Opening today, August 7, at the Film Society of Lincoln Center is This is Softcore: The Art Cinema Erotica of Radley Metzger, a survey of the director whose arty erotica more or less defined what in the ’70s was dubbed “porno chic.” On the occasion of this retrospective we are reposting, from our archives, this wide-ranging 1997 interview conducted by Steve Gallagher. Among the topics: Metzger’s days creating edited versions of European arthouse masterworks; the origins of his glamorous soft-core aesthetic; distribution in the ’60s and ’70s’ his hardcore work, including The Opening of Misty Beethoven, done under the name […]
For any film, color grading is an essential part of the process. For some it’s simply a way to get the shots within a scene to match cohesively, despite adjusted lights or a change of sun position. For others it can help tell the story. Either way, If you’ve never sat in on a coloring session before, the whole thing can seem quite daunting. Jalal Jemison has colored five features and has an extensive background in VFX and compositing. He has been a VFX supervisor, a director, a lead compositor and has had his own small VFX studio. For the […]
The following is a sponsored editorial post from The Music Bed. For filmmakers, The Music Bed offers the valuable opportunity to license from a highly curated selection of music for use in films, commercials, etc. Their mission is to help visual artists tell their stories better than ever and this month, they want to help you bring your dream project to life through their new campaign: #ProjectFilmSupply. Here’s how it works: starting August 4, filmmakers will have one month to submit a short film idea along with an accompanying mood board. Participants are encouraged to use social media throughout the […]
Forty-ish years on, Rip Torn’s thoughts on the demeaning nature of product placement (as told to Studs Turkel in his classic oral history Working) remain relevant, with no contemporary amendation necessary: I remember doin’ a television show, oh, about ten years ago — I haven’t worked on network television for about eight years. I was smokin’ a cigar. I was playing a Quantrell-type character, so I had a long Cuban cigar. I got up on a horse and we had to charge down a hill. It was a long shot. The director and the producer both hollered, “Cut! Cut! What’re […]
Lyle is the “sharp and moody” story of Leah (Gaby Hoffmann), whose grief over the death of her toddler turns to paranoia when she begins to suspect her eccentric neighbors are involved in a satanic pact. It is an updated, lesbian take on Rosemary’s Baby and is available for FREE at LYLEmovie.com. Two years ago, Stewart decided to stop making films. She had just spent the last six years of her life obsessively trying to make her first feature — a mother-daughter real-estate thriller — and it all fell apart in a month. We were excited about the script that […]
Altmanesque. Ron Mann asked a dozen admirers to define that term in Altman, his new documentary about the director of *M*A*S*H, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, The Player, Gosford Park and 40 other features spanning an astonishing five decades. “Inspiration,” Paul Thomas Anderson answered unsurprisingly. “Creating a family,” Lily Tomlin offered. “Makin’ your own rules” was James Caan’s definition. Mann’s portrait of Robert Altman is exciting and eloquent but nearly too reverential, more a tribute than a biography. The capacity audience at Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox Friday night didn’t need reminding of Altman’s greatness. The Canadian premiere of Altman kicked off a retrospective that […]
The collaboration between the Coen Brothers and cinematographer Roger Deakins is spotlighted in this Blag Films supercut featuring moments from films such as Fargo, O Brother Where Art Thou, The Man Who Wasn’t There, True Grit, and quite a few other simply beautiful-looking films. And if these shots seem astonishingly well composed, well, then that’s due not just to Deakins’ mastery but to the Coens’ penchant for scouting, pre-production and storyboarding everything in advance. The shots in this video, with their precise time of days, frequent use of high angles and careful arrangement of what’s in the frame are clearly […]
• For years, Bollywood star Salman Khan released one of his big films around the same time as Eid, the first day after the end of Ramadan. Last year he deviated from form and — as Nancy Tartaglione points out points out at Deadline — watched as rival star Shah Rukh Khan’s record-breaking Chennai Express took advantage of the slot. This year Salman’s back in scheduling place with his new film Kick, which is off to a good start — no thanks to the qazi (religious judge) at Bhopal, who in the middle of a sermon admonished his flock to […]
Adam Epstein is a freelance editor. For the last five years, he’s worked with the Saturday Night Live film unit, editing parody pieces of all kinds. He’s just begun a nationwide workshop tour with “The Cutting Edge Post-Production Tour,” a day-long seminar covering techniques, theories and editing insights. We recently spoke to Epstein about editing, working on SNL and the workshop tour. Filmmaker: How did you become an editor? Epstein: In my experience, it’s never a direct path. I started out in school, working on a student-run sketch comedy show, and we were able to get our hands on some of the […]
Volunteers welcome you into the theater, guiding you towards your allotted place. The lights are going off slowly. As you sit down on your chair, you look ahead at the stage. It’s unlike any other stage. I was at the Culture Center ZIL in Moscow, attending a performance of The Death of Mr. Tarelkin, staged by the Manege/MediaArtLab Open School, Ballet Moscow Theatre and the International Centre for Dance and Performance TsEKh. This was a sidebar event at the 36th Moscow International Film Festival (June 19 – 28), described on the website as “a performance where Russian classics, contemporary dance, […]