Sundance Channel

Genre big and small permeates screens

Annie and Lisa — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 20:33:18 +0000

Are we inside a genre revolution? Lately the amount of content hitting screens that features either a modest nod or full-fledged over-the-top bow to genre is simply overwhelming. ANOTHER EARTH is indie-drama-with-a-side-of-sci-fi. MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE is indie-drama-with-a-touch-of-thriller. WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN, the highly anticipated third feature from Lynn Ramsay, is indie-drama-experimental-fantasy. Yep, that’s right, on the surface it’s about raising a child who turns out to be a Columbine-like murderer, but in reality, I hear, it exists as a true art film. Lead actress Tilda Swinton said in last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine that the film is “a fantasy that has as much to do with the practical business of bringing up a child as ROSEMARY’S BABY has to do with being pregnant.”

Dear Santa: Criterion, please

Annie and Lisa — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 21:25:28 +0000

If you happen to be shopping online, a stop at premier DVD publisher Criterion is likely to derail your giving into dreams of receiving. Their site kicks ass, frankly. Not only can you drool over new releases of your favorite classic, arthouse and foreign films, you can browse a plethora of famous peoples’ top ten Criterion lists. Bill Hader is actually a cinephile genius with Kurosawa’s HIGH AND LOW as his number one and an obscure Ozu as his number three! Bill Hader and Ozu? I teach at a film school and when I wear my Ozu t-shirt that’s shaped into an Ozzy logo I get nothing but blank stares. Nice work, Hader. And Kim Gordon puts a film on her list (Catherine Breillat’s FAT GIRL) that she admits to not having seen! Awesomely bold. But back to buying. Criterion does such an amazing job reinventing a film through not only through its famous Criterion extras, but also by redesigning a film’s identity and thereby inviting you to rediscover it in a new way. Take Kieslowski’s brilliant 1994 trilogy, THREE COLORS: RED, WHITE, BLUE.

The simple photographic approach of MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE

Annie and Lisa — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 16:00:15 +0000

I finally saw Sean Durkin’s Sundance standout MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE, and I too found it absolutely deserving of the awards and accolades it has recently garnered. It’s a wonderfully compelling flashback narrative, the likes of which we really haven’t seen since SHINE, wherein the dramatic tension comes from the audience discovering the past and watching its inevitable collide with the present. But even more interesting than that, the film is lean and beautiful in its simplicity, specifically in the way in which it’s covered, or filmed from different angles.

HAPPY FEET TWO: King of the ensemble film

Annie and Lisa — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 20:07:01 +0000

Folks, we’ve got a number of ensemble films out at the moment – big casts with big names. One, J.C. Chandor’s MARGIN CALL, a first feature that attracted some of the biggest names in Hollywood, surprised even the most cynical of cinephiles. That’s a no-no in most industry circles, the prevailing wisdom being, “a new director just can’t attract the talent.” Go J.C. Chandor! Bring us back to the 90s! Other ensembles recently in theatres include TOWER HEIST and…HAPPY FEET TWO, which I would argue is the most ensemble-y of them all...

Jeff Nichols’ TAKE SHELTER

Annie and Lisa — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 19:28:17 +0000

Jeff Nichols' award-winning TAKE SHELTER takes place in rural Ohio, which is where I live, and involves a lot of rain, which describes the weather here as well. In fact, it’s been raining steadily in Southern Ohio since Sunday, so my ability to relate to the drama of precipitation was quite keen as I squirmed my way through this terrifying and ultimately moving film. As I’m smack in the middle of the same culture, where people actually go to church regularly and frequently needlepoint pillows, like young wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain) does in the film, I really felt like I was there. Except that I don’t see what her husband Curtis (Michael Shannon) sees, which is much more than a steady drizzle: it’s apocalyptic storms with multiple twisters, raging birds in beautifully violent flight patterns and living room furniture that suddenly propels itself from the floor...

MARGIN CALL is one long, tense night

Annie and Lisa — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 20:07:45 +0000

The most elegant quality of J.C. Chandor’s indie hit MARGIN CALL is the way in which time unfolds. It works in that hyper-dramatic way that critical life events do, burning into your memory with hours slowing into what seem like days and minutes stretching forward almost interminably. It’s practically the only cinematic tool Chandor has to play with because, speaking of play, his film - about the last 24 hours in the life of an investment firm peddling bad mortgage bonds in 2008 - feels like one. Thankfully his singular touch on the experience of time unfolding saves a film without costumes, locations or interesting lighting (it’s a lot of fluorescents inside a very drab office). We’re left with the script and the performances, which is fine, but raises the question – why not throw this on a stage and be done with it?

