eventually be distributing free content…it is part of my MFA thesis.) I had been trying to write a response to the latest “explosion” of indie film acquisitions, the new world models of indie film financing, and the influx of nobody filmmakers. BUT I found that others with something to say, have already said it best, so I scrapped it. […]
A native of Montreal, Dolan is a former child actor who wrote and directed his first film, I Killed My Mother, at age 20, after dropping out of university. That movie, a semi-autobiographical tale of coming out which debuted at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard sidebar, won three awards at the 2009 festival, including the Regards Jeune given to young filmmakers of great promise. A stylized depiction of hopelessly “imaginary” love, Xavier Dolan’s sophomore feature Heartbeats (which also premiered at Cannes) trails a pair of close friends—witty, Audrey Hepburn manqué Marie (Monia Chokri) and sweet-faced Francis (Dolan)—who simultaneously […]
The IFP announced today the lineup for this year’s Script to Screen Conference. Taking place March 5, the event will take place at 92Y Tribeca in New York City. This year’s keynotes include Barry Levinson and Black Swan screenwriter Mark Heyman. There will also be a discussion on new platforms for writers with Onion News Network head writer Carol Kolb, a conversation with producer Ted Hope and the filmmakers behind Sundance hit Martha Marcy May Marlene talk about creative teamwork. To learn more about the conference and how to get tickets go to http://www.ifp.org/script-to-screen-conference/ Read the press release on Script […]
Originally posted online on December 16, 2010. Rabbit Hole is nominated for Best Actress (Nicole Kidman). David Lindsay-Abaire’s Pulitzer Prize winning play Rabbit Hole might seem like an odd choice for helmer John Cameron Mitchell, a director whose reputation wasn’t gained built on tasteful, upper-middle-class family dramas. Perhaps he’s mellowed, and given the results, why not? The film’s story of parental grief, that of a Westchester County couple (Aaron Eckhart and Nicole Kidman) who, eight months later still lack the emotional wherewithal to deal with the accidental death of their young son, may seem like the stuff of so many […]