Unlike many critics, I liked the $30 million South African-shot sci-fi feature District 9 better as it went along, finding the apartheid metaphor set-up a little awkward and unrewarding. The more I thought about it, the more I found some of the movie’s strategies kind of contradictory to its implied social conscience. But the film works as a straight-out action film, which why its is looking like this week’s box-office winner. It’s easy to get off on the movie’s pulp-y energy and a vibe that reminded me of Robocop and the first Terminator movie. For a discussion of the metaphors […]
The line up for the 47th New York Film Festival has been announced. The U.S. premiere of Alain Resnais‘s Wild Grass will open the fest and Pedro Almodóvar‘s Broken Embraces will close. NYFF will run Sept. 25 – Oct. 11. (Click here to watch our video coverage of last year’s fest by Jamie Stuart.) Full line up is below. OPENING NIGHTWild Grass / Les herbes follesAlain Resnais, France, 2009; 113mThe venerable Alan Resnais creates an exquisite human comedy of manners, mystery and romance with some of France’s – and our – favorite actors: Sabine Azéma, André Dussollier, Emmanuelle Devos and […]
As my brief interview with Cherien Dabis in festival coverage of the Dubai International Film Festival (in our Spring, 2009 edition and which I’ve just posted online) noted, some of the financing for her debut feature Amreeka was found at the DIFF’s Dubai Film Connection, a CineMart-like financing market aimed at films from directors of Arab nationality or origin. Producers (who can be of any nationality) have until August 15 (that’s one week from now) to submit projects for this year’s edition. Here’s the official word: The DFC is open for documentary and feature film projects that are currently in […]
In preparation for this weekend’s opening of Sophie Barthes‘ philosophical sci-fi dramedy, Cold Souls, go and check out the faux Website for The Soul Storage Company (thanks to Barthes for sending the link). If you don’t know the premise already, the film follows Paul Giamatti (playing Paul Giamatti) who while struggling to tap into the part of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya decides to have his soul removed by The Soul Storage Company. The site includes an introductory video from Dr. David Flinstein (David Strathairn), a FAQ page, an office tour, a phone number (where “operators are standing by”) and you can […]
In “A Filmmaker’s Glamorous Life,” online and in our latest print edition, Esther Robinson surveyed a number of filmmakers about the jobs they’ve taken to support themselves when they are not making films. In this blog series we’ll run the unedited responses we received that were then condensed for the piece. Below: Barry Jenkins. Filmmaker: How did you support yourself during the production of your last movie/movies? Jenkins: I had this job at Banana Republic that was more or less essential to getting my last movie done. Was a great job, I was the shipment supervisor at the largest Banana […]
In “A Filmmaker’s Glamorous Life,” online and in our latest print edition, Esther Robinson surveyed a number of filmmakers about the jobs they’ve taken to support themselves when they are not making films. In this blog series we’ll run the unedited responses we received that were then condensed for the piece. Below: Tze Chun. Filmmaker: How did you support yourself during the production of your last movie/movies? What was good/not good about this kind of job(s)? Chun: I didn’t go to grad school, but was committed to making films. So I opted to do a bunch of short-term work rather […]
Up on the main page are three web-only interviews of particular interest. The first, posted moments ago, is David Lowery’s interview with Chris Fuller, director of Loren Cass. This no-budget indie (nominated for a Filmmaker-sponsored Gotham Award) is in theaters now from Kino and scored a surprise rave from Nathan Lee in the New York Times. I saw the film a couple of years ago at Cinevegas and was intrigued by its blend of art film aesthetics and documentary style realism. Lowery’s interview really gets at these issues and I recommend it; it’s a great read. Also up is Nick […]
There’s something to be said about not being eager to please. Chris Fuller’s Loren Cass is an aggressively confrontational debut, all the more so because it is so resolutely restrained in its approach. So seemingly oblique is Fuller’s approach that one feasibly could make it through the entire film and not realize that its subject matter is the aftermath of the 1996 St. Petersburg riots; but on the other hand, that subject matter is so deeply ingrained in the film’s form that it doesn’t matter. Loren Cass doesn’t so much deal with its themes as it ingests them, and then […]
Here’s our final Sundance Creative Producing Lab blog from producer Mynette Louie, who collects her thoughts after a night’s sleep back in New York. I flew home from the Sundance Resort late last night and just woke up after a 10-hour slumber. The weeklong experience of the Creative Producing Lab and Summit was intense, to say the least! Each day of the four-day Lab and 2.5-day Summit started at 8am and ended at 11pm, and we barely had any breaks. The range of what we covered with our producing advisers — Lynette Howell, Paul Mezey, Mary Jane Skalski, Jay Van […]
When a film is labeled controversial on its release, often times with the passage of time things that made it risqué become tamer, leaving the story less effective. Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant is not one of those films. 17 years after being released, Ferrara’s disturbing look at a dirty cop (played by Harvey Keitel in one of his most powerful performances) running rampant on the streets of New York City is still as gritty, horrifying and powerful as when it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 1992. Receiving a much needed special edition, out this week through Lions […]