Summer 2012
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Cannes 2012 pt. 1
Normally the spotlight at the Cannes film festival is stolen by attractive young celebrities and hip, hot films (Tarantino’s, for example). This Cannes was a little bit different. The most interesting films addressed Big Issues and, perhaps coincidentally, were awarded the top prizes. They are mature films, for the mature. Two provocative topics stood out. CONFRONTING OLD AGE Very different takes on living out the geriatric years are apparent in Austrian director Michael Haneke’s French production Amour, which took the Palme d’Or, and Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami’s Japanese film, Like Someone in Love (no prize, because, even if it […]
by Howard Feinstein on Jul 19, 2012 -
War of Words
by Heather Chaplin on Jul 19, 2012
War of Words By Heather Chaplin. -
Three-Minute Window
by Mary Anderson Casavant on Jul 19, 2012
Three Minute Window -
Culture Hacker: Scarcity and Abundance in the Digital World
Scarcity and Abundance in the Digital World By Lance Weiler.
by Lance Weiler on Jul 19, 2012 -
Blast From the Past
When was the last time you saw a movie that made you say “Wow!” with the wide-eyed, not-yet-jaded glee of a six year old? What was it for you? Insane special effects? Narrative trickery? Deep and resonant emotion? The perfect ending? I was 6 1/2 years old — at that age, the 1/2 is very important — when Back to the Future came out in theaters, and I remember seeing it with my father. The movie floored me — the whole thing. Marty’s relationship with Doc as well as his own father (Crispin effin’ Glover!), the effects, the music, and […]
by James Ponsoldt on Jul 19, 2012 -
Please Hold
In the fall of 2007, I interviewed Craig Zobel about his first film as a director, Great World of Sound, a wryly funny drama about scamming “talent scouts.” Zobel, who for some years worked as a UPM and co-producer for David Gordon Green, was on a high after getting great reviews at Sundance earlier that year, selling Sound to Magnolia at SXSW, and then being chosen as one of Filmmaker’s 25 New Faces in the summer. As we casually chatted before the interview officially began, Zobel talked about a script he had written that was to be his next movie, […]
by Nick Dawson on Jul 19, 2012 -
Brooklyn Basics
Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing exploded on the screen in 1989; an energetic, in-your-face portrait of a Brooklyn neighborhood — Bed-Stuy — on the hottest day of the summer as racial tensions boil over. Lee’s third film, it was an instant classic, scoring the writer, director and actor an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay. A decade later it was placed in the prestigious National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. Following She’s Gotta Have It and School Daze, the film also cemented in the public’s eye Spike Lee as “Spike Lee,” a bold and savvy showman who […]
by Ava DuVernay on Jul 19, 2012 -
Mood Reels and Lookbooks: In Today’s Pitches, the Image Comes First
The pitch — boiled down to its simplest terms, it’s when someone with an idea tries to sell it to someone with the money or resources to get it made. Writers and directors can pitch their own original ideas or pitch their creative skills to win a job on an already-developed for-hire project. For decades, these pitches were purely verbal. They were about “being good in the room.” But today the pitch game is changing, and it’s a harder game to play than ever before. A great verbal presentation is still key, but filmmakers are increasingly supplementing their pitches with […]
by Ariston Anderson on Jul 19, 2012 -
The Shooting Parties
John Cassavetes once described the role of the director as essentially indirect: “I don’t direct the film. I set up an atmosphere and the atmosphere directs.” Atmosphere and budget may seem like two very different issues, one ephemeral and elusive, the other pragmatic and denumerable, but in practice they are intimately linked. Decisions regarding the selection and number of cast, crew and locations; the scheduled duration and pace of the shoot; the resources at its disposal—each choice is at least partially determined by financial limitations, and each, in turn, affects the atmosphere of a production and the qualities of the […]
by Donal Foreman on Jul 19, 2012 -
Alternate Routes
As the keynote speaker at the Los Angeles Film Festival this June, Chris McGurk, of digital theatrical distribution platform Cinedigm, described seven signs of a resurging indie film industry — an “indie renaissance,” he called it. Most of his bullet points had to do with the ways in which digital technology and social media allow for new ways to program for and reach audiences in theaters and online. “Just as happened in the ’80s,” he said, “there is an exploding demand for filmed entertainment. There is huge competition now going on between all of these digital retailers. It’s an ‘arms […]
by Randy Astle on Jul 19, 2012
