6577 Results for “production”
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“I Like Being Aggressive in the Storytelling…”: Michael Dinner on His CBS James Ellroy Adaptation, L.A. Confidential
One of the most haunting and atmospheric pieces of filmmaking I’ve seen this year is the pilot for the television adaptation of James Ellroy’s L.A. Confidential, which, as scripted by Jordan Harper and directed by Michael Dinner, beautifully captures Ellroy’s unique blend of acidic humor, weary resignation, and brutal violence as both a destructive and cathartic force. Working with his Justified collaborator Walton Goggins — brilliant here in the role of Jack Vincennes — as well as an equally fine Brian J. Smith (playing Ed Exley) and Mark Webber (Bud White), Dinner pays tribute to both Ellroy’s novel and Curtis […]
by Jim Hemphill on Jul 9, 2018 -
Lubitsch, Cukor and Quine: Jim Hemphill’s Weekend Viewing (and Reading) Picks
I once took a class with the late, great silent film historian David Shepard, who introduced a screening of Ernst Lubitsch’s The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg by saying, “Watch closely. You can learn how to make movies from this man.” An hour and forty-five minutes later I understood what he meant; every composition, cut, and camera movement was purposefully and powerfully designed to convey the characters’ emotional states in ways that were clear and simple yet opened the film up to multiple interpretations and nuances. Yet there’s always been something just a touch ineffable about Lubitsch’s style and how […]
by Jim Hemphill on Jul 6, 2018 -
“Agitating the Information”: Director Gus Van Sant on his Long-Take Columbine Drama, Elephant
The following interview was originally published in our Fall, 2003 print edition. When I first interviewed Gus Van Sant, he had just finished editing his feature Gerry and was preparing to launch it at the Sundance Film Festival. A radical left turn from the two studio films, Good Will Hunting and Finding Forrester, that preceded it, Gerry mixed together movie stars (Matt Damon and Casey Affleck), the “long-take” style of such filmmakers as Béla Tarr and Chantal Akerman and a simple yet metaphorically rich scenario taken from the news headlines. Working without a formal script but with the remarkable director […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 5, 2018 -
“… the Way Someone Would Shoot a Film in an Architectural Magazine”: Gus Van Sant on Last Days
The below interview with Gus Van Sant originally appeared in our Summer, 2005 issue. The subject matter of Gus Van Sant’s new film, Last Days, appears on the surface to be the stuff of a sensationalistic movie of the week. A moody, confused, perhaps drug-adled rock star Blake (Michael Pitt) — who bears more than a coincidental resemblance to Kurt Cobain — wanders aimlessly through a dilapidated mansion just before his end comes. Van Sant’s two previous films, which form a loose trilogy with Last Days, were also torn from the headlines: Gerry was inspired by a newspaper article about […]
by Peter Bowen on Jul 5, 2018 -
James DeMonaco on The First Purge, Test Screenings, Filming Guns in Washington D.C. and the Trump Administration
When I speak to James DeMonaco, The First Purge is only 48 hours from hitting theaters, but the franchise’s creator is otherwise engaged. DeMonaco has two production days left on his latest film, Once Upon a Time in Staten Island. It’s a personal movie, a coming-of-age drama starring Naomi Watts and Bobby Cannavale. The film that exists because DeMonaco wrote and directed 2013’s The Purge, plus its two sequels. His latest is even funded by his boss of the last several years, Jason Blum, the namesake head of horror unit Blumhouse Productions, making it only the second non-genre picture they’ve handled […]
by Matt Prigge on Jul 3, 2018 -
How Do You Pitch a Comedy about Cancer? Cancer: A Love Story Director Christen Clifford on What She Learned at the IFP Screen Forward Lab
Filmmaker Christen Clifford is at work on her 10-part autobiographical doc series, Cancer: A Love Story, and recently participated in the 2018 IFP Screen Forward Labs, which is devoted to serialized content. Below is her first-person report of her week spent with mentors, fellow filmmakers and advisors. Day 1: Screening and General Overview The day starts with a meet-and-greet breakfast. I’m late. My first day and I’m late. I resist the temptation to hate myself and get a cup of tea. I want a latte, but all they have is brew and that can make me jittery. Proud of myself […]
by Christen Clifford on Jun 27, 2018 -
BAMcinemaFest 2018: Four Features and Four Shorts
The mix of films in the 10th edition of BAMcinemaFest offers isn’t totally unexpected: a significant plurality of Sundance premieres (tightly curated, or maybe more accurately culled), titles from SXSW and True/False, two North American and three world premieres. The programming, though, is tighter and more original than a simple survey of The Year To Date In Festival Premieres. (I have already written elsewhere about the following titles: América, Bisbee ’17 [which has been cut down substantially since its premiere], Clara’s Ghost, Crime + Punishment, Eighth Grade, Madeline’s Madeline, Shirkers, Skate Kitchen, The Task. Please please please do not miss that last one. I’ll wait to write about Support the […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jun 20, 2018 -
Diversity, Immersion and the Rise of Short-Form Content: A Report from the 2018 Sheffield Doc/Fest
As it does every year, the 25th edition of Sheffield Doc/Fest offered more than just a stand-out mix of documentaries. Yes, there were many feature highlights — among them opening night film A Northern Soul, about one man’s desire to create and tour a musical bus post-Brexit in the U.K. working-class town of Hull; part archive/part testimonial fashion doc McQueen; the Sundance and Full Frame-winning Of Fathers and Sons, which masterfully depicts a father who loves his sons yet is teaching them to be jihadi fighters; and Under The Wire, which uses interviews and re-enactments to tearfully tell the story […]
by Tiffany Pritchard on Jun 19, 2018 -
The Truth About Hollywood: On Ben Fritz’s The Big Picture: The Fight for the Future of Movies
Hollywood has been transformed. The six major studios — Disney, Warner Bros., Universal, Fox, Sony, and Paramount — have all changed significantly. Few filmmakers understand how profound these changes have been and how they have altered their opportunities. What follows is my review of a recently published book, The Big Picture: The Fight for the Future of Movies, that opened my eyes to the new configuration of studio filmmaking. It was written by Ben Fritz, who has been covering the entertainment industry since 2004 for Variety, the Los Angeles Times and currently the Wall Street Journal. The goal of […]
by Peter Broderick on Jun 18, 2018 -
More American Graffiti and Spetters: Jim Hemphill’s Weekend Blu-ray Picks
For nearly as long as Hollywood has been making movies they’ve been making sequels, and for most of that time journalists and critics have grumbled about the studios’ lack of originality; yet there’s an honorable tradition of filmmakers using the perceived economic insurance of sequels to create some of the riskiest and most personal films ever to come out of Hollywood. Francis Coppola’s The Godfather Part II, John Boorman’s The Exorcist II: The Heretic, Peter Bogdanovich’s Texasville, Joe Dante’s Gremlins 2 and Jack Nicholson’s commercially disastrous but artistically triumphant Chinatown sequel The Two Jakes are all films that either greatly […]
by Jim Hemphill on Jun 15, 2018
