After Last Season director Mark Region emailed me to say that a DVD of the film will be available for order from its website on September 30. Head over to the site for a new trailer for the film, and check out my interview with Region here.
As “stay-cation” seems to be on everyone’s lips for this Labor Day weekend I thought I’d plan out your Monday for you… Sit in front of your computer and Tweet with Kevin Smith all day. To promote his upcoming book, Shootin’ The Sh*t with Kevin Smith, the foul-mouthed writer-director will be hosting a 24-hour Tweet Q&A with his followers on Monday at @ThatKevinSmith that he’s dubbing “Tweet-a-thon”. If you’ve ever been to a speaking engagement of Smith’s I don’t need to tell you how entertaining this will be. And it will be fun to see how witty Smith can be […]
Here’s the just-posted episode two of the Killer Films/Massify video production blog for their Loop Planes. For episode one and more on the project, click here. Massify + Killer Films Episode 2 from Massify on Vimeo.
For anyone who’s payed the ultimate tribute to the Coen Brothers‘ The Big Lebowski by attending the Lebowski Fest, this one’s for you. I first heard of the Achievers last September when I interviewed the creators of Lebowski Fest for FilmInFocus. This group of die hards for everything Lebowski span the globe and are not fans of the film but are obsessed over it. Some dress up as their favorite characters and attend Lebowski Fest, others yell out every F-bomb at midnight screenings and some practice the religion Dudeism. The Achievers are now the subject of a documentary, The Achievers: […]
In A Dog Year, the feature film directed by George LaVoo from Jon Katz’s memoir, Jeff Bridges plays Katz, a midlife crisis-stricken writer who, impulsively and in an act of near-deliberate emotional self-destruction, adopts a rambunctious and unsocialized border collie, flying him cross country to his family’s split-level home and their two other dogs. And while Lavoo’s movie has its share of Beethoven-esque moments as the collie sprints down suburban streets or mischievously jumps rides on passing automobiles, the film is less about canine hijinks and more about the complex and unexpected emotional roles that dogs play in our lives. […]
If you’re in New York I highly recommend you check out the final night of what has been a great series at the IFC Center: Movie Night with Jem Cohen. Tonight the program is Shorts, Rarities and Things to Come, and it’s described like this: Unseen films old and new, excerpts from recent collaborations and a glimpse at the methods behind the madness. The final evening in the IFC Center’s “Movie Nights With Jem Cohen” series offers rare films old and new, excerpts from recent collaborations and a glimpse at the methods behind the madness! To be shown: GLUE MAN, […]
There aren’t that many filmmakers working today that I think could cut it making a stop-motion film. Tim Burton has certainly showed he can excel doing it. Another that was born to try his hand at the medium is Wes Anderson. His meticulous attention to detail will only heighten the enjoyment of watching his Fantastic Mr. Fox adaptation. See what I mean here.
In a press release sent out today, the Sundance Institute has announced the creation of a new section in the Sundance Film Festival beginning next year called NEXT. The release describes the section as “featuring six to eight films selected for their innovative and original work in low- and no-budget filmmaking.” Capitalizing on the continued interest by filmmakers to do their films in a DIY style, the release goes on to say, “With NEXT, Festival programmers hope to provide a platform for these filmmakers to connect to audiences, industry and press while at the same time inviting the artists to […]
FERNANDO TIELVE AND DÉBORAH FRANÇOIS IN WRITER-DIRECTOR ALEXIS DOS SANTOS’ UNMADE BEDS. COURTESY IFC FILMS. If there’s a restlessness to the filmmaking of Alexis Dos Santos, you only have to look at the background of the young Argentinian writer-director to understand why. Born in Buenos Aires, Dos Santos relocated with his family to a small village in Patagonia when he was eight. He returned to the capital city to study Architecture at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, then moved on to study acting, and finally settled on filmmaking as his vocation. After completing his undergraduate studies at the Universidad del […]
Reporting from the fest, Belle Burke sends this dispatch on what’s in store this year. VFF begins today and wraps Sept. 12. Stay tuned to the blog for more reports from Venice. Do all film festivals begin with disclaimers, denials, and disappointments? In Venice, where discussions can be as heated as the weather, they often do, but maybe it clears the way for the bragging rights of the world’s oldest film festival. Marco Muller, back again as the festival director, still somewhat apprehensive as last-minute plans evolve, emphasizes that it will not be a “provincial festival” even though it has […]