Hammer to Nail
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Fanny, Annie & Danny — A Hammer to Nail Review
(After winning multiple awards during its festival run — including the Emerging Filmmaker Award at the 2010 Starz Denver Film Festival — Fanny, Annie & Danny screens for one night only, Tuesday, March 29, 2011 (for *free*, no less!) at the reRun Theater in New York City. Visit the film’s official website to learn more.) If there’s one universal truth about families, it’s that as cozy and loving and supportive as they can be, they can also be cruel and irritating and patronizing and infuriating and maddening and fisticuffs-inducing and… that will suffice for now. That truth is ratcheted up […]
by Michael Tully on Mar 24, 2011 -
“3 BACKYARDS”: THE DARK SPACES BETWEEN EVERYDAY LIVES
(Distributed by Screen Media, 3 Backyards opens theatrically in NYC at the IFC Center on Friday, March 11, 2011. Visit the film’s official website to learn more.) What do you want from a film experience? If I am going to schlep into Manhattan and pay money for a ticket I want the large-screen experience to be something specifically cinematic. I don’t need any William Castle-like “transmedia” gimmicks or 3D to prod me into the seat. I just need to know that I will be in the hands of a director who understands that narrative cinema can operate in a space […]
by Mike S. Ryan on Mar 10, 2011 -
HAMMER TO NAIL AT FILMMAKER
When we first launched Filmmaker back in 1992, we had a policy: no reviews. The idea was always that this would be a magazine by filmmakers and for filmmakers, and we wanted our film criticism to be implicitly — and perhaps subtly — embedded in our discussion of film practice. Which isn’t to say that we didn’t appreciate the value of film criticism. I probably owe half my film knowledge to religious readings of J. Hoberman every Wednesday during my college years. It’s just that a) there were plenty of other outlets doing it back then; and b), we wanted […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 9, 2011 -
WHAT’S IN MY INSTAPAPER: SUNDAY MORNING LINKS, 1/9/11
Here are some articles of interest I’ve sent to my Instapaper this week. At Script Shadow, Carson Reeves lists the 10 ways he knows he’s reading an amateur script. All of these are quotable, but here’s one: BORING ON-THE-NOSE DIALOGUE – This is probably the biggest clue that you’re dealing with an amateur. The dialogue is really straightforward and boring. Characters say exactly what they mean: “You make me so angry!’ Characters get way more specific than people in real life would: “I’m going to head over to get a cheeseburger at Portillo’s and then call my mom.” (instead of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 9, 2011
