6303 Results for “Open ”
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“The Bike is Going to Hit the Camera!” Chad Stahelski on John Wick: Chapter 2, Stair Falls and Other Stunts
“How can the same shit happen to the same guy twice?” moans John McClane in Die Hard 2. It’s the question at the heart of every high concept action movie sequel. Failing to adequately answer it is how McClane’s New York everyman cop ends up in Moscow, or why half of Bryan Mills’ family gets kidnapped in the Taken series. Following up John Wick poses a similar conundrum – how do you motivate a retired hitman whose bloody swath of revenge is initiated by the death of his wife and the murder of a cuddly puppy? Do you have his […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Feb 10, 2017 -
Sundance Notes: Disarming a Film Festival
On Friday, January 27, as I attended the second half of Sundance, Trump signed an executive order barring Syrian refugees and citizens of seven Muslim-majority nations from entering the United States. “We’re not willing to be wrong on this subject,” said White House chief of staff Reince Priebus on Face the Nation two days later. “President Trump is not willing to take chances on this subject.” The following Monday, The New York Times reported that senior White House officials “were proud of taking actions that they said would help protect Americans against threats from potential terrorists.” This year at Sundance […]
by David Leitner on Feb 10, 2017 -
“Drops of Jupiter,” Cancer and Blockbuster Video: Chris Kelly on Other People
In the opening shot of Other People, a family gathers around the body of its matriarch seconds after she’s passed from cancer. This moment of grief – accompanied by no score, just sobbing — is punctured when the phone rings and a well wisher leaves a message that is interrupted when the caller pauses to place an order at Del Taco. It’s an appropriate introduction to the film – which is sometimes sad, sometimes funny, but always raw, truthful, and uncannily specific. That specificity comes from writer/director Chris Kelly’s own experiences during his mother’s final months, during which Kelly — […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Feb 9, 2017 -
Sundance Notes: RISE to RUMBLE, must-see TV… from Canada
Malcolm Forbes, of all people, once memorably said, “You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.” I’d like to extend that principle: You can easily judge the character of a nation by how it treats the indigenous people from whom it took its territory. I’m from Chattanooga, near the Chickamauga battlefield, just east of the Ocoee and Hiwassee rivers, in the southeast corner of Tennessee. I grew up on an Appalachian mountain, dated a girl in nearby Ooltewah. I now live in Manhattan. All indigenous names. Where are […]
by David Leitner on Feb 5, 2017 -
Last Dance Before Trumpism: Eastern Oregon, Park City (Virtual) and Rotterdam
In retrospect, it seems like it was the last glimmer of something. We were all in Eastern Oregon again, the loose circuit of folks who gather annually for the tiny two-and-a-half day, two-venue film festival that takes cinephilia to the reddest corner of a blue state. The election was just a few weeks off. No one seemed particularly bothered about it, seeing as the weekend before all the talk had been about the #BillyBushTapes and how could an admitted sexual assailant become the President anyway, puhleeze? It wasn’t hard to encounter a Trump/Pence sign in La Grande, though. It’s a largely […]
by Brandon Harris on Feb 4, 2017 -
Five Things to Catch at the FilmGate Interactive Media Festival
This year’s FilmGate Interactive Media Festival – “solely dedicated to new technology-driven production companies, actors, filmmakers, journalists, advertising and marketing agencies, gaming companies, and curious audiences interested in interactive media, virtual reality, and mixed reality projects from around the world,” as its ambitious mission states – will be held February 3-5 at the University of Miami School of Communication. Among the wide-ranging selection of interactive screenings, specialty workshops, parties and panels to choose from, several stand out as not-to-be-missed experiences. Glancing through the program, the following are just five – the first three art installations (two with a local flavor), the last […]
by Lauren Wissot on Feb 3, 2017 -
20 Honest Observations from the Sundance Film Festival
Twenty — It’s the first Friday of the Sundance Film Festival and I’m sitting in the lobby of the Park City Marriott. I’m making small talk with some friends about the festival and the election and the films we’re excited to see. There’s a TV mounted on the wall behind me live broadcasting Trump’s inaugural address. Someone makes a joke about how he’s doing everything he can to avoid looking up at the screen. I do the same, pivoting my body and adjusting my eyeline so as to avoid catching a glimpse of our new President’s grinning face. By being here, […]
by Jane Schoenbrun on Feb 3, 2017 -
Elements of Oz: Producing Live Video and Interactive Theater
When MGM undertook to produce a film adaptation of the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1938 they wanted to use all the newest technological tools — think Technicolor — and special effects wizardry that they possibly could to bring the fantastic story to life. Equally, when the Builders Association decided to make the film the subject of their latest play last year — Elements of Oz ran Off-Broadway throughout December — they did the exact same thing. But for an innovative theater company in 2016 that meant integrating live video production, online clips, and a multitasking phone app into the onstage proceedings. New media […]
by Randy Astle on Feb 1, 2017 -
“When I Shoot Film Today The Set Seems to Move Faster”: DP Nancy Schreiber on Moving from Film to Digital Throughout Her Career
When director of photography Nancy Schreiber receives the Presidents Award at the 31st annual ASC Awards this Saturday, she’ll make history as the first woman to be honored with the award. It’s an appropriate – some might say overdue – recognition of an innovator who has consistently broken new ground in the fields of documentary, narrative features, and television. An early proponent of digital technology (she won the cinematography prize at Sundance in 2004 for her mini-DV work on November), Schreiber is also a fierce advocate for celluloid who creates stunning, expressive images regardless of the format. Her range is second to […]
by Jim Hemphill on Jan 31, 2017 -
Fear and Loathing and Black Rebels in Rotterdam
Being an American in rainy, gray Holland now, one feels compelled to apologize all the time. The 46th International Film Festival Rotterdam is halfway through and during the days I’ve been here, the 70-year-old old post-war liberal order seems to be collapsing all around us. It’s hard not to feel the twinge of embarrassment and guilt. That liberal order, one which has been enforced as often by violently repressing ostensible threats to its hegemony as by “spreading democracy and economic growth,” in the insufficient neoliberal sense, is finally being done away with, not by guerrillas and communist radicals but by the […]
by Brandon Harris on Jan 30, 2017
