6579 Results for “production”
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Rotterdam 2008: Who’s Afraid of Kathy Acker?
Who’s Afraid of Kathy Acker?, premiering here in Rotterdam, is Barbara Caspar’s thoughtful and creative film biography/essay on the late writer, whose formally inventive novels, published from the ’70s through the mid-90s, challenged assumptions about gender roles, sexuality, and the literary canon. A beguiling and intensely contradictory figure, Acker is best known for books which creatively appropriated texts from Great White Male writers, retelling them in an emotionally raw, sexually blunt, and politically questioning female voice. And with her appearance in several conceptual art videos in the ’70s, her close-cropped dyed blond hair, her tattoos and her piercings, Acker was […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 29, 2008 -
Trumping Trump
The following essay by Ray Carney on Aaron Katz’s Quiet City accompanies a 2-disc DVD release from Benten Films out this week of Quiet City and Katz’s first film, Dance Party, USA. Mainstream film is so much an art of the maximum – the biggest, the flashiest, the fastest, the most exaggerated – that it is easy to forget that the great films all go in the opposite direction. They are, almost without exception, triumphs of minimalism. They rely on subtlety, understatement, indirection, and simplification. In Stranger than Paradise, Down by Law, and Mystery Train, Jim Jarmusch sets long sections […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 28, 2008 -
My Super Sweet 16
Leading up to the Oscars on Feb. 24, we will be highlighting the nominated films that have appeared in the magazine or on the Website in the last year. Lisa Y. Garibay interviewed Juno director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody for the Fall ’07 issue. Juno is nominated for Best Picture, Best Directing (Jason Reitman), Best Lead Actress (Ellen Page) and Best Original Screenplay (Diablo Cody). The pairing of writer Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman was one of complete chance, like one of those cop-buddy movies where the grizzled vet is set up with a renegade newbie and […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 28, 2008 -
SUNDANCE DOCS: FIELDS OF FUEL and IOUSA
Tuesday at Sundance I saw two documentaries back to back that each deals with one of this country’s most pressing and complex political issues. Josh Tickell’s Fields of Fuel tackles America’s reliance on imported fossil fuels while Patrick Creadon in his follow-up to Wordplay, IOUSA, wrestles with the exploding United States budget deficit. Both films employ what is now a familiar doc style of exploring political and social issue subject matter: quick editing, talking heads, a chapter-by-chapter structure, use of humorous archival material, and energetic source cue-driven montages. Of the two films, Fields of Fuel is the slicker. It segues […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 27, 2008 -
DUTCH TREATS
I’ve still got most of my Sundance commentary to get up and I’m on my way to the International Film Festival Rotterdam, where I’ll try to file some short reports on the fest and the concurrent Cinemart, which is a great financing conference that plans, this year, to begin a dialogue about how it can be reshaped for the future. (Full disclosure: I’m on the CineMart’s Advisory Board.) From the festival’s Tiger Daily: Eschewing conference and panel formats and instead deploying the tried and tested device of brainstorming towards a consensus, IFFR management and industry experts will sit down this […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 25, 2008 -
Catherine Owens, U2 3D
BONO AND THE EDGE IN CATHERINE OWENS AND MARK PELLINGTON’S U2 3D. COURTESY NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ENTERTAINMENT. Though her body of work is famous, Catherine Owens — the woman behind the visual design of U2’s legendary stadium tours of the past 15 years — until now has maintained a much lower profile. Beginning with the band’s revolutionary ZooTV tour in 1992, Irish artist Owens used her expertise in many media (sculpture, video art, sound design, photography, etc.) as inspiration for their subsequent PopMart, Elevation and Vertigo tours, helping the band gain a reputation as the best live act in the world. […]
by Nick Dawson on Jan 23, 2008 -
A TRIP DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE
As I didn’t get into Park City until Sunday night, I’ve been playing catch-up for the most part, trying to get the pulse of this year’s fest (which for the most part hasn’t been the feeding frenzy in terms of deals as last year), and trying to see as many films as possible (and hitting some parties). So far Daniel Barnz‘s debut feature Phoebe In Wonderland has stuck in my mind the most. Barnz was named one of our “25 New Faces” this past summer so I knew a little about him and his work before going in, but it’s […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 23, 2008 -
NEW CAMERAS, NEW FRONTIERS
Writer and d.p. David Leitner sent us this report about two new cameras that can be seen here at the Sundance Film Festival.Located in the basement of a small commercial mall on upper Main Street across from the Egyptian theater, the annual Sundance technology showcase known as New Frontier on Main is particularly worth a visit this year due to two product introductions poised to rock the world of low-budget HD indie production. Word is already out about Sony’s EX1, a Handycam-type camcorder bearing both XDCAM EX and CineAlta logos for a strikingly low $7,790 suggested retail price. In a nutshell, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 23, 2008 -
“FROZEN RIVER” writer-director, Courtney Hunt
Ten percent more money wouldn’t have made that big a difference, but 10 percent more preproduction time would have helped. Our funding showed up so late in the game that nothing could be nailed down until two weeks before we started shooting. Casting and location scouting was last minute. Luckily my producers and crew were intrepid so we just marched on. Rehearsal with actors was minimal. I met most of the people in the smaller roles for the first time on the day they arrived on the set. The only thing that saved us was the script. The time spent […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 18, 2008 -
“CHOKE” writer-director, Clark Gregg
It’s very tempting to go for the obvious answer and say money, since most of the elements that one would kill to have 10 percent more of could be had with a little more money. Money would be the universal gift card with which one could purchase delicious items like more shooting days or film stock or editing time. I’m still in post so even thinking of a card that could buy me more mix time or music licensing is getting me a little worked up. But money seems like an easy answer, so I’ll try to think outside the […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 18, 2008
