Since Leviathan, I’ve been more curious than ever about the functionality of GoPros. Often categorized as toys and far more prevalent on ski slopes than sets, it took Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel strapping the pocket-sized gizmo to the underside of a fishing vessel to illustrate its cinematic advantages. A little while back, Letus announced the release of a 1.33X Anamorphic Adapter for the camera, to be known as the AnamorphX-GP. Scheduled for shipment on January 31st, the first wave of test footage has arrived from Jared Abrams at Wide Open Camera. Though the characteristic fish eye traces remain intact, the wide aspect […]
A streamlined extension of his open collaborative site, Joseph Gordon-Levitt will premiere “Hit Record on TV” on Pivot, next Saturday at 10 pm. The first episode, which is currently available online, promises an amalgam of forms and tastes, as “Regular Joe” and his merry band of global collaborators stitch together short films (featuring Elle Fanning), musical interludes and animated sequences. Being that it is the inaugural affair, the episode centers on the number one, its connotations and translations, as told through said media and its fair share of webcams. The hitRECord address is one well worth visiting, as it encourages artists […]
The following essay appears in the new horror-film anthology, Hidden Horror: A Celebration of 101 Underrated and Overlooked Fright Flicks. Click here for an interview with the book’s editor, Dr. AC as well as for links to four other essays published at Filmmaker. “Do you have the crazy?” Expectations, when great, are seldom met and tend to leave an impression of disappointment. I often find the opposite to also be true; the fewer expectations, the more gratifying when something turns out to be a jewel amidst detritus. With this in mind, it fills me with quiet dread that by cresting […]
“An epic pot-luck movie party where everyone has brought a favorite dish and wants you to give it a try” is how Dr. AC (Aaron Christensen) describes his latest horror-movie anthology, Hidden Horror: A Celebration of 101 Underrated and Overlooked Fright Flicks. And, indeed, anyone looking to scratch past the Rosemary’s Baby‘s and Paranormal Activity‘s to uncover more idiosyncratic, personal and sometimes more terrifying work will find their needs met by the book, which couples great film recommendations with astute commentary by passionate critics. Included are essays on a number of my personal favorites — The Changeling, Dark Water and […]
One the most audaciously over-the-top movies of the past year, Mike Mendez’s sci-fi creature feature Big Ass Spider is being released on Blu-ray and to celebrate, we’re having a creepy crawly giveaway! Thanks to our friends at Epic Pictures, we have a copy of the script of the film signed by the director Mike Mendez, a Big Ass Spider T-shirt and a Blu-ray of the film to give away! To enter the contest, answer this question and e-mail your answer to nick AT filmmakermagazine DOT com: Which national landmark got zapped in the poster of Mike Mendez’s 1997 film Bimbo […]
Director Michelangelo Frammartino unveiled his latest project at Den Frie Center for Contemporary Art in Copenhagen in November. Alberi, his stunning 26-minute video installation, which first screened at MoMA P.S.1 last spring, was receiving its European premiere at CPH:DOX, a festival that awarded its top prize to his second feature, Le Quattro Volte, in 2010. Like that film, Alberi is a hybrid work that combines documentary and staged performance, but operates in the space between video installation and cinema. It describes a mysterious ritual from the southern region of the filmmaker’s native Italy that is well known but little understood. […]
In advance of Sundance, the unofficial birthplace of the annual independent film calendar, Manohla Dargis has something to ask of the attending distributors: “stop buying so many movies.” Or at least, stop offering so many theatrical deals. “It’s hard to see how American independent cinema can sustain itself if it continues to focus on consumption rather than curation,” she writes. “There are, bluntly, too many lackluster, forgettable and just plain bad movies pouring into theaters, distracting the entertainment media and, more important, overwhelming the audience.” Her claim comes from a kind-hearted place. She ventures that the wonderfully singular Computer Chess could […]
The SXSW Film Conference and Festival has announced the first batch of premieres for its 2014 edition, including Jon Favreau’s Chef, the Veronica Mars movie, and acting-screenwriting ventures from Jeremy Sisto and Mark Duplass. Joining the aforementioned narrative titles are Doc of the Dead, which charts the evolution of the zombie genre; Leave the World Behind, a portrait of Swedish House Mafia; and Fox’s series remake Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey, as hosted by astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson. Said Janet Pierson of Chef, the opening night film, “Jon Favreau’s wonderfully entertaining return to independent filmmaking works beautifully as our 2014 Opening Night Film, with his sharp […]
Bryan Cranston as a Polish gangster; Chuuk immigrants in Guam; a Japanese superhero dressed only in women’s panties; Honolulu transit controversies; a home run-hitting gorilla; and filmmaking initiatives from the Cook Islands — all these and more were on display during last month’s Hawaii International Film Festival. New films by Jia Zhang-ke, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Hayao Miyazaki, Brillante Mendoza and Dante Lam dominated the festival’s solid Asian lineup, while emerging talents such as Tze Chun and Steven J. Kung led its selection of American work. Casting its nets far closer to shore, the festival also highlighted local Hawaiian and Pacific Islander […]
The Cinema Eye Honors is always one of the most enjoyable and lively awards shows of the year, and arguably the most intimate; at no other awards show is there such a sense of an entire community coming together. This year, the short film that prefaced the awards — which was compromised of pictures of all the nominees — ended with the words, “We are Cinema Eye. We are on each other’s team.” And that sense of unity and people pulling together was underlined in the opening words of AJ Schnack, who called on the filmmakers present to stand together […]