Jim Jarmusch
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Polish Progress: American Indies in Wroclaw
If any one moment encapsulated the fervor for U.S. independent cinema among the young cinephiles of Wroclaw (pronounced Vrot-swof, by the way), it arrived at around 11:00 PM on my final night of attendance at the 4th edition of the city’s American Film Festival (22-27 Oct, 2013). I was strolling back to my hotel in the company of Killer Films honcho Christine Vachon and Tennessee-based producer Ashley Maynor when a lissome young Polish fellow with rosy cheeks, Kurt Cobain hair, and a T-shirt bearing the legend ‘Hipsters Don’t Wear Frames’ suddenly appeared. With a shallowness of breath that suggested he’d […]
by Ashley Clark on Nov 4, 2013 -
Jamie Stuart Goes Backstage Baby with Jay Z
Filmmaker Jamie Stuart went backstage on Mark Romanek’s Picasso Baby shoot and created this short video capturing the lines, gear and space leading up to the rap artist’s performance art event. Glimpses include Marina Abramovic, Judd Apatow, Jim Jarmusch, Alan Cumming and others. Check it out above.
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 5, 2013 -
Jay Z’s Picasso Baby, directed by Mark Romanek
Here’s Mark Romanek’s first music video in a decade or so, a capturing of Jay Z’s recent performance art event at Pace Gallery, where he performed the single “Picasso Baby” for six hours straight. Shot by 25 New Face Jody Lee Lipes (Martha Marcy May Marlene), it features an all-star cast of participatory spectators, including, first and foremost, artist Marina Abramovic, whose own The Artist is Present performance it was clearly inspired by. Others include Judd Apatow, Adam Driver, Jim Jarmusch, Marilyn Minter, Rose Lee Goldberg, Fab Five Freddy, Rosie Perez (dancing!), George Condo, Jemima Kirke, Alan Cumming and Radical […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 3, 2013 -
Cannes 2013: First Clips from Payne’s Nebraska and Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive
Two of the big U.S. films playing at Cannes this year — Alexander Payne’s black-and-white dramedy Nebraska and Jim Jarmusch’s vampire flick Only Lovers Left Alive — have both released clips today. Above, from Nebraska, father and son Bruce Dern and Will Forte are joined by a weaselly Stacy Keach, and below you can check out two short bursts from Jarmusch’s movie, featuring leads Tilda Swinton, Tom Hiddleston, Mia Wasikowska and Anton Yelchin. We’ll have more on both films here on the Filmmaker website once they have screened on the Croisette.
by Nick Dawson on May 15, 2013 -
RZA on The Man with the Iron Fists
What do you get when you hand RZA the keys to his own film project? As fans of the multi-tasking Wu-Tang Clan leader will be thrilled to know, you get a balls-out, rap-infused martial arts spectacle, filled with the mad love of a lifelong kung fu fan. A project nine years in the making, RZA’s directorial debut, The Man with the Iron Fists, sees the 43-year-old artist star alongside Lucy Liu and Russell Crowe, bringing to life a mashed-up actioner that blends Chinese mysticism with the U.S. slave trade and more. The impetus for the film’s production came when RZA […]
by R. Kurt Osenlund on Nov 7, 2012 -
THE 2011 EDINBURGH FILM FESTIVAL
Spend even the shortest amount of time in the delightful and disturbing Scottish capital and you begin to read native Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as a metaphor for the city itself. Edinburgh boasts a warm and welcoming population residing in an atmosphere where an ever-present hint of menace hangs palpably in the air like its famous rainy mist. (This openness is evidenced by the fact that one early afternoon my sister and I were able to pretty much wander in to a Justice Committee hearing of Parliament debating that day’s front page news […]
by Lauren Wissot on Jun 28, 2011 -
Adam Bhala Lough And Ethan Higbee, Tha Upsetter
Widely revered in reggae and hip-hop circles, Lee “Scratch” Perry is one of 20th century music’s most influential and mysterious artists, a tried-and-true rasta man whose lasting contribution goes beyond spawning some of reggae’s most seminal acts. He was, in fact, the driver for the aesthetic innovations that germinated into the two genres mentioned above, and he reinvented the image of the studio engineer from mere technician to artistic focal point. Now in his mid seventies and expatriated to Switzerland, he’s the subject of the feature-length doc The Upsetter, from the directors Adam Bhala Lough (The Carter, Weapons) and […]
by Brandon Harris on Mar 23, 2011 -
GREGG ARAKI, “KABOOM”
One of the key figures in the New Queer Cinema and ever youthful at 51 years of age, Gregg Araki is a director who is increasingly hard to pigeonhole. After the critical success of 2004’s Mysterious Skin, the film which confirmed that Joseph Gordon-Levitt was a movie-star and that Mr. Araki could direct delicate drama as well as exploitation and cult cinema, it seemed that the director of such indie LGBT classics as The Living End (1992) and The Doom Generation (1995) was moving on to a new, more conventionally respectable, middle-aged portion of his career. Now Mr. Araki is […]
by Brandon Harris on Jan 28, 2011 -
WHAT’S IN MY INSTAPAPER: SUNDAY MORNING LINKS
Here are a few articles and blog posts that caught my eye this week: At VentureBeat, a good list titled “Eight Things I Wish I Knew Before Starting a Business.” At the Playlist, five cinematographers on the rise. Also over there, Jim Jarmusch talks about new projects, including one with Tilda Swinton, Michael Fassbender and Mia Wasikowska. In the guise of a beautifully written essay about dreaming, his dad, and Roger Ebert, David Lowery announces — sort of — a new film. At Moving Image Source, Jonathan Rosenbaum defends non-linear film criticism. At Subtraction, Khoi Vhin talks about loving his […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 22, 2010 -
FILMMAKER FLASHBACK: SPRING, 1996
Spring, 1996. It’s so strange now to look back at a piece in this issue by David Leitner on the new digital camera technology and read this bit of breaking news: 1996 will witness the inauguration of prerecorded films on CD-sized Digital Versatile Disks or “DVDs” (you and I will call them Digital Video Disks). DVDs not only doom VHS but also CD-ROMs as we know them for the mere reason that single-sided DVDs store 8.5 gigabytes compared to the puny 680 megabytes of CDs while manufacturing costs are the same. Also in this issue was filmmaker John Landis (yes, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 17, 2010
