If Food, Inc. freaked you out, prepare to be galvanized by A Place at the Table, another hot-button food doc being released by Participant Media and Magnolia Pictures. The film, which boasts the involvement of celebrity advocates Jeff Bridges and chef Tom Colicchio, fixes its curious eye on America’s hunger crisis, whose staggering stats add up to the distressing fact that 50 million folks in this country, many of them kids, don’t know when or how they’re getting their next meal. It’s a monster of a topic, with arms that stretch to the realms of politics, medicine, and agriculture, and […]
Stoker, South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook’s long-awaited English-language debut, has already proven divisive, its moral murkiness and arguable cynicism as beguiling to some as they are troubling for others. But however one feels when walking away from this Gothic, slow-burning psycho-thriller, which explores the curious workings of its titular family (the surname’s an intended nod to a certain vampire-loving author), it’s hard to deny that it’s the work of a master stylist, whose obsessive attention to detail is intoxicating, and, these days, far too rare. A parade of pristine compositions, technical flourishes, and production design that’s adamantly era-nonspecific, Stoker plays […]
Two weeks ago RED announced that they were suing Sony for patent infringement for technology used in Sony’s PMW-F5, PMW-F55, and F65 cameras. Last week Sony posted a response on their Pro video website. First noting that the F65 has been commercially available for over a year, and that the F5/F55 were announced in October, they go on to say: Sony has now had an opportunity to study Red’s complaint and the asserted patents, and categorically denies Red’s allegations. Sony intends to defend itself vigorously in the Red lawsuit. Sony looks forward to prevailing in court, thus vindicating the Sony […]
I stopped collecting comic books years ago, and I was never much of a vinyl person. Do you know anyone who truly fetishizes out-of-print books, because I don’t. Who needs rare DVDs anyway? Not suckers with Netflix streaming or HuluPlus accounts. The DVD has only been around 17, 18 years — what could possibly count as rare, even? Is there such a thing? Perhaps that DVD of an oddly artful B horror film from the ’70s that went out of print in 1996 and has never returned, but piracy has gotten so advanced now, surely you can find a stream […]
One of our favorite recent films at Filmmaker and IFP is Tim Sutton’s dreamy and at times disquieting evocation of youth, Pavilion. The film went through the IFP Labs, and its d.p., Chris Dapkins, made our 25 New Faces list last year. And, just this year, Sutton took part in the Venice Biennale College Cinema, which is partnered with IFP, and because of its support, is set to make his new feature, Memphis, this Spring. As Sutton enters pre-production, Pavilion hits the theaters from Factory 25. It opens at IFC Center in New York tomorrow, and is recommended to all […]
Thelma Schoonmaker and Martin Scorsese. Walter Murch and Francis Ford Coppola. Tim Squyres and Ang Lee. For many an editor, these longtime creative partnerships represent the most alluring and elusive of career ideals. For editor Andrew Weisblum, that ideal is well on the way to becoming a reality — twice over. Since 2007, Weisblum has cut all of both Wes Anderson’s and Darren Aronofsky’s feature films, ranging in style from the witty charm of Fantastic Mr. Fox to the demented psychodrama of Black Swan (for which Weisblum was Oscar nominated). Kicking off this year’s Manhattan Edit Workshop series “Inside the […]
If you are a first-time filmmaker and have a narrative or documentary project in the final stages of post-production, here’s a heads up that the deadline for submission to the Independent Filmmaker Labs is upcoming. Run by IFP, which publishes Filmmaker, the labs help movies with a budget under $1 million, providing each film’s team with in-depth assistance on everything from editing to marketing to festival strategy. The IFP Labs select 10 documentary and 10 narrative projects, assembling filmmakers for three separate sessions throughout the year, during which the individuals are helped to discern the best way for their movies to stand […]
Until I shot Life on the Line, I never realized how much independent filmmakers and professional gamblers have in common. Many of us leave our hometowns, move to the center of the action, and risk everything to make it in a nerve-wracking and highly competitive environment. Every bettor is a long shot to succeed, just like filmmakers who dream of making their first picture in Hollywood. After spending the last two years meeting, interviewing, filming, and befriending some of the most colorful and successful bettors in Las Vegas, I can honestly say that we’re a lot more alike than I […]
In 1974, Francis Ford Coppola and the cast and crew of The Godfather Part II took over a Lower East Side block in Manhattan. An NYU film student and resident of that block, Mark Kitchell, focused his camera on the proceedings. The result, The Godfather Comes to 6th Street, was not a fluffy “making of” film but a document of the good, the bad and the ugly that happens when a film crew descends on a neighborhood. A portrait of a community, the film also captured the efforts of a group of local activists who objected to the film’s presence; […]
With an exacting intelligence, a hyper-articulate quality that brings to mind the characters of American systems novels, Dan Sallitt’s The Unspeakable Act meditates on the burgeoning mutual attraction of two Brooklyn siblings in a manner that, while leaving many unsettled, has already marked his third feature as a potential breakout for the critic-filmmaker. The scions of an old-school Brooklyn bohemian writer, Jackie Kimball and Matthew Kimball (Tallie Medel and Sky Hirschkron) have long harbored a forbidden desire for one another, although it is most intensely felt on Jackie’s side. Medel’s big green eyes under dark, foreboding bangs fill in all the gaps […]