6301 Results for “Open ”
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All The King’s Men: Penny Lane on Our Nixon
In Our Nixon, director Penny Lane explores the Nixon administration by juxtaposing secret White House discussions from the infamous Nixon tapes with incredibly intimate Super 8 footage taken by avid amateur cineastes H.R. “Bob” Haldeman, John Ehrlichmann and Dwight Chapin. The fact that these men also happened to be the chief of staff, special advisor and assistant to our much maligned 37th President is one thing; that they were also three of Nixon’s closest aides and the key conspirators jailed during the aftermath of the Watergate scandal is another entirely. Despite what Ben Stein might say, Our Nixon has little to no polemical […]
by Brandon Harris on Aug 31, 2013 -
Venice 2013 Critic’s Notebook: Gravity and Sorcerer, a Strange Alchemy
While international film festivals, especially those of the calibre and history of Venice (this year celebrating its 70th edition), are most commonly seen as a golden opportunity to catch new cinema from contemporary filmmakers, many offer meaty and mightily tempting repertory programmes loaded with restorations. This year’s Cannes festival, for example, featured restored prints of Vertigo, Hiroshima Mon Amour and Borom Sarret (the first film by a black African: Ousmane Sembene), among sundry others. Venice, as ever, has its own Classics strand, with 29 restorations (and documentaries on cinema), including works by Chantal Akerman, Nagisa Oshima and Satyajit Ray. However, the […]
by Ashley Clark on Aug 31, 2013 -
Kickstarter: Cheryl Dunye Takes Off Her Cool with Black is Blue
Filmmaker Cheryl Dunye recently launched a Kickstarter campaign for the post-production of her latest short, Black is Blue. In this guest post, Isis Asare of Sistah Sinema, the film’s community sponsor, talks with Dunye about this latest phase of her work. In one of the most moving scenes of Black is Blue, tears roll down Black’s – the film’s title character – cheeks after he makes a shocking discovery about a former lover. His emotional fragility is placed in sharp contrast with his sheer physical strength. In that moment, the viewer peers past Black’s masculinity, darkness, and confidence. The viewer […]
by Isis Asare on Aug 30, 2013 -
Story Hacking in Hollywood
The following is a guest post by StoryCode’s co-founder Mike Knowlton on the inaugural Los Angeles Story Hackathon. From Knowlton’s official bio: “A digital veteran of 20 years, Mike has always pushed the boundaries of storytelling and technology. His work at StoryCode has created a vibrant cross-discipline global community of immersive media creators. StoryCode programs immersive media case study presentations, Transmedia education workshops, and Story Hackathons.” What do you get when you mix a live Steve Jobs-esque pitch presentation and the concept of dating insurance? Or a story about an abducted woman who suddenly appears via webcam, live in front […]
by Mike Knowlton on Aug 29, 2013 -
Shooting With John: Adam Schartoff
I was very nervous about the experience. The idea was to go upstate, about 80 or 90 miles or so north up the Hudson Valley region, to some bucolic spot and shoot guns. Originally we were supposed to shoot skeet but that equipment wasn’t available so we ended up doing target practice. A longtime gun control advocate, I was a bit at the end of my rope. It was November of 2012 and there had been close to 16 mass shootings in the U.S. up to that point including the Batman shooting and the Texas A&M shooting that summer. The […]
by Adam Schartoff on Aug 29, 2013 -
The Intersection of Film and Live Music: Jem Cohen’s We Have an Anchor
Jem Cohen is back at BAM with the New York premiere of We Have an Anchor — a hybrid documentary that blends projections of landscapes in a variety of formats (Super 8, 16mm, HD), poetry and newspaper clippings to the sounds of a live score by an indie rock supergroup featuring members of Fugazi, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and more. A spiritual sequel to 2008’s Evening’s Civil Twilight in Empires of Tin, We Have an Anchor is an exploration of place (specifically Nova Scotia, more specifically Cape Breton) utilizing footage Cohen has shot over the last 10 years. Cohen departs […]
by Shaun Seneviratne on Aug 28, 2013 -
“I’m Envisaging a New Kind of Movie:” SFX Legend Douglas Trumbull on Kubrick, Malick and the Future of Film
Douglas Trumbull has been behind some of cinemas most spectacular special effects. His impressive C.V. includes working on 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Blade Runner and most recently Tree of Life. He also directed Silent Running in 1972 and Brainstorm in 1983, most remembered as the final film appearance of Natalie Wood. He has also been one of cinema’s great pioneers, always pushing technology to its limit, whether that be designing films for World Fairs, making rides for Universal and Luxor Hotels, or simply backing new technologies such as IMAX. Never standing still, the self-proclaimed […]
by Kaleem Aftab on Aug 28, 2013 -
Four Lessons I Learned Making My First Feature in India
Three years of struggle had brought me here, within a whisker of completing Khoya, my first feature, in India. A religious riot was about to threaten to undo it all. I was filming in my father’s hometown in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh. We were shooting at a chaat stand in the middle of town. It was a simple scene. The protagonist orders chaat (an Indian street food dish) from a vendor. Matt, the assistant cameraman, had taken over operating because Kevin, the director of photography, was lying in bed, having been leveled by the hotel’s Manchurian Chicken. As we completed a […]
by Sami Khan on Aug 28, 2013 -
An End to First-Sale for Movies?
Do you still buy newspapers, books or CDs? For the latest film or a classic flick, do you collect DVDs or subscribe to a “cloud” service like Netflix Instant, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu Plus, Google Movies/You Tube Premium or iTunes? A half-century ago, people went to theaters to watch a movie. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s 1984 Sony decision, movie-viewing habits began to change. The Court permitted TV viewers to download copyrighted programming to their videocassette recorder (VCR) and record it onto a cassette tape. The Court’s decision was based on what is known as the “first-sale doctrine.” […]
by David Rosen on Aug 27, 2013 -
Leading the Way in Non-Traditional Distribution: Jonathan Goodman Levitt’s Follow the Leader
Jonathan Goodman Levitt’s Follow the Leader may have recently won the Jury Prize in the Feature Film Competition at the 2013 Northside Festival in Brooklyn, but its DIY distinction lies far beyond what’s captured in front of the lens. Over the course of three years, Levitt’s doc trails a trio of high school class presidents (and aspiring U.S. presidents) – all male and all hailing from one of the original 13 Colonies (Virginia, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania). Even more remarkable than these teenagers’ evolving attitudes, though, is the director’s distribution game plan, deployed with the targeted precision of a political campaign. […]
by Lauren Wissot on Aug 27, 2013
