Police Beat writer Charles Mudede pens a curious ode to Stanley Kubrick in Seattle’s The Stranger. After opening by saying that Kubrick’s contempt for mankind was “deep,” he moves on to a fuller explication of his worldview: “I’m in a world of shit,” says Private Joker at the end of Kubrick’s unremittingly dark Vietnam War film, Full Metal Jacket. That is what Kubrick has to say about the state of everything: The world is shit, humans are shit in shit, life is worth shit, and there is nothing else that can be done about the situation. In Kubrick’s movies, progress, […]
Over at his blog, filmmaker A. J. Schnack thinks about the whole mumblecore thing with tons of links to all of this week’s NYC press coverage and more (including the filmmaker’s own piece on Swanberg and DIY distribution in February, 2006). Schnack, a doc maker, considers the phenomenon and takes the right lessons away from it: And perhaps the biggest thing that we should learn from these filmmakers is that we can and should work together. And I mean that literally. Although the doc community is a pretty tight-knit bunch, we should continue to find ways of collaboration, on screen […]
Our friends at MySpace have just launched their new Film page. It’s wider, with more features and info, and Filmmaker has even more real estate on it. And over on the Filmmaker MySpace site, we’ve changed our color scheme, away from our undeniably impressive but eye-straining backdrop of past covers to a stylish yellow/orange. The MySpace site will have more on it in the days ahead, but, for now, here’s something I found: a clip from Lynch, the doc on David Lynch Nick Dawson wrote about in a posting below.
September Dawn has been attracting controversy ever since it began shooting last year. The film, directed and co-written by Christopher Cain (Young Guns), tells the story of the events surrounding the Mountain Meadows Massacre when, on the morning of September 11, 1857, a wagon train of over 100 Westward-bound Christian settlers were brutally slain by Mormon militia. The incident has continued to be a historical talking point as the Mormons accused of the murders were disguised as Native Americans and have always denied any culpability in the matter. However a wealth of documentation backs up the claims against the Mormons, […]
MARK DUPLASS AND GRETA GERWIG IN JOE SWANBERG’S HANNAH TAKES THE STAIRS. COURTESY IFC FIRST TAKE. Whatever the merits or otherwise of the “mumblecore” tag, one positive thing it has certainly done is help bring deserved attention to filmmakers like Joe Swanberg. The precocious 25-year-old was born in Detroit, but moved around as a kid before attending Southern Illinois University Carbondale, where he studied film. After graduation, he used money he had made from web design work to fund his first feature, Kissing on the Mouth (2005), which played at the SXSW Film Festival at the time the concept of […]
Filmmaker‘s former Managing Editor, Mike Jones, who is also a working screenwriter and director, has been tapped by Variety to head their new film festival blog and online section. Welcome, Mike, to the blogosphere and look forward to seeing you on the fest circuit this fall!
I’ll admit that it initially seemed a little weird when news broke that Todd Haynes’s I’m Not There would be opening on two screens at the Film Forum and also at Lincoln Plaza in late November. Decently budgeted (reportedly $13.5 million) and starring Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, Richard Gere and others, it hardly, as this piece by John Anderson in The New York Times points out, seems a likely candidate for a small arthouse opening. But, it is a Todd Haynes film and the Film Forum is a great venue that carries cultural weight. I think, then, in the end […]
If you’re not in the habit of regularly checking out the main page, head over there now for this interview by Nick Dawson of Superbad director Greg Mottola. His debut feature, Daytrippers, was a great no-budget indie, and now, years later, he’s having a spectacular second act with the number one movie in America (and a smaller indie film just about to shoot). While you’re there, click on the RSS feed so all of Dawson’s interviews are sent directly to your feed reader. A brief excerpt: Filmmaker: You worked closely with Judd on Undeclared, but at what stage did he […]
CHRISTOPHER MINTZ-PLASSE, JONAH HILL AND MICHAEL CERA IN GREG MOTTOLA’S SUPERBAD. COURTESY COLUMBIA PICTURES. It’s a sign of Hollywood’s wrongheadedness that it’s been a decade since Greg Mottola last made a movie. In 1996, Mottola arrived on the scene with his debut, The Daytrippers, a funny and poignant indie that recalled the classy Hollywood comedies of the ’60s and ’70s. Though the film led to Mottola becoming friends with Woody Allen — unquestionably an influence on Daytrippers — his next two projects failed to come to fruition, so he turned his focus to television. Mottola’s work in TV has been […]
Matt Dentler came up with a great concept to help get the word out about Joe Swanberg’s Hannah Takes the Stairs, which begins a theatrical run Wednesday, August 22 at New York’s IFC Center. He’s done interviews with Swanberg and the film’s other principal collaborators and parceled them out to a number of different film bloggers. Here’s the Filmmaker segment, and thanks, Matt, for including us. JOE SWANBERG INTERVIEWED BY MATT DENTLER On the eve of the theatrical debut of Joe Swanberg’s SXSW 2007 hit, Hannah Takes the Stairs, I wanted to check in with each of the film’s principal […]