6294 Results for “Open ”
-
San Francisco Fest at 50
In 1957, when the Berlin International Film Festival was in its sixth year and the Festival de Cannes had recently turned 12, there was still no established annual film festival in the U.S. “Back in the ’50s, San Francisco needed to keep its place in the arts world with an international film festival. There wasn’t one in North or South America,” San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF) founder Irving M. “Bud” Levin recalled in 1995. Following Levin’s lead, the San Francisco Film Society has presented the SFIFF since 1957 and becomes the first North American festival to celebrate its 50th […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Apr 23, 2007 -
Edgar Wright, Hot Fuzz
Brit Edgar Wright’s film career began when, straight out of college, he wrote and directed his ultra-low budget debut feature, A Fistful of Fingers (1994), an affectionate comedic homage to spaghetti westerns. The film played a few festivals, and was enough of a success to get Wright work directing sitcoms and sketch shows, where he worked with many of the best British comic performers around. His friendship with actors Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson resulted in the trio creating Spaced, a television series about the oddball residents of a house in London which achieved cult status. The show, which playfully […]
by Nick Dawson on Apr 20, 2007 -
CANNES AT 60
The Cannes official selection (i.e., Competition and Un Certain Regard) line-up has been announced and as always there’s a lot to salivate over. (Here it is at Indiewire.) Wong Kar Wai’s Blueberry Nights (pictured) is the Opening Night, and the fest includes films by some of my other favorite directors, including Fatih Akin, Carlos Reygados, Joel and Ethan Coen, Gus Van Sant, Olivier Assayas, Abel Ferrara, Bela Tarr, Mark Pellington, Barbet Schroeder and Harmony Korine (whose Mister Lonely is pictured below), to name a few. The Competition: “My Blueberry Nights,” directed by Wong Kar-Wai “Auf Der Anderen Siete,” directed by […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 19, 2007 -
James Lyons, 1960 – 2007
Jim Lyons died on Thursday in New York. If you didn’t know Jim personally and just recognize his name from movie credits, then you most probably remember him as an editor. His credits include four films by Todd Haynes – Poison, Safe, Velvet Goldmine and Far from Heaven – as well as Spring Forward, The Virgin Suicides, and Silver Lake Life. Most recently, he was the co-editor of A Walk into the Sea: The Danny Williams Story. The latter, a documentary by Esther Robinson about her uncle’s relationship with Andy Warhol and The Factory, won the Teddy at Berlin this […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 15, 2007 -
YOU DON’T KNOW JACK
In the issue of Filmmaker we just sent to the printer today (which explains the slacking on the blog), Steve Gallagher interviews Mary Jordan, director of Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis. The doc portrait of artist and filmmaker Jack Smith opens in New York tomorrow at the Film Forum, and I highly recommend it. Here’s an excerpt from Steve’s piece: Filmmaker: Were you surprised to discover that Jack Smith’s work is so political? Jordan: I’m a human rights person. I was a social activist myself before I got interested in Jack. So, for me, this documentary is a […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 10, 2007 -
Susanne Bier on After the Wedding
The marriage ceremony in Danish director Susanne Bier’s haunting After the Wedding, penned by frequent collaborator Anders Thomas Jensen and one of this year’s five nominees for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, greatly alters more lives than those of the young heiress bride, Anna (Stine Fischer Christensen), and her betrothed. Indeed, the film could be entitled Before, During, and After the Wedding. Anna’s father, burly, big-bucks exec Jorgen (Rolf Lassgard), invites Jacob (Mads Mikkelsen), an expat Dane whose energy is totally tied up with the orphanage for street children he works at in Bombay, but who is reluctantly in […]
by Howard Feinstein on Mar 30, 2007 -
Scott Frank, The Lookout
JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT AND JEFF DANIELS IN SCOTT FRANK’S THE LOOKOUT. COURTESY MIRAMAX FILMS. Scott Frank is one of Hollywood’s most respected scriptwriters, and now one of its most promising directors. Frank’s first produced script was high school comedy thriller Plain Clothes (1988), but his breakthrough came in 1991 when his original scripts for both Dead Again and Little Man Tate came to the screen. Since then, he has shown great talent at adapting novels: he was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on Out of Sight (1998), having already turned another Elmore Leonard novel, Get Shorty (1995), into […]
by Nick Dawson on Mar 30, 2007 -
FRANK AND BIER
On the main page: Nick Dawson’s interview with The Lookout‘s Scott Frank and Howard Feinstein’s talk with Susanne Bier, director of After the Wedding. Both films open today.
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 30, 2007 -
KILLER OF SHEEP LIVES
Today in New York at the IFC Center Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep receives its U.S. theatrical premiere… 30 years after its completion in 1977. Made as the writer/director’s UCLA thesis film, Killer of Sheep went on to win awards at the Berlin Film Festival and Sundance, and it was declared a “national treasure” by the Library of Congress. The story of a slaughterhouse worker, an insomniac, struggling to raise his family in ’70s Watts, the film blended the work of non-actors and poetic visuals with a deeply humane sensibility that contrasted sharply with the blaxploitation films that appeared in […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 29, 2007 -
HAWK IS DYING MONEY BACK GUARANTEE
Ted Hope, who produced Julian Goldberger’s The Hawk is Dying with Jeff Levy-Hinte and Mary Jane Skalski, sent the below email out to his personal list regarding the film’s opening this Friday at the Cinema Village in New York. In it, he makes a bold and honest offer that he decided to open up to readers of this blog. I’m glad he did. In addition to his no-risk offer to see a provocative film that finds a new visual language to apply towards cinematic narrative, Hope makes a great argument. I especially was struck by his equation of today’s specialty […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 28, 2007
