Terrence Malick
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Win Copies of To The Wonder and Mud
Finish off Friday with a free movie. Thanks to Magnolia and Lionsgate, we have five Blu-ray or DVD copies to give away of two of the most acclaimed movies of the year: Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder and Jeff Nichols’ Mud. To win copies of both before their release on August 6, all you have to do is email nick AT filmmakermagazine DOT com with the answer to the following question: Which two women worked on films directed by both Malick and Nichols in 2011? (Clue: one is an actress, the other a producer.)
by Filmmaker Staff on Aug 2, 2013 -
The Independent Screenwriter: Larry Gross
“The independent screenwriter” — is the term a tautology or oxymoron? While the word “independent” is often applied to directors and sometimes producers, it’s rarely seen appended to the job title of screenwriter. Is that because so many independent directors write their own scripts? Because screenwriters-for-hire are inevitably drawn to the world of Hollywood? Or, perhaps, because the term means little when applied to the craft of screenwriting? After all, while a director is reliant on others to provide financing and labor, a writer can always sit down with pen, paper or word processor. In this new, occasional column, we […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 8, 2013 -
Making Sense of To the Wonder
Terrence Malick lends himself well to hyperbole. Few other filmmakers make the act of writing about movies feel like such a fool’s errand; no other is as hard to write about in a measured way. In one of the few interviews he’s given, the director says at one point, “When people express what is most important to them, it often comes out in clichés. That doesn’t make them laughable; it’s something tender about them — as though in struggling to reach what’s most personal about them they could only come up with what’s most public.” This may be the most […]
by Michael Nordine on Apr 10, 2013 -
DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE: A TORONTO 2012 PREVIEW
The optimist and the contrarian may find common ground in anticipation; to be a festivalgoer at the Toronto Film Festival is to be a bit of both. Particularly when preceded by negative reviews trickling out of earlier festivals in Cannes, Locarno, Venice and Berlin or less-than-enticing trailers, the debut of new work from filmmakers who have proven themselves capable of greatness can have cinephiles’ hearts in their throats. What if the hype is true, and your favorite living director is no longer creating essential work? Yet with reports of boos just might come a sneaking desire to go to that movie anyway. See […]
by Livia Bloom Ingram on Sep 4, 2012 -
THE OCCUPY ZEITGEIST IN 2011 CINEMA
1. A sense of outsideness. Buildings turned inside out on 9-11, and people outside in the streets of Manhattan. The mind, outside of itself with disbelief. The brutal and temporary restoration of the natural world in the middle of one of the world’s largest cities. Located a block from the World Trade Center, Zuccotti Park, terribly damaged on 9-11 and slowly restored, would become the locus of the Occupy Movement. Encampments. Tents. The incongruous sight of camping gear in urban spaces and beneath the shadows of skyscrapers, in a forest of steel and concrete and glass. It is not films […]
by Nicholas Rombes on Dec 19, 2011 -
ANOTHER OBSERVATION IN MARRAKECH: ON “RIO DE ORO” (“RIVER OF GOLD”)
One should always be wary of tossing the term “masterpiece” around when talking about any cultural object, especially in the cinema, this enfant artform, which feels as if it may have exhausted its formal and rhetorical possibilities much too soon. The hothouse conditions of film festivals are especially bad places to get all ebullient with praise, as well do all over again next month in Utah, the following month in Germany, Texas the one after that. Best to take one’s time, reflect on what has been seen and heard, what its possible meanings and difficulties and structuring absences are, on […]
by Brandon Harris on Dec 16, 2011 -
IFP GOTHAM AWARDS: “BEGINNERS” DIRECTOR MIKE MILLS RECAPS HIS TWO WIN NIGHT
That was quite surreal. I’ve been to just two events like that before, so the red carpet shenanigans, seeing so many “movie stars” and directors you’ve listened to on DVD commentaries, and being in a room with so many people you’ve tried to get financing from – is really a strange experience. The kind that makes you all wild eyed and sweaty palmed. But mostly I was really truly just very happy to be there and felt very safe that we weren’t going to win anything and that I was just lucky to be included, to be in the group, to […]
by Mike Mills on Dec 1, 2011 -
GOTHAM AWARDS TO STREAM LIVE MONDAY NIGHT
IFP has announced that the21st annual Gotham Independent Film Awards, taking place Monday, November 28th at Cipriani’s Wall Street will be streaming live on their website. Hosted by Oliver Platt and Edie Falco, the show is widely considered to be the first honors of the award’s season. Up for Best Picture this year are Mike Mills’ Beginners, Alexander Payne’s The Descendants, Kelly Reichardt’s Meek’s Cutoff, Jeff Nichols’ Take Shelter, and Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life. Director David Cronenberg, actors Charlize Theron and Gary Oldman, and Fox Filmed Entertainment CEO and Chairman Tom Rothman will receive career tributes. Presenters at […]
by Jane Schoenbrun on Nov 25, 2011 -
General Orders No. 9 — A Hammer to Nail Review
(General Orders No. 9 is being distributed theatrically by Variance Films. It opens at the reRun Gastropub in New York City on June 24, 2011. Visit the film’s official website to learn more.) Deer trail becomes Indian trail becomes County road. General Orders No. 9 is one of those films where the adjectives used to describe it—dense, meditative, reflective, confounding—are intended as compliments, yet they will be mistaken by many for pejoratives. And while it would be stubborn and ignorant to think that everyone will respond to it with open arms, its refusal to speak to anyone except itself is […]
by Michael Tully on Jun 23, 2011 -
Fuller: On Great, Boring Movies and Cultural Vegetables
Unless you are a very serious basketball player — at minimum serious intramural league level, or one of those Wall Street guys who absolutely must blow off a ton of steam by playing their hearts out on the court or else they’ll absolutely lose their soul — there is a very distinct qualitative difference between what it feels like to play basketball for a while and to run for a while. After you finish playing basketball for a while you feel good, you’ve gotten some good cardio, but that cardio is intermittent, the game being filled with plenty of pauses […]
by Zachary Wigon on Jun 7, 2011
