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2009 | 2008

8 articles from 2009

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Featured Article: Classic Italian Film

9 November 2009 4:45 PM, PST | Screenrush | See recent Screenrush news »

With its silent superspectacles, postwar neo-realism and 1960s new wave, the Italian film industry has enjoyed three major periods of international influence. In between times, it has assimilated the technological advances and dramatic styles of foreign competitors and used them to shape such local trends as the `white telephone' film, calligraphism, giallo, the `sword and sandal' epic, the `spaghetti' Western and the dialect comedy.

Over the years, the unexpected has become commonplace. Therefore, it's no surprise to see Gianni di Gregorio, the screenwriter of the uncompromising crime saga Gomorrah, making his directorial debut with Mid-August Lunch, a charming comedy of bourgeois manners, whose unforced naturalism, social insight and deceptive wit hark back to a golden age that is recalled here by MovieMail - the best place to buy classic movies and world cinema on DVD.

After two decades of propaganda and pictorialism, Italian film went back to basics after the Second World War. »

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Jared Hess is the New Pier Paolo Pasolini, Says New Yorker Writer

2 November 2009 10:00 AM, PST | Movieline | See recent Movieline news »

Jared Hess's latest film Gentlemen Broncos hasn't exactly thrilled the critics -- most of whom have dismissed the deeply weird and dishearteningly conventional gross-out comedy as the product of a shameless and immature mind -- but it does have its few, outspoken supporters. New York magazine's David Edelstein called it "enchantingly freakish." Leading critical contrarian Armond White gave it four out of five stars, deeming it "a totally instinctive [film] of complex, inchoate feelings." But when it comes to pure film theory chutzpah, nothing quite approaches NewYorker.com's Richard Brody, who defended the film ardently against the NY Times' Manohla Dargis' takedown, and in doing so likened devout Mormon Hess to Italy's high-art homoeroticist, the Pope of Perversion, Pier Paolo Pasolini: »

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Rosanna Schiaffino

19 October 2009 2:17 PM, PDT | Alternative Film Guide | See recent Alternative Film Guide news »

Rosanna Schiaffino, Vince Edwards in Carl Foreman’s The Victors (1963) Rosanna Schiaffino, the sensual leading lady of dozens of Italian (and a few international) productions of the ’60s and early ’70s, died on Oct. 17 at her home in Milan following a long battle with cancer. She was 69. The Genoa-born (Nov. 25, 1938) actress, referred to by some as the "Italian Hedy Lamarr," began her film career in the late 1950s. Among her best-known roles are those in Francesco Rosi’s first feature, La Sfida / The Challenge (1958); Mauro Bolognini’s La Notte brava / The Big Night / Bad Girls Don’t Cry (1959), winner of the Italian Film Critics’ Silver Ribbon for Pier Paolo Pasolini’s screenplay; and André Hunebelle’s historical [...] »

- Andre Soares

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Ricky D Conceicao: Founder & Creator

30 September 2009 12:37 AM, PDT | SoundOnSight | See recent SoundOnSight news »

Ricky D is the founder and creator of Sound on Sight. Due to contrary belief he has never attended any film school. Instead Ricky learned his craft from his eight years as a video store clerk and countless hours of watching Vcr porn and 70`s horror films. He has completed just over a dozen short films in which he produced, directed, edited and photographed. He has taken home various awards including best director, editor and camera man at various short film festivals. Whatever little free time he has is usually spent at the movies, reading comic books and spending time with his boyfriend and two puppies. His favorite film makers are Pier Paolo Pasolini, David Cronenberg, Lars Von Trier, Gus Van Sant, Paul Thomas Anderson, Billy Wilder, Charlie Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock. His favorite films are Pulp Fiction, La Dolce Vita, Europa and Salo. He is currently working on a slasher film. »

- Ricky

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Martyn’s Top Ten Disturbing Films

17 September 2009 4:40 AM, PDT | FilmShaft.com | See recent FilmShaft.com news »

It is rarely highlighted what a strange habit and practice cinema-going is. Off we go to sit in a darkened room, usually with complete strangers, and watch something akin to a dream unfold before us. After all, Hollywood in particular, has been known as “The Dream Factory”. Why restrict it to Hollywood? Cinema = dreams. And as the subconscious plays havoc; dreams can turn into nightmares.

