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12 articles
Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno
14 hours ago
Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno Directed by Serge Bromberg and Ruxandra Medrea [1]Serge Bromberg’s much-lauded documentary, on limited UK release from today, tells the story of revered French director Henri-Georges Clouzot's ill-fated attempt to create his cinematic opus: L’Enfer (‘Inferno’ or, more commonly, ‘Hell’). In 1964, Clouzot, working with an unlimited budget, a handpicked crew, and total creative autonomy, set out on the project which would live up to its name before long. Clouzot made his reputation as a thriller director: his 1950s films The Wages of Fearand Diabolique earned him the sobriquet ‘the French Hitchcock’ and brought him great acclaim both in his native country as well as internationally. But it was L’Enfer that Clouzot hoped would create a lasting legacy; not just for him as a filmmaker but in its transformation of cinema itself. Shifts in the boundaries of visual effects, storytelling, psychological exposition – all of »
- Joel
Interview with Nathan and Seth Anderson, co-directors of Black
14 hours ago
Sos: This is your second short film. What would you say was the most difficult part of the entire process? Sa: I think each film presents its own unique challenges, and like our previous short The Merciful Death of Jonas Blake, major hurdles presented themselves at each stage of production. It's difficult to pinpoint one thing, but I'd say the primary challenge in the case of Black was a lack of manpower and a narrow time frame with which to accomplish our goals. As with Jonas, we were able to call on the support of our partner Jason's family for locations in coastal Oregon. After money was in place, we then assembled part of our cast in Los Angeles, and the next big challenge was connecting these local resources with our Oregon location that existed 15 hours north. After a long van ride up the 5 freeway, we then had 6 days wherein »
- Ricky
Crashville: The Risky Route To Oscar Glory
15 hours ago
In March 2006 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences sprung one of its annual surprises by awarding the best picture Oscar to Crash, rather than Ang Lee’s acclaimed gay cowboy drama, Brokeback Mountain. At the time it looked as though racism and multiple vehicular pile-ups had trumped homosexuality in the battle of the “hot button” issue movies. But perhaps the Academy was belatedly acknowledging the kind of ambitious, densely plotted, multi-character dramas made famous by the great Robert Altman. From 1975’s Nashville, to Short Cuts, Prêt à Porter and his 2006 swansong A Prairie Home Companion, Altman allowed audiences to immerse themselves in the cinematic equivalent of a book of short stories. Writer Alissa Quart has characterised these films with multiple intersecting plotlines as “hyperlink movies”, in which, “information, character, and action co-exist without hierarchy”. Now I’m a fan of Altman and I loved Paul Thomas Anderson’s, »
- Ricky
Generation Berlin Wall: Experimental Film from East Germany and West Berlin in the 1980sfr
5 November 2009 9:58 AM, PST
As the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall approaches on November 9th, many events are planned to mark the occasion and assess the changes Germany has undergone since reunification. In such moments, artistic considerations often take a back seat, but the Goethe Institut [1] in London, whose remit is to promote German culture, is presenting a film series at several locations across the city, looking at underground cinema in East Germany and West Berlin, a first for the UK. Of the two, West Berlin's thriving Super 8 scene of the 1980s is much better known outside of Germany, spawning collections such as Berlin Super 80 [2]. Even at the time of their making, some of the films were shown in New York and London, receiving a better reception in the avant-garde circles of those metropoli than they did in West Germany. If the West Berlin underground filmmakers styled themselves as radical and transgressive, »
- Val
New Moon soundtrack
4 November 2009 11:49 AM, PST
[1] New Moon, as anyone frequenting any type of mass media would probably know, is the second part of the filmings of Stephanie Meyers' Twilight Saga. This part, directed by Chris Weitz, has its release on November 20, and apparently the soundtrack sizzled as it hit the audience. The New Moon soundtrack is more expansive in styles than its predecessor. Again responsible for the song choices is musical supervisor Alexandra Patsavas, and it seems she has been destined to lift several bands out of obscurity and into the mainstream. Acts such as Grizzly Bear and Lykke Li are present, having previously been cult status performers. Carter Burwell composed the score for the previous movie, but this time the Oscar nominated Alexandre Desplat of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and The Queen fame is in charge. One has to admit that Patsavas has compiled a pleasing combination of styles. None of its »
- Sandra
The Men Who Stare At Goats
4 November 2009 7:47 AM, PST
The Men Who Stare at Goats Directed by Grant Heslov According to Jon Ronson's book The Men Who Stare At Goats, the U.S. government has experimented with various extra-sensory ‘abilities,’ such as remote-viewing and mind control, since the 1950s. These highly classified sub-divisions of the Army were developed in the hopes of creating a different kind of warrior, one who could harness mental abilities to destroy his adversary. Although many of these divisions were kept under wraps, journalist Ronson (known as Bob Wilton in the film) got wind of a low-profile Army project after having met Jim Channon, the former colonel who wrote a manual for the creation of the ‘First Earth Battalion,’ an army unit to based upon New Age principals. The book, which inspired the film, charts the absurd journey that began with this chance encounter. It contains a wild, often questionable, but ultimately fascinating story of introspection and destiny. »
