Back when I fled Colorado for NYC it was the rebellious thing for an artist to do. Now two decades later it’s the opposite as young bohemians across the nation are radically giving the finger to both coasts, forcing the arts culture to come to them. Case in point, the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival, which was originally launched just three years ago as a Slamdance-style antidote to the more established Santa Fe Film Festival, and is made up of folks who want to play in their own backyard – and spruce it up locally. This year the two festivals’ […]
(Martha Marcy May Marlene earned Sean Durkin a Best Director award at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, where it was picked up for distribution by Fox Searchlight. It opened theatrically on Friday, October 21, 2011. Visit the film’s official website to learn more. EDITOR’S NOTE: HTN co-founder Ted Hope is an executive producer on the film.) Looking at Elizabeth Olsen, you know exactly who she’s related to. It’s a trait that lends the actress both familiarity and strangeness—as though you know her but you don’t. It also makes her perfect for the title role in Sean Durkin’s Martha Marcy May […]
The devastation that the “Great Recession” has wrecked on the California exurbs resonates through the backdrop of Tristan Patterson’s fascinating study of a peculiar California skating subculture in Dragonslayer. Focusing his representation mostly on the drug and alcohol addicted daredevil skater punk Josh Sandoval, nicknamed “Skreech,” Patterson’s doc searches the lives of this talented, troubled young man and his makeshift family of itinerant skaters with tremendous aesthetic grace and ideological empathy; finding great beauty in the suburban wasteland of derelict homes and pools that become their refuge from a largely unforgiving world. With a skating style all his own, Skreech launches […]
Cinelan, the video publisher that syndicates three-minute documentary films, has announced today an open invitation to non-North American filmmakers to contribute to its Focus Forward series. Teaming with GE, it’s an initiative of three-minute docs that focuses on innovation and ideas that change the world. In addition to Oscar and award-winning filmmakers who have signed on to produce the 30 three-minute films such as Joe Berlinger, Lixin Fan, Liz Garbus, Alex Gibney, Steve James, Barbara Kopple, Ross Kauffman, Cinelan co-founded Morgan Spurlock, Jessica Yu and newly announced filmmakers Lucy Walker, Stanley Nelson, Phil Cox and Leslie Iwerks, Cinelan is accepting brief […]
Second #1598, 26:38 The open space surrounding the car. The feeling of freedom. The two car mirrors, one of them reflecting Jeffrey’s face. The pink barrette in Sandy’s hair, and the impossible beauty of the length of her arm. The light between the branches and leaves of the trees, and the way those trees fill most of the frame. The vanishing point near the middle of the screen, doubling back on us via the rear view mirror. Sandy and Jeffrey talk in a car, but not a moving car. The emergence of mechanical reproduction is accompanied by modernity’s increasing understanding […]
This week I give you a bonus post and contest. In keeping with what seems to be our “Do Your Homework” theme, we have Grant Edmonds from MixMyFilm.com with some quick sound tips from a sound mixer’s perspective. Sound is always the microbudget killer, often transforming a wonderfully acted and shot film into something no one wants to see or hear. We’ve talked about its importance and ways to get good sound in the field, but we have yet to discuss the value of a great sound mix and how to prepare for it. In keeping with the Microbudget spirit, […]
What If 5th Graders Ruled Your Storyworld? By Lance Weiler
A dark character study of a girl escaping a cult, Sean Durkin’s feature Martha Marcy May Marlene is an impressive debut that also highlights the talents of this year’s Sundance breakout actress,
Elizabeth Olsen. By Jason Guerrasio | Photograph by Henny Garfunkel
Though Lars von Trier’s mouth gets him into trouble, the Dane’s incredible story-telling talents are well under control. Melancholia, his latest, is a masterfully beguiling tale of sisters, depression and the end of the world. By Zachary Wigon
Last night marked the opening of the 2011 Philadelphia Film Festival, and although this year kicked off with the decidedly non-genre film Like Crazy (as opposed to 2010, which began with the enjoyably batshit Black Swan), the festival has a history of featuring well-curated action, horror, science fiction, fantasy and just plain weird fare. For those lucky enough to attend the festival, or simply tracking the program for edification purposes, a good place to start is the festival’s dedicated genre lineup, once going by the name “Danger After Dark” but re-dubbed “The Graveyard Shift” after political infighting dramatically split the group […]