WEEKEND: some seriously moody pain

Annie and Lisa — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 20:00:25 +0000

On our wedding anniversary my husband wanted to see HAROLD AND KUMAR, but I persuaded him to see WEEKEND, Andrew Haigh’s gay one-night-stand romantic drama. We both love Wong Kar Wai’s HAPPY TOGETHER (1997), another gay romance that chronicles the end, not beginning, of a relationship, as well as Barry Jenkins’ MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY (2008), a one-night-stand movie that tracks a flinging couple nearly moment to moment over a short time period, which WEEKEND does, too. This is practically a genre! It will clearly have something for us, we thought. And after we got over the fact that Haigh is using the same title as one of the most famous French New Wave films ever made, off we went...

Gandhi’s KUMARE and other documentary tricks

Annie and Lisa — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 19:57:31 +0000

On the heels of CATFISH and I’M NOT THERE comes Vikram Gandhi’s KUMARÉ, the SXSW Audience Award winner that should be showing up in theatres sometime this Spring. The director calls it "compassionate rule-breaking," and his exploration of spirituality definitely breaks the rule of disclosure. A dozen or so people are hoodwinked into becoming spiritual disciples of someone they believe to be an Indian guru, but who's really just a 30-something Columbia grad in India making his first film - that, and he happens to be named Gandhi.

Martin Sheen is the grumpiest old man ever in THE WAY

Annie and Lisa — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 21:30:01 +0000

Martin Sheen has never been crabbier than in THE WAY, the Emilio Estevez-directed "trail movie" that chronicles a grieving father’s pilgrimage walk from France to Spain to scatter the ashes of his only child. When Daniel (Emilio Estevez) ditches his dissertation to travel the world, he dies suddenly in a freak accident on the Camino de Santiago, the famous Christian pilgrimage trail spanning Spain. His father Tom (Sheen), who was already pissed at Daniel before he died, decides to finish the journey to honor the lost life, and boy is he mad about it.

TO DIE FOR out now on blu-ray

Annie and Lisa — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 19:00:21 +0000

My all-time favorite Buck Henry film, Gus Van Sant’s TO DIE FOR, is now out on blu-ray. Perhaps Nicole Kidman’s greatest comic/ironic performance, she strikes the perfect balance as Suzanne Stone, the overly ambitious, small town weather woman who dreams of stardom and comes to realize her pizza-slinging husband is a massive hindrance. So she does what any aspiring career woman would do: she enlists some disaffected teenagers to kill him. And it’s actually both dramatic and funny. The entire film, in fact, is an exercise in tone perfection, and that's really, really hard to do. The film is a balancing act between the ridiculous with the believable. Characters are...

Mona Achache’s THE HEDGEHOG

Annie and Lisa — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 20:00:31 +0000

I admit it. I hesitated on my in to watch Mona Achache’s THE HEDGEHOG (in select cities and making its last lap on the festival circuit). "Should I really do this?" I thought. Should I trust the French with a light comedy about a child obsessed with suicide? Hadn’t the Americans already proved that all efforts in this arena should cease post-HAROLD AND MAUDE? But in I went. And my expectations were spot on: a feel-good movie purportedly about darkness, but with very little darkness to be seen. The casting of the eleven-year-old girl may have been the first misstep. A very skilled actor, Garance Le Guillermic’s craft was not the issue, it was simply her physicality that caused me to pause. Despite her best frown, perfected into a perma-grimace as bummer-child Paloma, this little girl has the architectural face of a Greek goddess and simply exuded light. I could not swallow that she was living under a black cloud...

Branded men: Harrison Ford passes the leading man baton onto George Clooney

Annie and Lisa — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 20:51:18 +0000

George Clooney is occupying a number of screens this Fall. Whether peering at us from the other half of TIME Magazine in the IDES OF MARCH poster or literally running through the trailer of Alexander Payne’s forthcoming THE DESCENDANTS, he seems to be everywhere you look, and since he's pretty much the sexiest middle-aged guy around, I don't think anyone's complaining. He's definitely the sexiest major leading man who used be only be a television actor. (I’m kidding! I know, I know, TV is all that.) But is his trajectory absolutely unique?

What makes NOSFERATU scary?

Annie and Lisa — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 19:30:38 +0000

Tonight I was at a screening that proved how F.W. Murnau’s 1922 Dracula film, NOSFERATU, stands the test of time. You can watch it online via YouTube, but if you can this Halloween weekend, get yourself to a screening with live music. The extra oomph a live organ provides transforms the film from a historical, over-the-top expression-fest to a truly terrifying event. Don't believe me? My seven-year-old kid could barely sit through the first ten minutes he was so utterly terrified. So once you add a score - and a really good one at that - it's easy to look beyond the elements that seem dated now, namely the acting. Acting styles have changed so radically in the past eighty years that we can barely recognize what now seems like camera-mugging as the same craft. But beyond that, not much else seems dated. In fact, the shot construction and framing feel very sophisticated. When Ellen (Greta Schroder), our sweetheart of a protagonist, is discovered sleepwalking just as the dreaded vampire is attacking his first victim miles away, we see her eerily tip toe through the frame far in the distance, the shot size diminishing her presence but emphasizing her fleeting, gorgeously scary physicality as she inches along a high terrace wall...

