Archive for November, 2006
Thursday, November 30th, 2006
In the second day of lineup announcements for the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, titles range from the the already announced opening night film, Brett Morgen‘s Chicago 10, to the closing night film Nelson George‘s Life Support. Other notables include, Craig Brewer‘s Black Snake Moan, Sarah Polley‘s Away from Her (which was already praised at Toronto), Mike White‘s Year of the Dog, and Gregg Araki‘s stoner comedy Smiley Face.
Premieres
AN AMERICAN CRIME/ USA, Director: Tommy O’Haver; Screenwriters: Tommy O’Haver, Irene Turner
A fictionalized account of the true story of a young girl’s torturous ordeal at the hands of a troubled mother of seven in 1960s Indianapolis. World Premiere.
AWAY FROM HER/ Canada, Director and Screenwriter: Sarah Polley
Married for almost 50 years, Grant and Fiona’s serenity is interrupted by Fiona’s increasingly frequent memory lapses. When it is no longer possible for either of them to ignore the fact that she is being consumed by Alzheimer’s disease, the limits of love and loyalty are wrenchingly redefined. U.S. Premiere. (Salt Lake City Gala)
BLACK SNAKE MOAN/ USA, Director and Screenwriter: Craig Brewer
Desire is a burning sickness for Rae, while making her the white-trash sexual target of every man and boy in her small Tennessee town. When her true love leaves for military service, Rae plunges into wild excess. Beaten, left for dead, she’s taken in by a reformed bluesman, a private self-contained black man who nurses deep anger of his own, who is fiercely committed to his task of keeping her alive. World Premiere.
CHAPTER 27/ USA, Director and Screenwriter: Jarrett Schaefer
A terrifying glimpse into the deranged mind of Mark David Chapman during his days in NYC prior to the murder of John Lennon, which is played out through his obsession with JD Salinger’s classic novel ‘The Catcher in the Rye’. World Premiere.
CHICAGO 10/ USA, Director: Brett Morgen
“Chicago 10″ presents contemporary history with a forced perspective, mixing bold and original animation with extraordinary archival footage that explores the build-up to and unraveling of the Chicago Conspiracy … Read the rest
Thursday, November 30th, 2006
If you’re wondering how filmmakers Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden made a great first feature that has racked up a ton of awards, including last night’s Gotham win, well, ask them yourself. The Daily Reel has them in their “Ask the Expert” section. Click on the link for the email address to forward your own questions about independent production.… Read the rest
Thursday, November 30th, 2006
The Gotham Awards were handed out Wednesday night in a ceremony at the Chelsea Piers. The big winner was Half Nelson, which took the Best Feature, Breakthrough Director (for Ryan Fleck, pictured at left with producer and co-write Anna Boden) and Breakthrough Actor (Shareeka Epps, an award split with Babel‘s Rinko Kinkuchi). Steve Barron’s Choking Man won the “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You Award,” sponsored by Filmmaker and MOMA. D.p. Ellen Kuras was awarded a tribute for her work shooting innumerable great independent films, and other Gothams went to Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner, Kate Winslet, Ed Norton, Tim Robbins, and the three Mexican directors Alfonso Cuaron, Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.
Here are the winners:
Best Feature:
Half Nelson, Ryan Fleck, director; Jamie Patricof, Alex Orlovsky, Lynette Howell, Anna Boden, Rosanne Korenberg, producers (ThinkFilm)
Best Documentary:
Iraq in Fragments, James Longley, director; James Longley, John Sinno, producers (Typecast Releasing in association with HBO Documentary Films)
Breakthrough Director Award:
Ryan Fleck for Half Nelson (ThinkFilm)
Breakthrough Actor Award:
Shareeka Epps in Half Nelson (ThinkFilm)
Rinko Kikuchi in Babel (Paramount Vantage)
Best Ensemble Cast Award:
Babel, Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael Garcia Bernal, Koji Yakusho, Adriana Barraza, Rinko Kikuchi, Said Tarchani, Boubker Ait El Caid (Paramount Vantage)
Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You Award:
Choking Man, Steve Barron, director; Joshua Zeman, Zachary Mortensen, producers
Gotham Awards Tribute: Kate Winslet
Gotham Awards Tribute: Edward Norton
Gotham Awards Tribute: Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban
Gotham Awards Tribute: Ellen Kuras
Gotham Awards Filmmakers Tribute: Alfonso Cuaron, Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Gotham Awards Humanitarian Tribute: Tim Robbins… Read the rest
Wednesday, November 29th, 2006
Chris Smith. George Ratliff. Jeffrey Blitz. David Gordon Green. Jessica Yu. Those are some of the names you will recognize while looking over the 64 films below that were announced today for the 2007 Sundance Film Festival International Film and World Cinema Competitions. The festival will be held Jan. 18-28.
