The Oscars are not generally considered a crucial event for genre lovers; the inclusion of such films is often limited, and often ghettoized, relegated to technical awards only. This year there are several films in requisite categories like Makeup and Hairstyling, and Visual Effects (whose nominees include The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, The Avengers, Snow White and the Huntsman, and Prometheus). Another good category where one can snoop out genre fare is in Best Animated Film, and 2013 doesn’t disappoint, with the lovingly crafted and decidedly Gothic take on suburbia in ParaNorman and Tim Burton’s tale of a boy and […]
Traditional broadcast and cable television is in free fall. More and more viewers are turning to alternative viewing options offered through “broadband” services facilitated by the Internet. Traditional TV programming, like editorial content in newspapers and magazines, is really an eyeball hook for the show’s advertising. And traditional TV viewing is suffering its biggest loses among its most coveted demographic groups – Generation Y (ages 13 to 32) and Gen X (ages 33 to 46). A recent report by GfK, a German research firm, paints a dismal picture of TV audience erosion. It found that among Gen Y folks, only […]
Is it possible to produce a cinematic narrative based on the collective wisdom of a tribe with no real actors? Can a film be made where true stories are brought to life by the people who have actually lived them? Joey L. not only believes it is possible, he has every intention of making it happen. By the age of 18, he was commissioned to photograph the movie poster for Twilight. Currently his work, on National Geographic’s Killing Lincoln promos, can be seen on billboards from Times Square to Sunset Boulevard. So how does someone who makes a living routinely […]
Jenny Deller’s Future Weather takes an unusual look at Middle America, forgoing the clichés of its demography for ecology. Introverted Laudurée (Perla Haney-Jardine) is abandoned by her mother (Marin Ireland), who flees their trailer for Hollywood, with gelatinous aspirations for a career as a make-up artist. Fiercely independent, Laudurée carries out her daily life as though nothing happened, her days consumed by experiments and the threat of global warming. Yearning to be taken under the wing of her science teacher (Lili Taylor), Laudurée is nevertheless snatched up by her alcoholic grandmother (Amy Madigan), who plans to move to Florida to […]
While probably best known as belligerent barista Ray on the HBO show Girls (and also for his role as a lousy houseguest in Lena Dunham’s Tiny Furniture), Alex Karpovsky started out and continues to be a prolific indie film director who makes diverse styles of micro-budget films. His fourth and fifth films, the stylistically contrasting Rubberneck and Red Flag, are being released by Tribeca Film and screen at Film Society of Lincoln Center from February 22. In Rubberneck, Karpovsky plays a scientist obsessed with a former fling, and in the road trip comedy Red Flag he plays a filmmaker named Alex Karpovsky who is […]
In Canadian writer/director Ruba Nadda’s elegant and oddly topical thriller Inescapable, Adib Abdul-Kareem (Alexander Siddig) is a computer operations manager at a Toronto bank who fled Syria some 30 years ago. Married to a Canadian with whom he’s fathered two pretty teenage girls, he’s kept his checkered past a secret from his family the whole time, but after the disappearance of the older of his two daughters (Jay Anstey) during a clandestine visit to Syria in order to find out where her father is from, Adib heads to Damascus despite the possibility of repercussions for long ago sins. With combative ex-flame […]
Last week, my production partner and I reached our Indiegogo film crowdfunding goal. We worked a ton, both on and offline, spun our wheels a bit, thought we set our goal too high, figured we might be harassing our friends too much, worried we picked the wrong time to fundraise, and grew concerned that our campaign was too long. But, in the end, we were able to course-correct and come out on top, beating the $15,000 goal by some $700, with the last $7,000 coming in the final four days of the campaign. Like anything that really tests your faith […]
Since repetition in the form of rote memorization is a major element of education, I’m not going to apologize for this, one of my periodic rants on the ways in which filmmakers (and, sometimes, their publicists) fail in the promotion of their films online and through social media. I’m sure that over the years I’ve posted every one of these points before, as have other writers on our site, like Jon Reiss. But, based on my encounters with filmmakers, their films, and their websites these past few weeks, these are worth repeating. Want to decrease press interest and the size […]
Receiving its world premiere in the 2013 Rotterdam Film Festival’s Tiger Awards Competition, San Francisco-based Visra Vichit-Vadakan’s Karaoke Girl is an evocative character study of a Bangkok working girl, a singer in a nighttime karaoke bar for whom memories of her rural past and dreams of romantic fulfillment form a pulsing lifeline away from an emotionally depleting world. A hybrid documentary/fiction film, Karaoke Girl stars newcomer Sa Sittijun as a character largely based on herself. The documentary sections of the film follow her back to her real hometown, and feature interviews with her real family, while the “fiction” sequences are […]
The words “interactive film” obviously evoke some kind of audience engagement, but what that actually means can — and does — change with every project. While there have been a lot of innovations with screenings in public venues, interactive films often tend to play best online or on mobile devices where viewers can input information and make narrative decisions. The new short film many worlds seeks to turn this on its head a little bit and redefine interactivity by, first, making it completely unconscious for viewers and, second, allowing it to take place in a traditional theater. Billed as “a […]