6560 Results for “production”
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“TAKE SHELTER AND WEEKEND” — A HAMMER TO NAIL REMINDER!
(Visit the official websites for Take Shelter and Weekend to find out when they will be playing on a big screen near you.) Though I often complain about how content oversaturated and short-attention-span diseased our lives have become and how these factors have directly hindered the ability for any independent film to gain even a fraction of legitimate theatrical traction anymore, the truth is that at Hammer to Nail, we share in the guilt. We post reviews on/around the day of a film’s initial theatrical release in either NY/LA and don’t continue to remind readers when these films open in […]
by Michael Tully on Oct 6, 2011 -
NICK AUGUST-PERNA, CHRIS DAPKINS, CARLO MIRABELLA-DAVIS, “THE SWELL SEASON”
After winning the Oscar for Best Original Song in 2008 for John Carney’s breakout hit Once, real-life sweethearts Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová (who co-starred in the Independent Spirit Award–winning film) hit the road with their band, the Swell Season, for what was to have been an exultant, roof-raising tour of the U.S., Ireland, and Europe. Instead, though greeted enthusiastically by thousands of new fans at sold-out shows, the crazy-in-love couple found themselves strained and ultimately divided by the exposure, a bittersweet trajectory charted in the new documentary, The Swell Season, which opened Silverdocs in June. For the film, co-directors […]
by Damon Smith on Oct 5, 2011 -
EASTERN PROMISES, WESTERN AVOWALS: THE NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL (PART TWO)
That undefinable thing called texture: It is a principal difference between cinematographic imagery from West and East. For starters, take a look at the wall show of French celebrity photos in the Walter Reade Theater’s Roy Furman Gallery, faces and torsos foregrounded with little or no regard for light or materials, and complete disregard for context. Then take a look at the stills pictured here from the four films reviewed below. In the Canadian/British A Dangerous Method, by David Cronenberg, and the American Sean Durkin’s Martha Marcy May Marlene, they are basically head shots, not particularly interesting, and they tell you little […]
by Howard Feinstein on Oct 4, 2011 -
The Microbudget Conversation: Do Your Homework
It’s been a few weeks longer than usual, and the list of reasons is a mile long. The first, and important few are: I’m moving, there are big things being planned for this column’s future, and I was at Independent Film Week. If you ever get a chance to go to IFW… Go. Especially if you are planning a film. I won’t get too far into it, (as many wonderful folks already have) but it was thrilling, inspiring, and sobering. Our industry is changing almost faster than we can keep up. There are a ton of creative folks out there […]
by John Yost on Oct 4, 2011 -
EMERGING VISIONS… IN ANTICIPATION
I’m sitting in seat 8A on a flight from San Francisco back to N.Y. in anticipation of the Emerging VisionS event tomorrow. The last weeks have been a whirlwind, the good kind where the pieces start to fall into place and momentum starts to build. My film Khsara, a comedy about Arab women who don’t get married in time, was conceived a few years ago. Since then I have been writing draft after draft thankfully with the support of fine organizations like IFP. After the non-stop No Borders week, I flew to San Francisco where my film takes place and […]
by Suha Araj on Oct 3, 2011 -
WHEN IN ZURICH, PRINT THE LEGEND: ON “ROMAN POLANSKI: A FILM MEMOIR”
Succumbing to the most numbing of documentary aesthetics, Laurent Bouzereau’s Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir had its “secret” world premiere at the Zurich Film Festival Tuesday night. Aftering being hyped as a groundbreaking work of filmic autobiography, what unspooled in this most expensive of European cities consisted mainly of footage shot by longtime Polanski friend and former producer Andrew Braunsberg, who convinced Polanski to spend 20 hours talking with him in Polanski’s Gstaad estate during his house arrest following his apprehension at Zurich’s ambitious young festival a few years ago. The film’s cumulative effect is rather enervating given its fascinating subject, […]
by Brandon Harris on Sep 29, 2011 -
Take Shelter — A Hammer to Nail Review
(Before world-premiering in the dramatic competition at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, Take Shelter was picked up by Sony Classics. It went on to win the Grand Prize at Critics Week, as well as the FIPRESCI Prize, in Cannes. It opens theatrically in New York City and Los Angeles on Friday, September 30, 2011. Visit the official website to learn more.) [DISCLAIMER: I am very good friends with several of the key collaborators involved with the Take Shelter production. Ordinarily, I would absolve myself from writing a review based on far more tenuous connections, but in this particular case, I […]
by Michael Tully on Sep 29, 2011 -
MORE IS MORE: THE NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL (PART ONE)
The New York Film Festival is “the most famous and prestigious in the country,” according to the website of the Film Society of Lincoln Center. It may well be–though I think San Francisco and Telluride might balk at the statement. And the term the country only technically leaves out Toronto. Superlatives aside, this 49th edition, quite a good one overall, is nothing if not admirably ambitious. No longer can the NYFF be accused of replicating Cannes, or of including a disproportionate number of gallic films. What is called the Main Slate, the core of the festival, is, however, top-heavy with […]
by Howard Feinstein on Sep 28, 2011 -
Week Two at the Edit Center
It is the first day of my second week at The Edit Center and we are no longer paired off with partners. Left alone with my computer, I cannot remember how to do anything. Alan Oxman (whose editing credits include Control Room, Happiness and Welcome to the Dollhouse) has joined us, as our teacher. We are to start working on a feature film currently going into post-production. The film is called Happy Sad, written by Ken Urban and directed by Rodney Evans. I am delighted to learn that my friend Maria Dizzia is acting in it. We have all read […]
by Alix Lambert on Sep 28, 2011 -
Far From Afghanistan: U.S. Filmmakers Agitate on 10th Anniversary of the War
“Though I don’t have any children,” says John Gianvito, “I imagined a child someday saying to me, ‘You regard yourself as a political filmmaker, did you do anything during the longest war in U.S. history?’” Gianvito, the Boston-based director of the acclaimed feature The Mad Songs of Fernanda Hussein, recalls this thought coming to him earlier this year as the 10th anniversary of the U.S. war in Afghanistan approached. On Thursday, October 6, in honor of that day of infamy, Gianvito and a team of filmmakers will unveil an ambitious omnibus project to raise awareness about the enduring conflict. […]
by Anthony Kaufman on Sep 27, 2011
