Let’s Make A Movie
The Rumpus is producing our first movie, Happy Baby. We start shooting May 14, in New York. We need lots of extras. If you’d like to be an extra send an email to april.xiong AT gmail.com.
...more
film
Reelings #5: TO THE WONDER
Malick seems to be interested in what is outside and underneath and around the framework of our lives. He’s not interested in the stories we tell as much as the moments that cause us to throw our hands up into the air.
...more
The Rumpus Review of Trance
The dictionary defines memory as “the ability to recall.” For a computer, it’s an exact science when regurgitating programs, data, and facts, but for humans, that process can be ephemeral, flawed, and selective.
...more
The Rumpus Review of The Place Beyond The Pines
The Place Beyond the Pines begins with a long tracking shot, and the shot acts as a summary of everything that’s good about the movie: its confidence, its ambition, and its meager but distinct accomplishments.
...more
Rumpus Readers Remember Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert had this elegance about him that made us all want to be like him.
...more
Reelings #4: SPRING BREAKERS
I grew up in Hawaii, so I have no concept of going away on “spring break”, but Harmony Korine has clearly schooled me in what I seemed to not have missed in his raunchy, pulpy, neon-fueled reflection of young America, Spring Breakers.
...more
Happy Baby!
The Rumpus is producing our first movie, based on the novel Happy Baby, by Rumpus editor Stephen Elliott, and we could really use your help!
...moreCharlie Rose by Samuel Beckett
You might have seen this already, but it’s worth seeing again:
...more
Sympathy for the Devils: Review of Crossfire Hurricane
The Rolling Stones, who as a band turned fifty in 2012, have survived almost everybody.
...more
The Other Argo
In 2007 Rumpus pal Joshuah Bearman wrote a Wired article that became the movie Argo. Originally there was a different opening to this article, called The Bond Opening.
...more
How a Wound Heals
Last night’s Oscar ceremony and some of the commentary around the ceremony make the best possible case for why diversity matters.
...more
The Rumpus Review of Amour
Thankfully, this film really is a love story. Yet it’s such a ruthlessly unsentimental one that the title still feels like a provocation.
...moreThe Rumpus Review of Afternoon Delight
I just saw a Sundance screening of Afternoon Delight, Jill Soloway’s writer-director film debut, and my immediate thought was: No, Judd Apatow, this is 40. Soloway’s heart-aching drama poses repeatedly as a laugh-out-loud comedy, but is really a drama, a dramedy.
Sundance So Far
The World According To Dick Cheney is a very good, maybe great documentary.
...more
The Rumpus Review of Zero Dark Thirty
A dizzying blitz of descriptors surrounds Katheryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty: pro-torture, anti-torture; anti-Bush, pro-Obama; mindlessly jingoistic, nuanced in its critique of American exceptionalism.
...more
Django Take #1: Good is the Enemy of Great
Look, we’re going to have to make a decision about Quentin Tarantino.
...more
Django Take #2: We Have Arrived
L.S.B. That’s what my crew called themselves. Light Skinned Bitches. I refused to say it. The light-skinned part.
...more
Django Take #3: (Re)chained
Villains
Django is not a movie with “villains.” Instead, the movie itself is villainous.
Django Take #4: Substance Amidst Spectacle
There is an unpleasant moment about halfway through Quentin Tarantino’s new film, Django Unchained.
...more
Django Take #5: Paving the Road to Hell
The problem with Tarantino’s Django Unchained is that it’s a very good movie. Wildly entertaining, expertly made, and very fun to watch. I loved almost every second of the watching of it.
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Craig Zobel
Filmmaker Craig Zobel talks about the ramifications of influence, treading moral boundaries, and why we need to have more conversations about exploitation.
...more
Missing the Beat: The Story of Adapting Kerouac’s On The Road
In 1957, shortly after the publication of his second novel, On The Road, Jack Kerouac wrote a letter to Marlon Brando, pleading with him to buy the movie rights to the book.
...moreTechnology, Aesthetics, and Hollywood
David Denby’s provocative essay “Has Hollywood Murdered the Movies?” explores current movie culture and the future of the film industry.
Denby takes a comprehensive look at how the production of big-budget movies is keeping “art-house” films with low or midrange budget from being made.
...moreDon’t be a stranger, Stranger
A sweet Happy Baby push over at SLOG, the popular blog of the Stranger.
Thanks Stranger! We love you back!
...more
Anatomy of A Kickstarter
We’re now 85% toward our kickstarter goal. So close, but with only 3 days left to go. What we’re trying to do, if you haven’t heard previously through The Daily Rumpus, or on Twitter, or Facebook, is raise $85,000 to make a movie from my novel Happy Baby.
...moreRumpus NYC
A video montage from The Rumpus NYC Happy Baby movie fundraiser, shot using the 8mm phone app.
...more