6294 Results for “Open ”
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Erik Gandini, Videocracy
Television has been blamed for the dumbing down of the American public since the ascendance of the boob tube in the 1950s. But in Italy, where scandal-plagued prime minister Silvio Berlusconi controls the flow of information through his monopolistic holdings in that nation’s biggest media conglomerates, there is a more insidious aspect to the chronic press muzzling at RAI and trashy tits-and-ass programming that predominate on his Mediaset channels. If you want to get a sense of how the billionaire entrepreneur’s televisual imagination has transformed the political and mass-media landscape in Italy, Erik Gandini’s cunningly choreographed documentary Videocracy provides plenty […]
by Damon Smith on Feb 10, 2010 -
A Night at the Movies: Quentin Tarantino on Inglorious Basterds
The following interview of Quentin Tarantino originally appeared as the cover story of Filmmaker‘s Summer, 2009 edition. Quentin Tarantino fans have been waiting for almost a decade now for a project he’s discussed in interviews — a World War II-set, Dirty Dozen-style “men on a mission” movie. Big-name actors have been brought up, an epic-length storyline has been mentioned, and many imagined this project to be a return to the macho camaraderie of Tarantino’s first film, Reservoir Dogs, with the warehouse expanded into the world at war. Of course this project’s journey to the screen has had as many plot […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 7, 2010 -
2010 SXSW LINEUP ANNOUNCED
The South by Southwest Film Festival unveiled its lineup for this year’s fest, which will take place in Austin, Texas March 12-20. Out of the 119 titles shown this year some of the highlights will be the opening night film, fanboy fav Kick-Ass, as well as Mark and Jay Duplass’s Cyrus, Steven Soderbergh’s And Everything Is Going Fine, Michel Gondry’s The Thorn in the Heart and Bernard Rose’s Mr. Nice (pictured). The full list of films are below. HEADLINERS CyrusDirectors and Screenwriters: Jay and Mark DuplassWith John’s social life at a standstill and his ex-wife about to get remarried, a […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Feb 4, 2010 -
Martina Egi, Barefoot to Timbuktu
Ernst Aebi, the subject of Martina Egi’s keenly observed new documentary Barefoot to Timbuktu, is something of a renaissance man. Artist, SoHo real estate pioneer and social activist, he is full of paradoxes: easy going yet driven, humble yet self-assured, a man of much wealth who nonetheless spends his leisure time among the dispossessed. Egi profiles Ernst with affection, but she doesn’t shy away from examining the effects of his restless nature on his family and friends. His often rocky family life, along as his many guises and activities, are only the preamble to Egi’s portrait of the subjects very […]
by Brandon Harris on Feb 3, 2010 -
“THE RED CHAPEL”‘S MADS BRUGGER | By Alicia Van Couvering
When Danish Zentropa director Mads Brugger decided to take himself and two Korean-Danish comedians to North Korea under the guise of a fake comedy project, he employed what he thought might be the magic word for repressive regimes seeking international image burnishing: “cultural exchange.” The film opens with a shot of Brugger, lying on a hotel bed, calmly reading Kim Jong-Il’s official Instruction Manual for Film Directing. The secret police who watched this footage every night apparently had no objection. What they somehow did not expect or anticipate was that Brugger would one day turn this footage into a feature […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 1, 2010 -
PRODUCER RON SIMONS ON FINALLY GETTING TO SEE FILMS AT SUNDANCE
This is the fifth of our posts from guest blogger Ron Simons, who produced Tanya Hamilton’s Sundance Competition film Night Catches Us. Scroll back through the blog for his earlier entries. I’ve finally transitioned into the cooler, calmer phase of the festival. The weather is warmer and the snow is starting to melt (including the gargantuan stalactites hanging from the roof edges of about town). No more press interviews in backrooms of galleries, TV studios or revamped office spaces. Gone are the paparazzi blocking traffic to get the best shot of Ben Affleck, Ryan Gosling or Paris Hilton. Exit the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 29, 2010 -
“DADDY LONGLEGS”‘ JOSH AND BENNY SAFDIE | By Scott Macaulay
When I was asked by The Huffington Post to comment on New York movies premiering in Sundance, the first film that popped into my mind was Josh and Bennie Safdie’s Daddy Longlegs. Now, as you may know, I’m a big fan of the Safdie brothers, selecting Josh for our 25 New Faces for the film he directed, The Pleasure of Being Robbed in 2008. That picture is a delightfully freewheeling romance of sorts involving a young woman, played with depth and originality by Eleonore Hendricks, who casually steals, not out of maliciousness or for greed but simply because of a […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 28, 2010 -
APPLE ANNOUNCES ITS "iPAD" TABLET
I took a break from Sundance coverage to follow the Apple iPad announcement on Twitter and to check out Engadget’s live stream. For all the talk about the iPad (which some consider to be an unfortunate name…) saving old media and print, the focus of Steve Jobs’s presentation was solidly on the device as a large-screen multi-media device. Games from Electronic Arts were unveiled, a YouTube HD native app was demo’d and new versions of iTunes and IWorks showed scaled-up, enhanced versions of those apps. (Filmmakers, take note of all of this…) And, yes, in the middle of the presentation […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 27, 2010 -
Judith Ehrlich And Rick Goldsmith, The Most Dangerous Man In America
As a history lesson, Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith’s enthralling new documentary, The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, is as solid as a textbook, stitching together old broadcast footage, first-person testimony, tart excerpts from the Nixon White House tapes, and noirish recreations into riveting, revelatory political drama. The name “Daniel Ellsberg” probably doesn’t trigger the same flurry of associations as Deep Throat, the shadowy antihero of the Watergate scandal, but it should: An ex-Marine, former assistant to Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, and highly respected analyst at the Rand Corporation, Ellsberg leaked a […]
by Damon Smith on Jan 27, 2010 -
“THE ROMANTICS”‘ GALT NIEDERHOFFER | By Alicia Van Couvering
Galt Niederhoffer is no stranger to Sundance, having produced films that won awards there beginning in 1997, when Morgan J. Freeman’s Hurricane Streets won the Audience Award. As a founding member of Plum Pictures, one of New York’s most active independent film production companies, she has produced over a dozen films, including Grace is Gone, Dedication, Prozac Nation, Lonesome Jim, The Winning Season, The Baxter and After.Life. Niederhoffer grew up in New York, one of six daughters of a squash champion-turned-hedge fund maverick, in a rambling, eccentrically decorated house. In her first novel, A Taxonomy of Barnacles, Niederhoffer may have […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 27, 2010
