Ira Sachs
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Acting Out: Ira Sachs’s Little Men
Friendships have boundaries and limits. Aristotle wrote of perfect friends in his Ethics, noting that totals must remain low. Sounds much like romance to me: Is the new bff the one? The philosopher described the role played by villainous economic factors, which were still up for discussion 2000 years later by authors like Michael A. Kaplan in an academic text called Friendship Fictions. I don’t think the concept of friendship can be quantified, but the monetary value of some of its indicators, or their equivalents, can be guesstimated. Mercenary matters disrupt the bonds between tight male buds in Ira Sachs’s […]
by Howard Feinstein on Aug 5, 2016 -
Landlord Blues: Ira Sachs on Little Men
There are little men, and then there are big forces — economic tides, societal shifts, structural change. The beautiful strength of Ira Sachs’s recent work — his mid-career surge after the five-year gap that followed his larger-budget, mini-major film, Married Life — is that Sachs’s characters are such complicated, soulful men and women clearly impacted (but not defined) by the larger issues swirling around them. In his lightly autobiographical 2012 film Keep the Lights On, Sachs essayed the romantic life of a documentary filmmaker in a relationship with a drug-addicted lawyer, set against the backdrop of turn-of-the-millennium New York gay […]
by Rose Troche on Jul 25, 2016 -
Summer Festivaling, Part 1: On Seattle, BAMCinemaFEST, Oak Cliff
By the time most of the prominent guests, critics and industry hangers-on arrive at the Seattle International Film Festival every year, the show is almost over. The red carpet is rolled out for “gala” screenings during each of its four weekends, but the well-orchestrated influx of movie business types occurs only at the end of the affair. To say, as a visiting film critic — one who might enjoy the luxury of the Kimpton hotel guest lodging, or the effortless springtime beauty of the Emerald City — that you have any handle on the entirety of programming director Beth Barrett’s […]
by Brandon Harris on Jun 24, 2016 -
The Wrong Box: Zach Clark’s Little Sister, MoMA’s Sally Bergerless Doc Fortnight
“I needed structure!” says former goth Colleen Lunsford (Addison Timlin, star-to-be) in a revelatory moment in Little Sister, the latest feature by Brooklyn-based Zach Clark (White Reindeer, Vacation). It is one of two unaffected masterpieces (the other is Ira Sachs’s Little Men, which I’ll review when the increasingly daring Magnolia Pictures releases it) screening at BAMcinemafest (Jun 15-26) that I was fortunate enough to catch early — two for two! Colleen is exasperated trying to explain to her estranged, self-absorbed mom, Joani (Ally Sheedy, better than ever), why she left home to seek out spiritual redemption in a cloistered New […]
by Howard Feinstein on Jun 14, 2016 -
Trailer Watch: Ira Sachs’ Little Men
Little Men, director Ira Sachs’ latest film, premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was warmly received. The story of a friendship between two NYC middle schoolers whose parents become embroiled in a real estate conflict, Little Men takes a personal look at the damaging effects of gentrification. Starring newcomers Michael Barbieri and Theo Taplitz as the titular boys and Greg Kinnear, Jennifer Ehle and Paulina Garcia as their parents, Little Men will hit select theaters on August 5, with a nationwide rollout to follow. The sensitive drama gets its first trailer (above) courtesy of distributor Magnolia Pictures.
by Paula Bernstein on May 16, 2016 -
Separate Bedrooms
In conversation below with fellow writer/director Todd Solondz, Ira Sachs calls his latest work,Love is Strange, “a middle-aged film” — not because it’s focused on midlife issues, but because “it has perspective on both what youth felt like as well as what aging can lead to.” That’s a beautiful formulation by Sachs on this warm and generous New York movie that charms by unexpectedly opening its perspective across both neighborhoods and generations. Love is Strange opens with a flurry of activity as two older gay men — a music teacher (Alfred Molina) and painter (John Lithgow) — take advantage of […]
by Todd Solondz on Jul 17, 2014 -
Trailer Watch: Ira Sachs’ Love Is Strange
Despite being an out gay couple, Ben and George (John Lithgow and Alfred Molina) nevertheless find themselves shouldering nasty ramifications after they decide to tie the knot in Ira Sachs’ Love Is Strange. Premiering to near universal raves at Sundance, Love Is Strange charts the fallout from this seemingly basic right, with Ben and George jobless and couchsurfing amongst a close-knit group of friends, including Marisa Tomei and Cheyenne Jackson. Sony Pictures Classics will release the film on August 22.
by Sarah Salovaara on Jun 23, 2014 -
Fassbinder and His Friends: Ira Sachs
Entering its final weekend, “Fassbinder: Romantic Anarchist” is part one of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s massive survey of the work of the late, great Rainer Werner Fassbinder — a madly prolific, protean figure of the German New Wave. Marrying social commentary with emotional melodrama and, sometimes, genre entertainment, Fassbinder cranked out four and five movies a year, drawing from a repertory group of actors, exploring themes of love and obsession, and building a sustained critique of post-war capitalism that still penetrates today. In 1997, the Museum of Modern Art programmed a Fassbinder retrospective, and we asked several directors […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 31, 2014 -
Interview with Love is Strange Screenwriter Mauricio Zacharias
Mauricio Zacharias is currently in Park City for the premiere of his latest film, Love is Strange, directed by Ira Sachs. The previous project the director and writer collaborated on, the erotic and turbulent love story Keep the Lights On, also premiered at Sundance back in 2012. Love is Strange tells the story of Ben (John Lithgow) and George (Alfred Molina), a couple who’ve been together for 39 years who finally tie the knot in New York City. As soon as George’s employer, a Catholic school, hears the news of the gay marriage he is fired from his longtime job. Unable to afford the […]
by Tayla Tzirulnik on Jan 20, 2014 -
TRAILER WATCH: “HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE” AND “KEEP THE LIGHTS ON”
Released in the past few days were two terrific trailers for films coming out in September that we covered in our Summer issue: David France’s AIDS activism documentary How to Survive a Plague, and writer/director Ira Sachs’ late 90s NYC-set gay drama Keep the Lights On. Go here to read “Of Time & The City,” the fascinating conversation between France and Sachs about these two films, which act almost as companion pieces to one another, and the poignant histories behind them.
by Nick Dawson on Aug 15, 2012
