Adam Wingard
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We Tell Ourselves Franchises in Order to Live
Last weekend I took a trip to the Regal Union Square Stadium 14 and paid seventeen bucks to see Blair Witch. Based on the reviews, I was pretty certain that I wasn’t going to like it very much (spoiler alert: I was right). But still I felt compelled to hop the Q train and head into Manhattan to meet my friend at the multiplex. What brought me out there? Maybe it was the changing weather and its subliminal indication of Halloween’s approach. Maybe it was the faint hope that director Adam Wingard — whose previous work I’ve really dug — would elevate what […]
by Jane Schoenbrun on Sep 26, 2016 -
Trailer Watch: Adam Wingard’s The Woods
With films such as Home Sick, Pop Skull and A Horrible Way to Die, and more recently, You’re Next and The Guest, Adam Wingard has established a reputation as one of the most inventive filmmakers working in the horror genre today. Wingard’s latest film, The Woods, tackles the found footage sub-genre and we’re bracing ourselves for maximum scares. Written by Simon Barrett (The Guest, You’re Next), The Woods involves a group of college students on a camping trip who discover they are not alone. The trailer (above) reveals little in terms of plot, but surely succeeds at setting the creepy tone. On Twitter, Wingard boasted that The Woods “is my first full on […]
by Paula Bernstein on May 11, 2016 -
Kumiko, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Warpaint Highlight Sundance Next Festival
It’s rare that I can recommend nearly every program at a film festival, but that’s the case with this weekend’s Sundance Next Festival in Los Angeles. With events taking place tonight at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery and then this weekend at the theater at the Ace Hotel, the Next Festival is intimate, very cool and with a strong multidisciplinary bent. Alongside several artistic feature highlights from this year’s Sundance Film Festival are shorts, panels and bands, making each program something of an event. Check out the complete line-up at the festival’s site, and here are a few picks of mine: […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 7, 2014 -
The Guest | Director Adam Wingard
Attention, our audience’s and our own — it’s a valued commodity these days. We struggle to command our audience’s attention, for them to discover our work and then, once they’ve discovered it, to actually focus on it. Meanwhile, we struggle to focus our own attention, to fight our society’s weapons of mass distraction so we can not just see our work to completion but fully discover the meanings within it. What role does attention play in your work? Can you discuss an instance where you thought about some aspect of attention when it came to your film? On set once […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 16, 2014 -
BLOODY DISGUSTING FOUNDER BRAD MISKA ON SUNDANCE HORROR PIC “V/H/S”
“When we started Bloody Disgusting back in 2002, we were the only ones doing it daily,” says Bradley Miska about the origins of his all-horror site. Sites like Ain’t It Cool News, Dark Horizons and Jo Blo were around too, but as its name would suggest, Bloody Disgusting hammered a wooden stake in the burgeoning field of online horror coverage and now, 10 years later, it is reaping the rewards. Management company The Collective “bought into” Bloody Disgusting five years ago, says Miska, and today the co-owned website is just one part of a gory mini-empire that also includes a […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 22, 2012 -
JOE SWANBERG DEBUTS “MARRIAGE MATERIAL” FREE ON VIMEO
While director Joe Swanberg is in the midst of issuing his one-year, four-film DVD subscription series through Factory 25, he has uploaded a new film, Marriage Material, to Vimeo, where it can viewed free until the end of the month. From the Vimeo page a description of the film: Emily and Andrew, a young couple living in Memphis, agree to babysit their friend’s 6-month-old for a day. The experience causes them to examine their own relationship and their feelings about marriage and children. Marriage Material is shot by Adam Wingard, whose You’re Next opens later this year from LionsGate. It […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 16, 2012 -
Five Questions with You’re Next Director Adam Wingard
With his features Home Sick, Pop Skull and A Horrible Way to Die, Adam Wingard is carving out a reputation as one of the most imaginative and visually sophisticated directors working in modern horror. His films are mindful of genre conventions, finding ways to subvert them through unexpected characterizations that have real psychological depth. His latest movie reinvents the home invasion thriller. We spoke to Wingard about blood, style and directing other directors. Filmmaker: Your previous film, A Horrible Way to Die, tweaked the serial killer genre by setting it within the world of addiction and recovery, and exploring those […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 10, 2011 -
TRAILER WATCH: SWANBERG AND WINGARD’S “AUTOEROTIC”
In recent months, Joe Swanberg has been making movies. A lot of movies. I don’t know how many, but I think his unreleased films could outnumber other filmmakers’ back catalogs. And, I think he’s thinking of interesting new ways to get them out. Hopefully there will be more news on that front soon, but in the meantime, here, via Indiewire, is the trailer (NSFW, by the way) for Autoerotic, his latest film premiering via IFC Midnight. The ensemble cast features the talented Kate Lyn Sheil (Green), and the film is co-directed by Adam Wingard. According to IFC Midnight: Autoerotic follows […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 12, 2011 -
Uncle Kent Director Joe Swanberg
Since Joe Swanberg’s first feature film, Kissing on the Mouth, premiered at SXSW in 2005, he’s managed to make at least a feature a year, multiple web-series, and found regular launch-pads at SXSW and IFC Films. When Swanberg directs a film, he really functions as a craftsman of the entire work: while he eschews screenplays in favor of improvisation, he works as cinematographer, editor, and usually acts in the film. As the nexus of a low-budget film movement stressing honesty, stories chronicling the lives of people in their twenties, and improvisation (this movement begins with an “M,” ends with “core,” […]
by James Ponsoldt on Jan 23, 2011
