On my list to see if Catherine Breillat’s Bluebeard, in which the iconoclastic French director takes on the classic tale from the point of view of two modern-day young girls. It opens today at the IFC Center. The trailer is below.
As filmmakers, we are genetically programmed to look to the future. The next script, the next movie, the next deal. After all, the films — on DVD, on hard drives, in canisters stacked in our closets — are their own memories. Except, of course, that a film only tells part of the story. They are the ends of their tales, not the beginnings, and they only tell their own stories, and not the dramas of their making. If at all, those stories that circle around a film are only sometimes relayed in magazine profiles or in books written by people […]
Returning to feature-film directing after a six-year absence, Irish playwright Conor McPherson (The Seafarer, Shining City) drew heavy interest at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival when he unveiled The Eclipse, a subtle, emotionally restrained drama of male grief shot through with lightning-flash bursts of supernatural horror. Based on a short story by co-writer Billy Roche, the low-gear genre mash-up might play as a mere curiosity were it not for Best Actor winner Ciarán Hinds, whose solemn turn as a widower with literary aspirations gives the film a quiet center of gravity. And in coarser hands, McPherson’s abrupt tonal shifts could […]
A maverick of the 1950s Hollywood system, with Johnny Guitar and Rebel Without a Cause already under his belt earlier in the decade, Nicholas Ray’s melodrama Bigger Than Life was perhaps his most structured work when it came out in 1956. Starring James Mason (who also produced) in a uncharacteristic — yet riveting — role, the film was virtually ignored by audiences when it opened, but with its look at American suburbia during the nuclear-era (and a precursor for highlighting the abuse of prescription drugs) it has since become a popular title of critics and cineastes alike. The film opens […]
Today is the day our film screens at the gorgeous Paramount cinema in Austin. We were there opening night for the raucous screening of KICK-ASS and so it feels like we have big shoes to fill! However a quick glimpse at the theatre at lunchtime with a queue already forming despite the rain, we had some hope of at least filling the 600 seat stalls before we had to worry about the balcony. It ended up being better than we could have expected (I know I keep saying this, but SXSW keeps amazing me!) and we had lines all around […]
An operatic look at the largely forgotten life and times of Benito Mussolini’s first wife Ida Dalser (Giovanna Mezzogiorno), veteran Italian helmer Marco Bellocchio’s Vincere is a tragedy on scales both intimate and national. Il Duce’s transformation from a anti-war journalist to socialist rebel rouser to brutal fascist dictator is glimpsed through the lens of his misbegotten first marriage to Dalser, a beautiful and politically conscious Milano hair dresser who, enraptured by his charms and ideals, sells off her business and belongings to fund his early publishing efforts. However, in the wake of their marriage and the birth of their […]
THE PREMIERE. I’m not new to the film festival experience but because this is my directorial debut things have really ratcheted up emotionally this time. My sales rep, Josh Braun, and my publicist, Jessica Edwards, have both been working hard to make sure the world premiere of my film, The Weird World of Blowfly, goes as smoothly as possible and has all the right people in attendance. They’re also working hard to keep me from hyperventilating and passing out! It’s a very exciting moment, just before the premiere, filled with anxiety and catharsis. The film is premiering at the Alamo […]
The 2010 Tribeca Film Festival today announced its remaining out-of-competition feature film selections in the Encounters, Discovery, Cinemania and Spotlight sections. The Festival will run April 21 to May 2. The Encounters section, comprised of 14 films, include selections include new works by Academy Award-winning filmmakers Alex Gibney and Chuck Workman, Academy Award nominee Dana Adam Shapiro, and featuring actors like Ellen Barkin, Liev Schreiber, Melissa Leo, Rashida Jones, Tilda Swinton, and many more. The Discovery section include documentaries showcasing everything from the North Pole and Congressional redistricting to a comedy tour of the Middle East. Its narrative films feature […]
What’s it like to get out of jail and try to rebuild your life when that life was running a hugely successful brothel in the middle of New Orleans and the Lifetime movie of your experience is about to air? Cameron Yates’ new documentary, The Canal Street Madam, asks that question of Jeanette Maier and generates even more questions than answers. Was Maier a dangerous criminal, transporting women across state lines for the purposes of her own profit and their vicitimization as sex workers, or was she herself the victim of a hypocritical system that convicted and exposed her but […]
Geoff Marslett’s Mars is a whimsical rotoscoped space exploration romance starring Mark Duplass, the kind of film whose possible existence may never have occurred to you, but one that you are very glad to have discovered. Marslett, an Austin native and much-lauded teacher of animation at UT Austin, studied mathematics, philosophy, art, science and languages before arriving in Texas to get his degree in narrative filmmaking. Gradually, he began to get interested in animation, taught himself the process and started inventing new techniques for his short films, now numbering over a dozen. Monkey vs. Robot, for instance, has screened at […]