Audiences can laugh, cry and scream together. Each person maybe processing information in a variety of differing ways, yet, filmmakers employ a bag of tricks to invoke particular responses, at particular times.

Film experiences have a habit of becoming cherished, personal memories. It can achieve an ambiguous effect. Millions were astounded by Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, just as they were terrified by Jaws, seventeen years earlier. Alfred Hitchcock devised the infamous shower sequence in Psycho relying on suggestion, chocolate sauce, rapid editing and shrieking »

- Martyn Conterio

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Italian Cinema In The San Francisco/Bay Area

12 August 2009 1:39 PM, PDT | Twitch | See recent Twitch news »

When it comes to consular promotion of Bay Area film culture, few do better than San Francisco’s Italian Cultural Institute.  Participating with local community organizations, cinematheques and movie theatres, the Institute helps put on a series of programs that bring the best of Italian cinema to Bay Area audiences.

Currently running through August 29 at the Pacific Film Archive is Ecco l’uomo, a celebration of Italian actors in a series curated by Susan Oxtoby.  As Pfa boasts: “Behind every great Italian auteur stands a great Italian actor—or several.  Where would Federico Fellini be without Marcello Mastroianni, or Mario Monicelli without Alberto Sordi or Totò?  This series celebrates classic Italian cinema through its leading men.”

I’ve caught two so far in the series—The Organizer (1963) and The Desert of the Tartars (1976)—and anticipate Elio Petri, Ettore Scola, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Sergio Leone in the weeks to come. »

- Michael Guillen

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New chiller holds you at Knifepoint; first photos

6 July 2009 5:26 PM, PDT | Fangoria | See recent Fangoria news »

Writer/director Jed Strahm got in touch to tell us about his new chiller Knifepoint, which just wrapped principal photography, and serve up some exclusive pics (see them below). It’s a vicious home-invasion film revolving around Abbie (Katherine Randolph) and her wheelchair-bound sister, Michele (Krista Braun). On Christmas Eve, their apartment is broken into by Jess (Grant Reynolds), his sister Lorraine (Kym Jackson) and their host of criminal followers. When the girls’ parents arrive as a holiday surprise, however, the situation further spirals out of control. Leatherface’s R.A. Mihailoff co-stars; Toolbox Murders’ Dean Jones created the makeup FX.

Strahm tells Fango that, like many genre projects, Knifepoint had its inspiration in its creator’s own worst fears. “The story stemmed from my greatest dread: awakening in the middle of the night to discover that someone has entered my home and is looming over my bed. My feeling is »

- no-reply@fangoria.com (Samuel Zimmerman)

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Filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky Returning With 'King Shot'

22 May 2009 1:15 PM, PDT | firstshowing.net | See recent FirstShowing.net news »

If you're familiar with the work of Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky (Fando y Lis, El Topo, The Holy Mountain), you might wonder how he'd fit in with modern cinema. He's something of a relic, from a great time when someone like Luis Bunuel could regularly garner Oscar nominations, and when former Beatles (and their wives) had their hands in producing art films. Today, however, John Lennon is no longer around to champion Jodorowsky, and the shocking surrealist has lost his placement in between Bunuel and Pier Paolo Pasolini in terms of contemporary relevance. Now he's set to make his triumphant return. Nearly 20 years after his last film (The Rainbow Thief with Peter O'Toole), Jodorowsky will return to filmmaking with the "metaphysical spaghetti western" King Shot. And, he's managed to find some appropriate collaborators who will allow him to fit in well with other current iconoclasts. This time around David Lynch is one of the producers, »

- Christopher Campbell

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2009 | 2008

8 articles from 2009

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