6576 Results for “production”
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“Trump Was Always Going to Be in Our Film”: Brian Knappenberger on Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press
An iconic figure of brute force, wholesome values and exaggerated patriotism, the red-and-yellow bandana-wearing Hulk Hogan was a pop culture phenomenon throughout the’80s professional wrestling boom. The face of the World Wrestling Federation under Vince McMahon, Hogan (real name: Terry Bollea) was a childhood hero for many children of a certain age, bodyslamming giants and providing leg-drops to bad guys who threatened to disrupt the concept of a wholesome America. Things have changed. Hogan left the company several times over rampant steroid abuse scandals and larger paydays for other promotions, but he always returned for one final run to pay […]
by Erik Luers on Jun 27, 2017 -
Twin Peaks, Parts 7-8: Re VFX and Almost Nothing More
I’ve got zip (that I want) to say (at this time) about Twin Peaks parts seven and eight in terms of The Bigger Picture, but I do want to delve into episode eight’s widely-presumed anomalous status — that it marked an unprecedented event not just in TV (true, I’m pretty sure) but in larger visual culture. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how many recappers, while clearly over their heads, are baseline sympathetic to finding themselves routinely unmoored, even if that means repeating over and over that this is closer to “avant-garde art” than normal TV to meet the word count. My feed […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jun 26, 2017 -
Reflections from a First-Time Director After Shooting All These Small Moments
Melissa Miller-Costanzo recently wrote for Filmmaker about how she moved from below-the-line production work as an art department coordinator to the writer/director of an independent feature, All These Small Moments. Here, she follows up that article with this reflective piece about all the things she learned on her 18-day first-time shoot. “Okay, here’s some dialogue, we won’t hear it, it’s just something so your mouths will be moving. You’re coming home from a parent-teacher conference and discussing your son’s issues; that’s why you’re together.”Alright, and ACTION! “Um, Melissa,” a PA walkie’d me from outside while I watched the monitor inside. […]
by Melissa Miller Costanzo on Jun 26, 2017 -
The Ballad of Cable Hogue, Straw Dogs and Eight Million Ways to Die: Jim Hemphill’s Home Video Picks
It’s been a good few months for Sam Peckinpah fans, as several films that were previously only available on standard-def DVDs with serviceable transfers have started appearing on Blu-ray. In an earlier column I recommended Warner Archive’s exquisite pressing of Ride the High Country, and now the label has released an upgrade of another essential Peckinpah film, The Ballad of Cable Hogue. Released in 1970 on the heels of The Wild Bunch, it’s a softer, more humanist movie than audiences were expecting from “Bloody Sam” — a sweet, reflective tale of the rise and fall of an American dreamer (beautifully […]
by Jim Hemphill on Jun 23, 2017 -
“You Try to Find the Beauty, Shoot It and Move On”: John G. Young on His Microbudget Drama, Bwoy
As Brad, a grief-stricken closeted gay man in upstate New York who becomes increasingly obsessed with a younger Jamaica man (Jimmy Brooks) he meets in an online meat market, Anthony Rapp (Star Trek: Discovery, Rent) is fantastic in writer-director John G. Young’s Bwoy. With a title based on the pronunciation of “boy” in Jamaican patois, the film at first seems like a story of online obfuscation, but it soon grows into a tense meditation on mourning and loss as we discover Brad bears some responsibility for the death of his son and remains in a marriage with Marcia (De’Adre Aziza) […]
by Brandon Harris on Jun 23, 2017 -
“I Don’t Want to Find a Method… I Like Questoning What I Make”: João Pedro Rodrigues on The Ornithologist
This interview with João Pedro Rodrigues was originally conducted in 2016 when his new feature, The Ornithologist, premiered at the Locarno Film Festival. We’re reposting today on the occasion of the film’s U.S. release via Strand Releasing. The Ornithologist opens today in New York at the IFC Center and the Elinor Bunin Monroe Film Center. The last few years have been truly a whirlwind period for Portuguese director João Pedro Rodrigues, with career retrospectives in the US and Japan, filmmaker residencies at France’s prestigious Le Fresnoy and at the Harvard Film Archive, and even a competition slot at Locarno for […]
by Jorge Mourinha on Jun 23, 2017 -
Michael Showalter on Working with Kumail Nanjiani and Judd Apatow on The Big Sick
Michael Showalter was a known quantity in the comedy world before he gave feature directing a shot in 2005 with the unassuming indie The Baxter. He started out in the early 90s on MTV’s sketch show The State, which spawned the careers of many talents with whom Showalter has continued to collaborate on shows like Stella and films like They Came Together and Wet Hot American Summer (which stars Showalter and has led to two Netflix follow-up series). Much of this work, as well as Showalter’s excursive, vaguely non-committal standup, is characterized by a warm disdain for the form. In […]
by Justin Stewart on Jun 22, 2017 -
My Journey Through French Cinema: Personal Canon-Building with Bertrand Tavernier
Names you won’t hear in Bertrand Tavernier’s personal history of French cinema: Abel Gance, Marcel Pagnol, Sacha Guitry, Alain Resnais, Philippe Garrel. Don’t expect to hear about any directors who got started after the ’60s either: Tavernier begins with a solid overview of the glories of Jacques Becker, the first director to make an impression on him (“At age six, I could have chosen worse”) and ends with an equally lengthy tribute to Claude Sautet — along with Jean-Pierre Melville, one of his two professional fairy godmother gateways to the production side of French cinema. There is, to be sure, plenty of […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jun 20, 2017 -
Splitting Off from Powerlessness: A Conversation with Director Deborah Kampmeier
2016 might have been the year when the dire position of women film directors finally broke into wider consciousness. After a monumental effort, spearheaded by Maria Giese, the ACLU and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) agreed to hold major film studios, TV networks, unions and agencies to account, citing Title VII violations in all perimeters. 2016 was also the year the Cannes International Film Festival proudly announced that they showcased “only” 86% male directors — down from their average of 93%. Yet even as dismal statistics prove women are severely discriminated against at every level of film production and […]
by Nina Menkes on Jun 20, 2017 -
Five Questions with Loving Vincent Producer Sean Bobbitt
In 2014 I spoke with Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman, respectively the writer/director and co-director/co-writer/producer of Loving Vincent, an animated film about the final days of Vincent Van Gogh’s life that was then in preproduction. Three and a half years and much blood, sweat and tears later the film is complete and premiered at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival last week. It’s been gaining attention since its initial failed Kickstarter campaign (a second go was more successful) for its production method, with a team of artists creating each frame in the style of Van Gogh with oil paint on canvas, the […]
by Randy Astle on Jun 20, 2017
