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From Stephen Elliott
The actress Vera Farmiga, whom you may know from Up in the Air or, possibly, the great guilty-pleasure of 2009, The Orphan, directed a movie called Higher Ground, which came out last year. It may or may not have pinged your radar; there was a decent press push, because actress-turned-director is a nice hook for journalists.
...moreAt Full Stop, Amanda Shubert reviews Brian Kellow’s Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark, while interrogating the particularly vitriolic (and often gendered) criticism that continues to be leveled against the influential film critic.
“Kael spoke to people in a voice they recognized, but she demanded something more from them than they were accustomed to.
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In the fall of 2008, I wrote a screenplay I intended to film entirely in an Alzheimer’s Unit. After many weeks of rehearsals, I arrived at a troubling realization: I was not just making a challenging film—I was making the wrong film.
Interview Magazine features Belgian filmmaking brothers, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. The conversation revolves around their latest film, The Kid with a Bike.
“I don’t think we ever make movies that end in a sinister manner. Our characters are always saved.
...moreThe Museum of the Moving Image will be opening a “mini-retrospective” of Hong Sang-soo’s films on March 17th. BOMBlog interviews the director about “process, collaboration, and drinking.” His answers also provide a lesson in brevity.
Sang-soo on why he often returns to the cinematic detail of male characters arm wrestling: “It’s cute.”
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Meet Philipp Wolter and Michelle Glick, the husband and wife team behind the Brooklyn-born FilmGym Productions. Wanting to merge their love of acting with their dreams of creating introspective films for the masses, the pair decided to create independent production company FilmGym in 2004, and have proven to be a force to reckon with ever since.
It works like this. You tell the kid at the ticket counter you want to see J. Edgar at 7:30. He asks if you’d like regular or VIP seating.
Documentary filmmaker Cassie Jaye landed the Best Documentary Award at Cannes Film Festival for her film, Daddy I Do in 2010 — about the controversial religious ceremony Purity Balls, where girls from six to sixteen pledge their virginity to their fathers until marriage.
If we can take away one thing from history it’s that it often repeats itself. The Kent State massacre in 1970 was one of the first instances where the media shined a light on the corruption of police enforcement.
In those days, the only way to see David Lynch’s early, short films was to start or join a film club, pool resources, and rent them from some place like Facets in Chicago.
We don’t usually do lists, but when the Academy’s list of Best Director nominees is 100% dudes, an exception seems necessary. Canonball chronicles five female directors “whose direction deserved more attention this year.”
“I really hope I don’t have to do this every year.
...moreSalon converses with David Lynch about his new album Crazy Clown Time. The director discusses transcendental meditation, his attraction to sound, and finding humor in the disturbing.
“When you get something that’s thrilling, if it’s working on a couple of different levels, it’s more thrilling.
...moreRumpus columnist Nicholas Rombes explores the “Occupy zeitgeist” in 2011 cinema over at Filmmaker. Rombes reveals how films such as Drive, Meek’s Cutoff, Martha Marcy May Marlene, and Tree of Life, while seemingly “far removed” from the movement, “speak to Occupy anxieties of this past year.”
“…It’s possible that films like Tree of Life somehow capture — in their very structure — the decentralized fantasy of the movement.
...more“The problem with pulling this kind of thing the wrong way in a speculative-fiction story is that science fiction, fantasy, and horror don’t necessarily share mainstream fiction’s baseline expectations for how reality works, and it’s far too easy to leave audiences feeling cheated, annoyed, or just plain confused when the rules change abruptly, or were ill-defined in the first place.”
...more“But every so often a filmmaker sneaks a piece of mini-perfection into their movie that’s so self-contained, such an unnecessary tangent, it can stand alone as its own perfect short.”
Nerve archives “five great short films” that can be found inside full-length ones. The article breaks down how each short film fits (or doesn’t) within the larger works of Mulholland Drive, The Social Network, Magnolia, A Serious Man, and The Rules of Attraction.
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I. Non-fiction rules!
Starting as far back as 50 years ago, non-fiction set out to crush fiction in the book world.
...moreManohla Dargis and A.O. Scott evaluate what is boring and why, in the context of film.
They discuss the films that are deemed boring because they don’t distract enough from the passing of time and the ones that incite a level of thinking too deep to be considered exciting or entertaining.
...moreTonight is the final screening of Gabi on the Roof in July at the San Francisco Indiefest. If you’ve seen Tiny Furniture, you’ll appreciate that both movies feature hipster hamster’s that die unexpectedly. But Gabi‘s hamster could beat up Tiny‘s.
...moreIn yesterday’s San Francisco Chronicle, I chat with artist Eric Drooker about animating Allen Ginsberg’s Howl for the film of the same name as the long poem, and his resulting new book, Howl: A Graphic Novel.
One thing that was edited out of my piece was this sentence: “Howl: A Graphic Novel reads like a panoramic urban altar, demanding something deeper than just the reader’s attention.” Maybe readers are afraid of sacrifice?
...moreI’ve been regularly attending events and film screenings at Artists’ Television Access on Valencia Street in San Francisco for almost a year now.
I’ve gone as both volunteer and audience member, in the company of wily friends or in my own, often more obtuse company.
...moreIt doesn’t take a Harvard-trained therapist to know that with love comes madness, obsession, jealousy, mind-fuckery, fear, panic and a healthy dose of psychosexual terrorism.
Maybe these symptoms aren’t manifested in such harsh terms for everyone, but there’ s no denying that love is hard and can make you lose your head.
...moreI watch movies so people will show me the things that make me flinch, question myself, curse the heavens, and want to enroll in primal scream therapy. I don’t think I read for the same reasons.
But movies, I feel, can be particularly cathartic because they pivot on sight, our most dominant sense.
...more“She is, simply, a great filmmaker. Because while it is marginally interesting that she calls “action” and “cut” while in the possession of two X chromosomes, gender is the least remarkable thing about her kinetic filmmaking, which gets in your head even as it sends shock waves through your body.”
In anticipation of Friday’s New York opening of The Hurt Locker, a film set in Iraq in 2004, the NY Times today ran a thoughtful profile of filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow.
...more“How many people are willing to actually die for their art? I don’t know. I’m sure many are willing to take a risk and push themselves as far as they see fit, depending how dedicated and smart they are. Was Pat smart in the decision he made?
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Tonight in Berkeley, Donald Richie comes all the way from Tokyo to talk about his life in Japanese film and the arts in general. He’ll be chatting onstage with Telluride Film Fest co-founder Tom Luddy. The event is being put on by Berkeley Arts & Letters.
Bertrand Tavernier is one of the great auteur directors of the French cinema, and certainly among its most prolific and eclectic. Writer and director of numerous award-winning films like Death Watch (1980), Coup de Torchon (1981), ‘Round Midnight (1985), and Safe Conduct (2002), Tavernier’s current film is In the Electric Mist.
Anyone searching for a primer on how to hide the fact from one’s family after losing a job need look no further than Tokyo Sonata, the newest—and timely—film from the genre-hopping Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa.
One of the films a few critics I know are looking forward to at this year’s Sundance is a documentary called 211:Anna, about the 2006 assassination of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Screening several times this week, this is not the first film about Politkovskaya, but it is unfortunately the first one to make its debut amid another high profile murder in Moscow’s streets: This week 34-year-old human rights attorney Stanislav Markelov and 25-year-old freelance journalist Anastasia Baburova were shot in cold blood near the Kremlin following Markelov’s press conference contesting the early release of a Russian colonel found guilty of murdering an 18-year-old Chechen girl.
