In Wes Anderson’s Rushmore, Jason Schwartzman plays a precocious prep school student whose interests include staging age-inappropriate plays like Serpico. Rushmore’s crew had its own precocious teenager in 16-year-old Brandon Trost, who worked on the film as an assistant to his dad/special effects coordinator, Ron. “I grew up on set with my dad. I’ve never had a job outside of the film industry,” said Trost, who was working on set by the age of 12. “You would think that growing up in movies would ruin the magic for you, because you know everything that goes into putting a movie together. But […]
by Matt Mulcahey on Dec 19, 2017Nearly 10 years in the making, Habibi is the semi-autobiographical first feature from 2010 “25 New Face” Susan Youssef, a tale of forbidden love between two Palestinian students who find it impossible for their affection to overcome the rigid conventions of class in Palestinian life and Israel’s ironclad security regime. With Israelis and Palestinians again in actively violent conflict, the film couldn’t be more newsworthy, but Youssef’s low-budget aesthetic ingenuity (she couldn’t shoot in Gaza, but faked it admirably) and a remarkable performance from Maisa Abd Elhadi, as the young woman at the center of multiple circles of conflict (family […]
by Brandon Harris on Nov 16, 2012Set in and around a children’s summer camp off the coast of New England in 1965, Wes Anderson’s captivating Moonrise Kingdom is a movie about two 12-year-olds, young lovers who escape the adult world of counselors, parents and social workers to find a few magical moments in the film’s eponymous beachside paradise. A movie about childhood, Moonrise Kingdom is also, more importantly, a movie that feels of childhood. With its evocatively off-scale production design, tempered adult performances and moments of playful abandon, Moonrise Kingdom is stuffed with feelings and visions that, no matter what your age, transport you through time […]
by Walter Donohue on Oct 17, 2012