- Myles Dolphin
Susannah Straughan, London Correspondent
3 November 2009 2:05 PM, PST
Susannah negotiated those difficult teenage years in front of a black and white TV, in the company of the inimitable Humphrey Bogart. There were many long, smoke-filled nights, punctuated by sardonic dialogue and the sound of some B-grade villain expiring in a hail of bullets. After studying law, Susannah embarked on a career in book and magazine publishing that has so far failed to make her rich or famous. But thanks to a nine-year stint at Radio Times magazine she feels certain that she has already met more than her fair share of film geeks and fan-boys. A team lunch last Christmas with film critic and football fan Barry Norman was a highlight. Movie heaven: Sunset Boulevard, The Lady Eve, The Big Sleep, La Confidential, The Graduate, Chinatown, All about My Mother. I could go on . . . Movie hell: awards shows; anything directed by, sanctioned by, or starring Mel Gibson Email: sustraug@googlemail. »
- Ricky
Tortured Overtures: Horror Film Score Themes of the 1970s
3 November 2009 12:12 PM, PST
Undertones: Volume 7 It's the time of the year again where folks' minds turn to the macabre and the ghoulish; where death is celebrated rather than feared and of course, when dusty copies of horror films are taken off the shelf to terrify and amuse. So, in honor of the Halloween season it would seem only right that this installment of Undertones concern itself with the scores of horror films or, more specifically, those that emerged during a particularly groundbreaking and ultra-violent decade of cinema - the 1970s. Many of the horror films of the 1970s did not involve supernatural beings such as vampires, werewolves and swamp things, but the terrors of home and society at large. The menacing figures of films such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Hooper, 1974) and Halloween (Carpenter, 1978) may have worn crazy masks and looked decidedly 'un-human' but the messages these films posited concerned themselves with that of »
- Ricky
Ang Lee: First Signs of Life… of Pi
3 November 2009 12:09 PM, PST
I like to consider myself one part book nerd, the other part film geek. So nothing excites me more than when these two worlds come together. That’s why news that we’re one step closer to a film adaptation of Yann Martel’s prize-winning novel Life of Pi really “floats my boat.” Well, you’ll get that reference in a minute if you don’t already. Life of Pi won England’s prestigious Man Booker Prize back in 2002, and after devouring it page by page in a matter of hours, I made it my mission to read every other Booker Prize winner I could get my hands on. The story concerns little Piscine “Pi” Molitor Patel, who survives a shipwreck only to find himself adrift in a lifeboat with four very unlikely shipmates: a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan, and a tiger. In February of this year, it was »
- Kenneth
Interview with Director Anthony Fabian
3 November 2009 12:05 AM, PST
By William S. Gooch At first glance, Anthony Fabian draws a strong resemblance to Alan Cummings, so I expected him to be funny, which he was; witty, which he undoubtedly is, and a bit irreverent, which I saw shades of as well. Maybe because he's British, I was slightly offset by his relaxed charm and uncomplicated manner. I expected him to have a stiff upper lip and be all about business. Well, he was all about business, the business of promoting his first feature film, Skin. And that's a good thing. Rarely does passion; creative genius and insightful nuance come together to create a cinematic product that examines the worst of us and the best of us at our most basic need, the need to be loved and accepted. In Skin, Anthony Fabian has created a liberating work that gets beneath the skin of pretension, revealing what is true, real and truly felt. »
- Ricky
Sony Pictures has a runaway hit in Michael Jackson’s This Is It, Is Oscar Gold on the way?
2 November 2009 3:52 PM, PST
In an unsurprising piece of news, director Kenny Ortega's posthumous Michael Jackson documentary Michael Jackson's This Is It had a sensational gross over the first five days of its release. The film became "...the highest-grossing concert film worldwide" in the five days since its release. The $101 million dollar worldwide gross pushed the film well past former record-holder Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour, which pulled $70.6 million. The success of the film has compelled Sony Pictures to keep the film in theaters well past its originally-planned limited run. Despite the film's good reviews, I found sitting through it to be an exercise in boredom. It offered little to no insight into who the man really was; the film just redundantly cemented the fact that he was a perfectionist performer (which I think the world at large already knows). The film's stitched-together scenes of various rehearsal »
- Drew Williamson
London Film Festival 2009: Taking Woodstock
1 November 2009 7:08 PM, PST
Taking Woodstock Directed by Ang Lee I've never been able to sit through more than a few minutes of Michael Wadleigh's revered documentary Woodstock. Every time it's on TV, I hope I'm going to catch some footage of Crosby Stills and Nash or Jimi Hendrix. Invariably, what I get is a (split) screenful of hippies partying on down in acres of mud. So, I was intrigued by the idea of Ang Lee making a comedy based on Elliot Tiber's 2007 memoir about his role in this seismic late 60s cultural event. And surely it had to be more fun than the Taiwanese director's downbeat spy yarn, Lust, Caution. Greek-American comedian Demetri Martin plays Elliot, artist interior designer and dutiful son of Russian-Jewish émigrés Sonia and Jake Teichberg (Imelda Staunton and Henry Goodman). The family owns the El Monaco, a ramshackle motel in White Lake, New York, where Elliot's mum »
- Ricky
12 articles