Documentary Competition
BANISHED (Director: Marco Williams)—This story of three U.S. towns which, in the early 20th century, forced their entire African American populations to leave, explores what—if anything—can be done to repair past racial injustice. World Premiere.
CHASING GHOSTS (Director: Lincoln Ruchti)—Twin Galaxies Arcade, Iowa, 1982: the birthplace of mankind’s obsession with video games. The fate of this world lies in the hands (literally) of a few unlikely heroes: They are the Original Video Game World Champions and the arcade is their battleground.
World Premiere.
CRAZY LOVE (Director: Dan Klores)—An unsettling true story about an obsessive relationship between a married man and a beautiful, single 20-year-old woman, which began in 1957 and continues today.
World Premiere.
EVERYTHING’S COOL (Directors: Judith Helfand, Daniel B. Gold)—A group of self-appointed global warming messengers are on a high stakes quest to find the iconic image, proper language, and points of leverage to help the public go from embracing the urgency of the problem to creating the political will necessary to move to an alternative energy economy. World Premiere.
FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO (Director: Daniel Karslake)—Grounded by the stories of five conservative Christian families, the film explores how the religious right has used its interpretation of the Bible to support its agenda of stigmatizing the gay community and eroding the separation between church and state. World Premiere.
GHOSTS OF ABU GHRAIB (Director: Rory Kennedy)—This inside look at the abuses that occurred at the infamous Iraqi prison in the fall of 2003 uses direct, personal narratives of perpetrators, witnesses, and victims to probe the effects of the abuses on all involved. World Premiere.
GIRL 27 (Director: David Stenn)—When underage dancer Patricia Douglas is raped at a wild MGM stag party in 1937, she makes headlines and legal history, and … Read the rest
Tuesday, November 28th, 2006
Looking through the nominees for the Independent Spirit Awards I’m very happy to see Ali Selim’s Sweet Land nominated for Best First Feature and Best Female Lead for Elizabeth Reaser. Since I saw it premiere at the Hamptons International Film Festival (where it won the Audience Award) in 2005 I’ve been a big fan. Set in a turbulent post-WWI America, Reaser gives a gripping performance as a German immigrant sent to Minnesota for an arranged marriage and hope for a better life and David Tumblety’s camera work of the Northwestern plains are breathtaking.
The film had to go the self-distribution route (with the help of Jeff Lipsky) and got glowing reviews from the likes of EW, The Village Voice, and The New York Times, and hopefully this recognition will bring more good fortune. Check out their website for theater listings.
Here’s the full list of the 2007 Independent Spirit Award nominees:
BEST FEATURE
American Gun
The Dead Girl
Half Nelson
Little Miss Sunshine
Pan’s Labyrinth
BEST DIRECTOR
Robert Altman, “A Prairie Home Companion”
Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris, “Little Miss Sunshine”
Ryan Fleck, “Half Nelson”
Karen Moncrieff, “The Dead Girl”
Steven Soderbergh, “Bubble”
BEST FIRST FEATURE
Day Night Day Night- Director: Julia Loktev
Man Push- Cart Director: Ramin Bahrani
The Motel- Director: Michael Kang
Sweet Land- Director: Ali Selim
Wristcutters: A Love Story- Director: Goran Dukic
JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD (Given to the best feature made for under $500,000)
“Chalk”- Director: Mike Akel
“Four Eyed Monsters”- Writer/Director/Producers: Arin Crumley & Susan Buice
“Old Joy”- Director: Kelly Reichardt
“Quinceanera”- Writer/Directors: Richard Glatzer & Wash Westmoreland
“Twelve and Holding”- Director: Michael Cuesta
BEST SCREENPLAY
Neil Burger, “The Illusionist”
Nicole Holofcener, “Friends with Money”
Ron Nyswaner, “The Painted Veil”
Jason Reitman, “Thank You For Smoking”
Jeff Stanzler, “Sorry, Haters”
BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY
Michael Arndt, “Little Miss Sunshine”
Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck, “Half Nelson”
Goran Dukic, “Wristcutters: A Love Story”
Dito Montiel, “A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints”
Gabrielle Zevin, “Conversations with Other Women”
BEST FEMALE LEAD
Shareeka Epps, “Half Nelson”
Catherine O’Hara, “For Your Consideration”
Elizabeth Reaser, “Sweet … Read the rest
Monday, November 27th, 2006
Gotham Awards Tribute recipient Ellen Kuras takes us into the fast-paced life of an in-demand DP.
ELLEN KURAS.
Ellen Kuras operates like a perpetual-motion machine. One moment she’s photographing Michel Gondry’s latest feature. The next, shooting The Rolling Stones for Martin Scorsese. There are meetings with Lou Reed about an upcoming concert project. Also, a long-gestating documentary she’s been directing at every opportunity. And in between all of that, she found time to replace her old car that just died and pick up her new tailless cat from the vet.
There are, of course, rewards to such endeavors. Like being the recipient of a 2006 Gotham Awards Tribute — recognition of a career that includes lensing such films as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Blow, He Got Game and Swoon, her first feature, and winner of Sundance’s cinematography prize in 1992.
In preparation for The Gothams, Ellen chiseled a moment from her schedule to talk about her tribute, as well as a few high-profile shows she recently worked on.
“I’m thrilled,” she commented. “The Gothams is always my favorite party to go to because it’s a gathering of New Yorkers. It’s when we all see each other. During the year everybody’s off working and doing their own thing making films. It’s when I get to see so many of the New York filmmakers. We’ve grown up together. It’s a great, great opportunity for everybody to get together, and for that I love it.
“For me to be honored by them…it’s huge! I’m not one of the actresses, I’m not one of the actors. I think it’s a great step in the right direction for them to be looking at people who are behind the camera. So often, the awards and honors, so to speak, go to the actors, which is legitimate — but at the same time, with all due respect to them, they’re not the only ones who are making the films. So it’s great that The Gothams recognize that film is a true collaboration.”
Kuras recently completed production on Be Kind Rewind, her … Read the rest
Thursday, November 23rd, 2006
Below Andre Salas gives you some details about the special screening series at MOMA this week of the films we selected for our “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You” Gotham Award. This is the second year of this award — last year we selected Caveh Zahedi’s I am a Sex Addict as the winner and Robinson Devor’s Police Beat as one of the nominees, and this year I think we picked films of similar quality. Indeed, it’s gratifying for all of us at Filmmaker to take such a concentrated look at worthy films that have really fallen off the distribution radar and try to get them some more attention.
Here’s my take on the five films:
Goran Dukic’s Wristcutters is a whimsical and melancholy look at unlikely romance in an afterlife full of souls who have died by suicide. Patrick Fugit and Shannon Sossamon are great, and Tom Waits, who is too rarely on screen, is hilarious, touching and wonderful. The film is full of deadpan humor and philosophical musings and it seems akin to works by Jim Jarmusch and Aki Kaurismaki, among others.
In Choking Man, director Steve Barron takes the techniques he used in his series of innovative videos in the ’80s (“Billie Jean,” “Take on Me”) and applies them to a low-key drama about a shy, possibly schizophrenic dishwasher and his relationship with a ebuillient young waitress in a Queens diner. Produced for a less than $1 million, the film is infused with gentle magical realism and it’s visual design, the way Baron integrates animation and symbolic imagery into the narrative, is stunning.
Jake Clennell’s The Great Happiness Space is a fascinating documentary on the Japanese bar/escort scene, concentrating on a group of girls infatuated with a male escort who offers them a “boyfriend experience.” Then the film throws in a surprising twist that I’ll let you discover on your own. During our deliberations Matt Ross commented that the film is fascinating for its integration of the visually rendered melancholy romanticism found in the films of Hsou Hsiao-Hsien into the doc format, and … Read the rest
Thursday, November 23rd, 2006
Ira Deutchman emailed to tell me about the new blog for his company Emerging Pictures and a post he has up remembering Robert Altman. It’s great and long, a collection of Ira’s memories having worked with Altman on the distribution of a number of his films. When reading I had a hard time picking a section to excerpt. I was strongly tempted to lift the paragraph about Altman and Deutchman smoking a joint that had been found mashed in Altman’s shoe outside the Beekman on the opening day of The Player, but I’ll let you click to that and quote this section from Deutchman’s conclusion:
Bob could be infuriating, but unlike any number of directors I’ve worked with, I felt like he had earned it. In recent years, he most definitely mellowed, but he never lost his urge for mischief. There was this disarmingly sly smile that came after he said something naughty or came up with an idea for something that was clearly outrageous. He relished being an outsider.
His body of work speaks for itself. But as great as Bob’s directing was, his truly great gift was producing. In all those years, when his films would be greeted with anything from accolades to distain, and even in the years in which he had no box office success, he never stopped working. There was no one more resourceful in getting his vision on the screen. And he extended that gift to help his loyal friends to get their films made as well…the most notable being Alan Rudolph, who he continually supported.
… Read the rest
Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006
Holidays can often mean a dearth of interesting, edgy films in theatres, a time when studios inundate us with bad comedies and kids fare, or set up the latest overblown vanity projects in time for Oscar nominations. What’s an open-minded, adventurous indie-film fan to do with extra time on his/her hands and so few movies to go to?
One enticing option for those in the NYC area is the “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You” screenings taking place at the Museum of Modern Art over Thanksgiving weekend: 5 different feature films, all nominated for a prestigious Gotham award in the category of the same name. Chosen by Filmmaker Magazine and MoMA from recommendations by a host of prestigious festival programmers, the movies represent the cream of projects not yet acquired for distribution, but which will you’ll undoubtedly hear more about in 2007. Why not get the edge over all your highbrow friends, and see them now?
This year’s nominees are: Choking Man by Steve Barron, Colma: The Musical by Richard Wong, The Great Happiness Space by Jake Clennell, In Between Days by So Yong Kim, and Wristcutters: A Love Story by Goran Dukic.
Personally, I am most intrigued by Clennell’s documentary about the after-hours industry of Japanese “host boys”, dashing young men who entertain women at bars and clubs… hey, it beats leftover turkey!
Friday night’s admission to the films is free with Museum entry.
The Schedule
Friday, November 24
6:00 In Between Days
8:00 Colma: The Musical
Saturday, November 25
2:00 Choking Man
4:00 Wristcutters: A Love Story
6:00 The Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief
Sunday, November 26
2:00 In Between Days
4:00 Colma: The Musical
6:15 Choking Man
Monday, November 27
6:00 Wristcutters: A Love Story
8:00 The Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief
For more information on the films and these screenings, visit the MoMA site.… Read the rest
Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006
Robert Altman’s production company, Sandcastle 5, has relayed some appreciations of the great director from his friends and colleagues:
“I was friends with Bob for 20 years before we worked together on GOSFORD PARK. It was then that I experienced the real magic of Robert Altman. When he was working he had a youthful joyfulness that was just amazing.” – Bob Balaban
“I have always admired Robert Altman’s films and it was an honor to work with him on A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION. We had so much fun working on that project over the past year and I know that he went out ‘with his boots on’.” – Bob Berney, President of Picturehouse
“He was a great man of the cinema and a great man. Everybody who had the privilege to know him will miss him hugely.” – Kenneth Branagh
“There’s no one I’m prouder to have worked with. He was an ecstatic…a magician…a conjurer…a mischievous boy. Perhaps unprecedented. He understood and could express that uniquely American shapeshifting goofiness more than anyone. He was the deepest ocean and the lightest feather at the same time…we all loved him so very much.” – Richard Gere
“Mr. Altman loved making movies. He loved the chaos of shooting and the sociability of the crew and actors — he adored actors — and he loved the editing room and he especially loved sitting in a screening room and watching the thing over and over with other people. He didn’t care for the money end of things, he didn’t mind doing publicity, but when he was working he was in heaven.
He and I once talked about making a movie about a man coming back to Lake Wobegon to bury his father, and Mr. Altman said, “The death of an old man is not a tragedy.” I used that line in the movie we wound up making — the Angel of Death says it to the Lunch Lady, comforting her on the death of her lover Chuck Akers in his dressing room, “The death of an old man is not a tragedy.” Mr. Altman’s death
… Read the rest
