Over at his Variety blog, “The Circuit,” Mike Jones writes in his Toronto wrap-up about an encounter with one of the Canada/U.S. border crossing officials: The border agent at the Toronto airport held me at the desk, studying my business card. He was trying to think up the title of a film he’d seen long ago. He’d scoured the internet for it and come up empty. As the line grew behind me, he described it as a story of a man abused by his wife. It involved drinking, a child, poverty, and more drinking. He leaned forward, pointing his pen, […]
KENE HOLLIDAY AND PAT HEALY IN CRAIG ZOBEL’S GREAT WORLD OF SOUND. COURTESY MAGNOLIA PICTURES. Previously best known as David Gordon Green’s right-hand man, Craig Zobel has effortlessly emerged from his friend’s shadow and established himself as an important presence in American filmmaking in his own right. Though born in New York, Zobel grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, and stayed in the South for his college education, studying film at the North Carolina School of the Arts alongside Green and a number of other future collaborators. After graduation, Zobel worked on Green’s first three films — George Washington (2000), All […]
Over at his blog, Anthony Kaufman posts a letter from Ted Hope saluting Mike Ryan, who was named one of Variety‘s 10 Producers to Watch. He begins: Despite — or maybe because of — working in the film business, it is rare that I encounter the individual that is clearly driven by passion for film, knowledgable on a wide range of subjects, has a cultivated and constantly evolving aesthetic, and lives and breathes in accordance with principals and politics that they have fully thought out and committed to; to me all those things should be up on the PGA website […]
Alfonso Cuaron’s latest film is playing at the Toronto Film Festival, but you can see it now, for free, online, below… It’s his collaboration with Jonas Cuaron and author Naomi Klein that accompanies Klein’s latest book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing summarizes the book’s thesis thusly: …present-day global capitalism took hold when its advocates learned to exploit disasters. After a disaster (war, tsunami, terrorist attack), you can push your agenda for worsening labor conditions, looser regulation, and pocket-lining exercises (Enron, Halliburton) while the reeling, disaster-struck population of the world has its attention […]
CHRISTOPHER WALKEN IN JOHN TURTURRO’S ROMANCE & CIGARETTES. COURTESY UNITED ARTISTS. John Turturro has the distinction of being both a director’s actor and an actor’s director. A favorite of both Spike Lee and the Coen brothers, over the past 20 years Turturro has marked himself out as one of the most interesting and talented actors in film, and whether it is a blocked writer (Barton Fink), a socially-awkward chess master (The Luzhin Defense) or a grief-stricken widower (Fear X), he adds a depth and humanity to the characters he inhabits. In 1992, he directed his first film, Mac, about three […]
A week ago on Indiewire, Agnes Varun posted a “Doc Filmmakers Guide to the IFP Market,” which is full of solid advice from Market vets to help you navigate the upcoming conference (Sept. 16 – 19). Today, on the Renew Media blog, she posts a follow-up: the entirety of a 1,200 word piece by Tracy Heather Strain, a seven-year Market vet. It’s full of practical advice that anyone attending the Market should read.
In what Gregg Goldstein of The Hollywood Reporter proclaims a “seismic shift of power in the independent film community,” CAA agent Bart Walker, previously the head of their NYC film office and rep to such directors as Sofia Coppola, Julie Taymor and Julian Schnabel, has left the agency to join Cinetic Media. THR reports that Cinetic’s John Sloss and Walker will form a new division, Cinetic Management. From the joint statement Sloss and Walker released: We see Cinetic as a new kind of service company, one that will create innovative structures that benefit filmmakers as well as financiers so that […]
Ronnie Bronstein’s film, co-hosted by Lodge Kerrigan… a rare screening, tonight, IFC Center/New York, 7:30…. see you there.
Perhaps because Gross doesn’t write for a daily outlet but more likely because the erudition of his criticism is genuinely thrilling, the occasional essays on film by screenwriter Larry Gross pack a punch within our metacritic’d, tomato-splattered blogosphere. Here he is with an early appreciation of Todd Haynes’s I’m Not There that’s just gone online at Film Comment. “How can a work not give us politics and yet be so political?” he asks in a piece that opens by quoting Jean-Godard, and Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari and ends by considering how Haynes’s film fits into a moment signified by […]
Jeff Garlin may be best known as Larry David’s right hand man on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, but there’s more to this Second City alum than his deadpan humor. Along with doing stand up and developing new TV shows when Curb isn’t taping, he’s also been trying to get his feature films made. His first is I Want Someone To Eat Cheese With, which premiered at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival to rave reviews and then suddenly lost its momentum and collected dust for over a year until finding distribution through IFC Film’s First Take banner and The Weinstein Company. […]