Josh Marston’s THE FORGIVENESS OF BLOOD

Annie and Lisa — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 19:53:51 +0000

I’ve been on the festival circuit recently (with my co-directed project SMALL, BEAUTIFULLY MOVING PARTS) and was lucky enough to see the Berlin world premiere and Chicago winner THE FORGIVENESS OF BLOOD. It recently made headlines when it was yanked it from Foreign Oscar competition for not being Albanian enough (read Anthony Kaufman’s story here), though the film itself is about a distinctly Albanian issue: the clash of modernity and time-worn cultural customs, this one being medieval blood feuds – rifts between families that can lead to the permanent threat of violence for men, prompting a form of vigilante house arrest that leaves the women and girls to become surrogate bread winners. Marston, originally from Southern California, initially became intrigued when he read a news article about the phenomenon and began to do his research, boots on the ground. Unafraid of placing himself in cultures different from his own (see his debut feature, MARIA FULL OF GRACE), Marston boldly crafted a story with co-writer Andamion Murataj that dramatizes the futility of a feud from a teenager’s perspective – protagonist Nik (Tristan Halilaj), who just wants to be with his friends at school. Instead, he’s forced to grow up pretty quickly as the tension increases between his family and the neighbors, who his father and uncle attacked, claiming self-defense.

THE KID WITH A BIKE: The closed-off world of the brothers Dardenne

Annie and Lisa — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 21:00:04 +0000

THE KID WITH A BIKE is probably the fourth or fifth Dardenne brothers film I’ve seen, and I’m always surprised by a few things. One, how similarly their films are executed in terms of style, tone, theme and even content, and two, how few people have even heard of these guys outside of cinephile circles. These Belgian brothers, infamously warm and joke-y in the press but earnest in their social commentary filmmaking, keep churning out the neo-realist work at the rate of roughly one every two to three years. Often, the story involves a couple, a child and a series of agonizing moral dilemmas. Well, maybe not so agonizing for the audience, who can usually identify right and wrong (like when a new father in L’ENFANT thinks it’s a good idea to sell the baby), but for the characters themselves, whose moral confusion is typically set in a hard knock, European landscape...

Important movie alert: THE BULLY PROJECT

Annie and Lisa — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 21:45:49 +0000

The Weinstein Company recently purchased a film at the Tribeca Film Festival that seems destined to join the ranks of Davis Guggenheim’s AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH. What, you say, could be as relevant as Al Gore explaining the imminent downfall of the very earth on which we live? Childhood bullying. And the film, Lee Hirsch’s THE BULLY PROJECT, feels extraordinarily pressing. Why? Because the generation of those who are bullied and those who do the bullying are tomorrow’s adults, and their general mental health affects just about everything. And if you're a parent or a teacher, or currently attending middle or high school yourself - it’s required viewing.

BEING ELMO – there will be tears

Annie and Lisa — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 18:30:43 +0000

Constance Marks and Philip Shane’s BEING ELMO: A PUPPETEER’S JOURNEY pulls at the heartstrings like a skilled marionettist. Winner of the 2011 Special Jury Prize at Sundance, this film continues to prove that audiences are hungry for documentary content that inspires. (See BUCK, another success story.) It’s highly likely that if you see this film, the incredible story of how puppeteer Kevin Clash not only realized his dream of working with Jim Henson but also ended up creating one of the most beloved childhood characters of all time, you will choke up...

The strange world of DRIVE

Annie and Lisa — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 21:11:40 +0000

DRIVE, Nicolas Winding Refn’s hyper violent, crime movie/love story is an extraordinary piece of work. The words that infiltrated my head while watching? Robots and bubblegum. Refn has created such a uniquely strange world. Everything is either soft and pillowy or luminous and plastic. It's so stylized and clean that even the blood looks delicious. Ryan Gosling, who plays a part time stunt driver who’s a sucker for romance, behaves more like a robot than a human. Line after line, Gosling waits a beat before delivering his dialogue so there's not a single moment of...

MONEYBALL: Can sports neophytes like this film?

Annie and Lisa — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 18:30:20 +0000

Are you about to saunter leisurely into this Bennett Miller blockbuster, as thousands of Americans have done already? Should you have even an ounce of baseball knowledge before seeing a film about baseball strategy? Well, maybe. It ain’t ANY GIVEN SUNDAY (Oliver Stone, 1999), a family drama that requires only the most basic understanding of football. MONEYBALL is slightly different. