102 CELEBRATIONS OF REQUIEM FOR A DREAM

By Scott Macaulay

Nicholas Rombes, of The Rumpus’s 10/40/70 column and Filmmaker‘s Into the Splice, has launched an experimental project in film criticism — a Tumblr blog collecting 102 takes on Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream. Tied to the film’s tenth anniversary (hey, where’s the features-packed new DVD?), the project consists of 102 contributors writing about 102 frames of the film — one for each minute of its running time.

Writes Rombes:

October 27 2010 marks the 10th anniversary of the release of Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream, a movie that shook some foundations. To mark that and to extend the super-charged, experimental aspects of the film, REQUIEM // 102 examines/explores/riffs on/detours from/responds to/aggravates/ supplements/ one frame from each minute of the film. 102 minutes = 102 frames. Inspired by the creative constraints that have produced projects such as Longshot! Magazine and 50 Posts about Cyborgs, the project aims to push the boundaries of the medium and experiment with new ways of thinking and writing about film.

The Tumblr page aggregates the series, and the complete postings live on the contributors’ own blogs. The first two are already up. Chuck Tryon writes about the addiction and the movie as a rollercoaster ride, and Catherine Grant at filmanalytical creates a video essay on the film’s use of split screen, which I’ve embedded below.

Establishing Split from Catherine Grant on Vimeo.… Read the rest

“BLACK SWAN” TRAILER

By Jason Guerrasio

Looks like vintage Aronofsky. Can’t wait to see it. What do you think?

… Read the rest

VENICE COMPETITION TITLES ANNOUNCED

The Venice Film Festival have announced their slate of competition films vying for the Golden Lion. Included in the list is the opening night film, Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan as well as Kelly Reichart‘s Meek’s Cutoff and Sofia Coppola‘s Somewhere.

Also announced are out of competition titles The Town, directed by Ben Affleck; little brother Casey Affleck’s documentary on Joaquin Phoenix, I’m Still Here; and Robert Rodriguez’s Machete.

The festival runs Sept. 1-11.

The full list of titles are below.

“Attenberg,” Athina Rachel Tsangari, Greece
“Barney’s Version,” Richard J. Lewis, Canada/Italy
“Black Swan,” Darren Aronofsky, USA
“Black Venus,” Abdellatif Kechiche, France
“Detective Dee and the Mystery of Phantom Flame,” Tsui Hark, China
“Happy Few,” Antony Cordier, France
“Meek’s Cutoff,” Kelly Reichardt, USA
“Miral,” Julian Schnabel, USA/France/Italy/Israel
“Noi Credevamo,” Mario Martone, Italy
“Norwegian Wood,” Anh Hung Tran, Japan
“La Passione,” Carlo Mazzacurati, Italy
“La Pecora Nera,” Ascanio Celestini, Italy
“Post Mortem,” Pablo Lerrain, Chile
“Potiche,” Francois Ozon, France
“Promises Written in Water,” Vincent Gallo, USA
“Road to Nowhere,” Monte Hellman, USA
“A Sad Trumpet Ballad,” Álex de la Iglesia, Spain
“Silent Souls,” Aleksei Fedorchenko, Russia
“The Solitude of Prime Numbers,” Saverio Costanzo, Italy
“Somewhere,” Sofia Coppola, USA
“13 Assassins,” Takashi Miike, Japan
“Three,” Tom Tykwer, Germany… Read the rest

ARONOFSKY’S “BLACK SWAN” TO OPEN VENICE

Announced earlier today on indieWIRE, the 67th Venice International Film Festival will open with Darren Aronofsky‘s Black Swan, a thriller set in the world of ballet starring Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Winona Ryder and Barbara Hershey.

The film will screen in competition, debuting Sept. 1 in the Sala Grande, following the opening ceremony. Aronofsky won the Golden Lion at the fest in 2008 for The Wrestler.

The Venice Film Festival runs Sept. 1 -11. Fox Searchlight will release Black Swan later this year.… Read the rest

BRANDON HARRIS’S SEMINAL INDIES

By Brandon Harris

Yesterday on the blog we asked what films inspired young viewers (in their 20s or below) to identify with the independent film movement. Here are responses from filmmaker, critic and Filmmaker Contributing Editor Brandon Harris.

Short Cuts (1993) – Saw it on cable TV sometime in 1994. I was too young to understand its significance at the time, but I believe it was the first American Independent film I ever saw. The fact that I watched it all at that age probably explains alot about me.

Clerks (1994) & Chasing Amy (1997) – Saw both of these during winter break, 1997. My older cousin David can still quote Clerks essentially line for line. My first prolonged exposure with American Independent cinema, the first time I can remember noticing a film’s low budget style. Probably introduced the concept of irony to me.

The Funeral (1996) – If only because one Saturday afternoon while I was watching it (certainly sometime in the summer of 98′) I decided I wanted to be a filmmaker.

Lone Star (1996) – To this day I can’t help but watch all of it whenever it’s on television. It was the first time I saw an American Independent narrative that seemed to deal with the ways in which different communities, even ones right on top of each other, see history in vastly divergent ways. Given how my home life was so different from the places I went to school, how the cultural disposition of my family and my school friends might as well have been worlds apart despite being contained within the same city and being essentially within the same class, I completely identified with its themes.

The Limey (1998) – Very similar to Pi in its importance to me (see below) – seeing it, theatrically, on a weekday, with perhaps two other people in an art house theater, one I would start working five years later, it spoke to me in a way few films (even ones which are much better) are capable of doing. Seeing it now is like visiting an old friend.

Pi (1998) – … Read the rest

ROBERT SIEGEL, “BIG FAN”

By Nick Dawson

PATTON OSWALT IN WRITER-DIRECTOR ROBERT SIEGEL’S BIG FAN. COURTESY FIRST INDEPENDENT PICTURES.

For someone who says his main creative motivation is boredom, Robert Siegel has done rather well for himself. Born and raised in the Long Island town of Merrick, Siegel graduated from the University of Michigan 1993 with a B.A. in History, after which he followed his then-girlfriend to Madison, Wisconsin, where she was studying for a PhD. In addition to working for the local newspaper and volunteering at Madison’s public radio station, Siegel started writing for a small satirical rag that was given away free in the town’s coffee shops, The Onion. In 1996, he became editor-in-chief and began masterminding a major expansion of the paper, putting it online, making it a national and then international publication, and conceiving a number of Onion books, including the hugely successful Our Dumb Century (1999). One of the paper’s less successful side projects was The Onion Movie, a sketch comedy film which was finally released on DVD in 2008 but was conceived and written long before Siegel left The Onion in 2003. It did, however, introduce Siegel to screenwriting, which he chose as his next career. After writing a number of as-yet-unproduced comedy scripts for studios, Siegel was approached by director Darren Aronofsky, who who’d been impressed by Siegel’s screenplay Big Fan. Aronofsky commissioned Siegel to write the script for The Wrestler (2008), the Oscar-nominated movie which would become his first script to make it to the big screen.

There’s a pleasing circularity about the fact that Siegel was inspired to direct Big Fan because of The Wrestler, and even began shooting his own movie the day after Aronofsky’s wrapped. The movie’s eponymous protagonist is 35-year-old Paul Aufiero (Patton Oswalt), a perpetually single parking garage attendant still living at home with his mother and whose dull existence is made meaningful only by his all-consuming passion for the New York Giants. One night, Paul and his best friend Sal (Kevin Corrigan) spy Giants linebacker Quantrell Bishop (Jonathan Hamm), and when they follow him to a club, Paul … Read the rest

“WRESTLER” BIG WINNER AT VENICE

Darren Aronofsky‘s The Wrestler won the Golden Lion at this year’s Venice Film Festival. The film, starring Mickey Rourke, is also gaining a lot of buzz at the Toronto International Film Festival where it screened over the weekend.

Full list of Venice winners below.

GOLDEN LION for Best Film:

The Wrestler by Darren Aronofsky (USA)

SILVER LION for Best Director to:

Aleksey German Jr. for Bumažnyj Soldat (Paper Soldier) (Russia)

SPECIAL JURY PRIZE to:

Teza by Haile Gerima (Ethiopia, Germany, France)

COPPA VOLPI for Best Actor:

Silvio Orlando for Il papà di Giovanna by Pupi Avati (Italy)

COPPA VOLPI for Best Actress:

Dominique Blanc for L’autre by Patrick Mario Bernard and Pierre Trividic (France)

MARCELLO MASTROIANNI AWARD for Best Young Actor or Actress:

Jennifer Lawrence for The Burning Plain by Guillermo Arriaga (USA)

OSELLA for Best Cinematography to:

Alisher Khamidhodjaev and Maxim Drozdov for Bumažnyj Soldat (Paper Soldier) by Aleksey German Jr. (Russia)

OSELLA for Best Screenplay to:

Haile Gerima for Teza by Haile Gerima (Ethiopia, Germany, France)

SPECIAL LION for Overall Work to:

Werner Schroeter

The Jury decided to award a Special Lion for his uncompromising and relentlessly innovative work over a period of 40 years to Werner Schroeter.

“LUIGI DE LAURENTIIS” AWARD FOR A DEBUT FILM

The “Luigi De Laurentiis” Award for a Debut Film Jury at the 65th Venice Film Festival, comprised of Abdellatif Kechiche (President), Alice Braga, Gregory Jacobs, Donald Ranvaud, and Heidrun Schleef, has unanimously decided to award the

“LUIGI DE LAURENTIIS” AWARD FOR A DEBUT FILM to:

Pranzo Di Ferragosto by Gianni Di Gregorio (SIC – International Critics’ Week, Italy)

Aurelio De Laurentiis and Filmauro award a cash prize, of 100,000 USD, to the winning first film (50,000 to the director, 50,000 to the producer). To the director, an additional film voucher for 40,000 Euro will also be awarded, offered by Kodak.… Read the rest

FOUNTAIN SPURTS

By Scott Macaulay

The A.V. Club has a review up of the comic book adaptation of Darren Aronofsky’s forthcoming The Fountain.

From Noel Murray’s review:

“It’s difficult to read The Fountain without imagining how it’s going to look as a movie, or wondering what Aronofsky ultimately changed for the screen. But that’s actually part of what’s enjoyable about the book. Readers can treat it like an elaborate storyboard and see a movie in their minds. Given Aronofsky’s penchant for obscurity, the mind-Fountain may even end up being clearer than the finished version, even though it lacks the director’s gift for dynamic cinematic poetry. Still, there’s a chance that when the movie opens this fall, those in the know will refer back to the comic, to get the message in a plainer package.”… Read the rest

THE BIG TEASE

By Scott Macaulay

After months of internet buzz, there’s finally an “internet teaser” up for Darren Aronofsky’s long-awaited The Fountain. Check it out as well as Moriarty’s interview with Aronofsky over at Ain’t It Cool News.… Read the rest