6584 Results for “production”
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Yuen Woo-Ping on Master Z: The Ip Man Legacy, Dave Bautista and Martial Arts Cinema
Master Z: The Ip Man Legacy (2019) closes out Yuen Woo-ping’s fifth decade in martial arts filmmaking. It is an astonishing run in which he helped launch the careers of Jackie Chan (Drunken Master, 1978) and Donnie Yen (Drunken Tai Chi, 1984), while shaping the style of Hollywood action for a generation with his fight choreography for The Matrix (1999). Master Z is a spinoff of the Donnie Yen-led Ip Man franchise, following Cheung Tin-chi (Max Zhang), a kung fu master humbled by a loss to Ip Man who tries to rebuild his life as a grocery store vendor. Of […]
by R. Emmet Sweeney on Apr 11, 2019 -
At The Mercy Of The Sun: Cinematographer Fan Chao On Shooting An Elephant Sitting Still
There’s an elephant at a circus in Manzhouli that sits and won’t move.“Perhaps some people keep stabbing it with forks,” Yu Cheng muses to his close friend’s wife, but the elephant still won’t budge. This is one of four characters whose lives eventually intersect en route to the seated behemoth. In the bleak mining city of the late writer/director Hu Bo’s slow epic An Elephant Sitting Still, people tend to linger as they’re being hurt too, in spite of the obvious exits that beckon them. Somewhere in the time it takes to endure this 230 minute trial of misanthropy, you […]
by A.E. Hunt on Apr 8, 2019 -
“… When you’re a Niche Filmmaker in a World That’s Not Always as Openminded as You Might Like”: CineKink Artist Spotlight Award Recipient Jennifer Lyon Bell on Her Art Porn Career
This year CineKink NYC will be celebrating its upcoming sweet sixteen edition of the fest (April 3-7) by adding something new: the CineKink Artist Spotlight award. And in town to receive the honor — and premiere her latest Adorn, along with its making-of documentary, as well as host her “From Fantasy to Film: Design Your Own Porn Film” workshop — will be Amsterdam-based Jennifer Lyon Bell, no stranger to the kinky fest. Indeed, Bell has been screening her work at CineKink since 2006, racking up awards while making connections she cites as integral to her longevity in a notoriously difficult […]
by Lauren Wissot on Apr 5, 2019 -
“The Weather Doesn’t Care What Your Budget Is”: Captain Marvel Colorist Doug Delaney on the Marvel Cinematic Universe
When Avengers: Endgame hits theaters in a few weeks, it will conclude a chapter in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that encompasses 22 films over more than a decade. Considering the disparate tones, settings and filmmakers involved in the “Infinity Saga,” the fact that the movies fit so seamlessly together and have been so consistently entertaining is a remarkable achievement. Part of the magic trick of integrating the superhero adventures into a cohesive whole comes from the work of colorists, who have been entrusted with ensuring the Tesseract glows the same shade of blue whether it appears in Thor, Infinity War or the […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Apr 4, 2019 -
“This Will Be the Final Version If the Authorities Have No Objections”: Qiu Sheng on Suburban Birds, New Chinese Censorship Laws and Filming with Children
While trying to explain a reality that is shifting in front of him, a surveyor looks into the past in Qiu Sheng’s feature debut Suburban Birds. A moody, seductive drama that stubbornly refuses explication, the story takes place in Qiu’s hometown of Hangzhou. Loosely based on a real-life 2009 building collapse, Suburban Birds is also a coming-of-age story about school friends whose lives are disrupted by urban renewal. Filmmaker spoke with Qiu Sheng during this year’s annual New Directors/New Films series. Suburban Birds screened without incident at the 2018 Locarno Film Festival, but when Qiu was faced with new regulations, […]
by Daniel Eagan on Apr 4, 2019 -
International Film Festival Rotterdam 2019: “The Spying Thing”
In his introduction to “The Spying Thing,” a 20-title selection of espionage films that he curated with Gustavo Beck, long-time IFFR programmer Gerwin Tamsma goes back to the deep well of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954) and finds in it a timely new metaphor. Jimmy Stewart’s wheelchair-bound peeping tom is now a 21st-century government or multinational corporation, collecting data from his neighbors without their knowledge or consent, constrained only by the length of his lens (technology) and by the walls of his apartment (the pesky rule of law that governs democracies and capital). Grace Kelly’s wealthy socialite, then, is the […]
by Darren Hughes on Apr 2, 2019 -
“Doing a Shot List is One Thing, Bringing It Alive is Something Else”: Kent Jones on Diane, Understanding Costume Design and Tax Incentives
Best known as a critic and programmer, Kent Jones has also made documentaries for years, but Diane is his first narrative feature. Written specifically for Mary Kay Place, Diane begins as a seemingly modest, naturalistic, one-day-at-a-time portrait of a woman grounded in her family life. Volunteering gives her days structure, while trying to take care of her drug addict son undermines that structure; walking that fine line is a challenge. The centerpiece of this hard-earned naturalism is a scene with Diane, friends and family in a kitchen—a long exchange that feels intensely lived in. In its last third, Diane goes in a different, […]
by Vadim Rizov on Mar 28, 2019 -
The Thumb-Route: Dispatches From Poverty Row
“I drifted into PRC and couldn’t get out.” — Edgar G. Ulmer In the early 1930s, a wave of prominent directors fleeing Germany had found success at the major or second-tier studios; only rarely were they forced to make films at the low-budget studios found on the so-called Poverty Row. The next generation was too late—if Fritz Lang thought RKO was squalid, it was because he had little idea of the depredations suffered by, for instance, an István Székely (later Steve Sekely, emigrated to the US in 1938-39), a Franz Wysbar (later Frank Wisbar, emigrated in November 1938), or, briefly, […]
by Christopher Small on Mar 27, 2019 -
“I Had To Tell a Story About Five Guys Working Behind Computer Screens”: Hans Pool on Bellingcat: Truth in a Post-Truth World
Hans Pool’s Bellingcat: Truth in a Post-Truth World follows the diehard band of brothers (yes, there are no citizen journo sisters featured) behind the online investigative outfit Bellingcat, founded by a shy Brit determined to unmask some of the media’s most notorious blockbuster stories. Whether that be through geo-location mapping, voice analysis, drone imagery, or even fact-checking legacy organizations like the NY Times (one of several outlets to report a staged car bombing as real), the international collective takes tools once the province of law enforcement and other paid “professionals” to separate fact from fiction in a very 21st century way. Filmmaker spoke with the […]
by Lauren Wissot on Mar 22, 2019 -
“I’d Spend 24 Hours with My Family, Fly Back, Sleep for Five Hours and Shoot the Next Day”: Cinematographer Chris Teague on Russian Doll
On the night of her 36th birthday, New York video game developer Nadia (played by the show’s co-creator Natasha Lyonne) stumbles out of a party in her honor and is killed by an oncoming car. Thus begins a cycle of “resets” in the new Netflix series Russian Doll, with each demise bringing Nadia right back to the same birthday party bathroom mirror on the same night. The Groundhog Day comparisons are unavoidable, yet as Russian Doll unfolds across its eight episodes it reveals layers of emotional complexity and existential angst that extend beyond that Bill Murray classic and its Christmas Carol-esque […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Mar 21, 2019
