6303 Results for “Open ”
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Trailer Watch: Vanessa McDonnell’s John’s of 12th Street
Conversation, heaping plates and lots of red sauce — all should be found in Vanessa McDonnell’s documentary on the people behind East Village Italian landmark John’s. The film opens next Wednesday, November 12, at Brooklyn’s Spectacle for five screenings. Here’s the description: JOHN’S OF 12TH STREET is a portrait of a century-old Italian-American restaurant in New York City, one of the last of its kind in a rapidly changing East Village. This observational documentary loosely follows the rhythm of the restaurant’s day, which swings between boredom and frenzy as the old rooms empty and fill. No one who works at […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 7, 2014 -
“You Might as Well be Selling Drugs”: Robert Greene on Actress
“I consider the industrious Robert Greene a friend, but that makes me no less cautious in deeming his new film Actress a big deal,” I wrote after seeing the film at True/False this year. The quick takeaway: This collaborative psychodrama follows and subjectively sculpts his friend/neighbor Brandy Burre’s attempt to simultaneously separate from her longtime boyfriend and return to the acting world she left for suburban motherhood. Sliding from seemingly straightforward self-presentation to ambiguously unfeigned snapshots of daily life, director and subject collude, not so much valorizing her attempts to jumpstart her career and finances (“I have to make a […]
by Vadim Rizov on Nov 6, 2014 -
Five Questions for Drone Boning Drone Porn Creators Brandon LaGanke and John Carlucci
Drones. Porn. Directors Brandon LaGanke and John Carlucci of Ghost Cow Films have taken what might have been a cynical, viral video SEO-mashup and delivered something deeply weird and oddly hypnotic. While Drone Boning features couples having sex (so, yes, it’s adults-only and NSFW), the eerie glide of the drone and the camera’s distance from these writhing lovers make them more like elements in a video art piece than reflections of desire. Filmmaker previously featured the work of Ghost Cow when we curated LaGanke’s short film, Play House, for the Northside Film Festival. When he sent me this latest out-there […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 5, 2014 -
Watch: A Montage of Heaven and Hell at the Movies (Mildly NSFW)
Opening with the decidedly non-canonical duo of Always and All Dogs Go to Heaven, this nifty eight-ish minute montage looks at the afterlife as rendered onscreen. Graphic matches and dialogue segues from one person protesting they don’t belong here to another are smoothly handled, and while it’s more for fun than study, there are some takeaways: i.e., that there’s very little difference in the degree of tackiness of the afterlife as rendered in What Dreams May Come and Little Nicky. Thanks to Press Play for the tip. (There is brief rear male nudity and a dude’s neck being torn apart, […]
by Vadim Rizov on Nov 5, 2014 -
Shouting Loudly through Social Issue Documentary: Orlando von Einsiedel on Virunga
The most notable moment of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival arguably occurred over 6,000 miles away from downtown Manhattan in the Virunga National Park, in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Two days before Orlando von Einsiedel premiered his film Virunga — a stunning documentary about the park and rangers’ attempts to protect its wildlife from poachers, civil war, and a billion-dollar oil company — park director Emmanuel de Merode was ambushed and shot while driving alone in his car. He survived the ordeal and has returned to work, but the moment highlighted the issues the film explores, primarily environmental […]
by Randy Astle on Nov 5, 2014 -
Men, Women and Children: The 8th Abu Dhabi Film Festival
In Abu Dhabi, it’s easy to let the smoke cozy up to your eyes. The festival, now in its 8th year, unfolds in one of the city’s most dazzling corners, with the mammoth, labyrinthine, five star Emirates Palace as its proverbial hub. Gold dripping from its vending machines and balconies alike, the place is sheer, 11 billion Dirham, stadium sized spectacle. As a festival guest, you are chauffeured from the seaside St. Regis tower to screening venues in a designated Mercedes, which, barring the unwanted sexual advances that come with being a long-haired, white American female, can make you feel […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Nov 4, 2014 -
TWC and the Devaluation of Content
The notion of VOD as a stigmatized, modern update on the straight to video release has gradually and dramatically disbanded in the past handful of years. Day-and-date pioneers like Magnolia and IFC capitalized on the platform’s ability to cater to a wider, cross-country audience, demonstrating its economic viability, if occasionally at the cost of art houses. Though their sister label Radius-TWC has proven exceedingly adroit at the multi-platform rollout, The Weinstein Company has tended towards more multiplex fare, which makes their recent, free pre-theatrical release of One Chance on Yahoo! Screen even more bizarre than it sounds on paper. Originally intended for a 10 day “pre-release,” TWC […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Nov 3, 2014 -
20,000 Days on Earth
20,000 Days on Earth‘s opening runs through Nick Cave’s life to date, arrayed in stills and clips over a Nam June Paik-ish wall of TVs: as a boy, Birthday Party and Bad Seeds performer, etc., the music building to apocalyptic release. Then it’s an early morning rise for a sedate-seeming Cave. “At the end of the 20th century, I ceased to be a human being,” he announces in factual rather than aggressive voice-over. “This is not necessarily a bad thing.” With that, Cave goes about his day, driving through the not-so-jolly little seaside town of Brighton (it’s nearly always raining) […]
by Vadim Rizov on Oct 31, 2014 -
Watch: An Exclusive Clip from Malick Protege A.J. Edwards’ Debut The Better Angels
Here’s a clip from A.J. Edwards’ feature debut, The Better Angels, which opens November 7th. Edwards has been part of the Terrence Malick team since 2005, when he was an editorial intern on The New World and camera operator for the making of, and critics haven’t been slow to pick up on his mentor’s voice inflecting his feature debut. The Better Angels focuses on Abraham Lincoln’s childhood years, and in this clip you can see Malick’s influence in about five seconds: the Steadicam camera tracks relentlessly through the forest as young Abe arrives at his new log cabin home in […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Oct 29, 2014 -
Teen Horniness is Not a Crime: White Bird in a Blizzard
The nice thing about Gregg Araki’s movies is that he genuinely believes that teen horniness is not a crime: not for him Larry Clark’s pseudo-alarmed prurience or a Lifetime movie’s worth of dire consequences trailing teen sexuality. White Bird in a Blizzard‘s narrator/not-quite-heroine Kat Connors (Shaleine Woodley) is in the midst of an inexplicably celibate stretch in a hormonally-drenched first sexual relationship with neighbor Phil (Shiloh Fernandez) when her mother Eve (Eva Green) mysteriously disappears. Kat’s sexuality contributes neither to unearned guilt or poor decisions, and her relationship with the older investigating detective Scieziesciez (Thomas Jane) is never a source […]
by Vadim Rizov on Oct 28, 2014
