Until filmmaker, novelist, and funnywoman Rebecca Miller weighed in with the invigorating Maggie’s Plan, the history of films addressing the impasse between order and randomness — in theological terms, the conflict between free will and determinism — has rested on the mature products of profound Western European minds. Bresson’s Au Hasard, Balthasar and Dreyer’s Gertrud, for example, are stark, minimalist, and melancholic, with a divine presence at the very least implied. In Miller’s movie, intellectual musings are negligible in the fate debate. Destiny, whether embraced or resisted, is built into something more palpable: the actions of her quirky characters. Her earlier […]
by Howard Feinstein on May 16, 2016The first trailer for Judd Apatow’s Trainwreck is just fine, setting up its premise clearly — Amy Schumer is a professional success despite her monogamy-repelling sleeping-around, which is refreshing — and its romantic throughline with sports doctor Bill Hader. It looks more disciplined than usual visually, with Ballet 422 co-director/Afterschool cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes behind the camera, and LeBron James seems like he’s about to outdo Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the basketball player-turned-onscreen-comic sweepstakes.
by Filmmaker Staff on Feb 11, 2015Writer-director Greg Mottola won himself a lot of fans with his smart, witty debut movie The Daytrippers, and then promptly disappeared from the indie scene for the best part of a decade, working in television while he tried to get his sophomore feature off the ground. In 2007, he returned to the big screen fray with Superbad, the Judd Apatow-produced teen comedy, which was a number one box office hit and made him a hot commodity once again. Going back to his indie roots, Mottola followed up the success of Superbad with Adventureland, a beautifully nuanced coming-of-age dramedy about a […]
by Nick Dawson on Mar 13, 2011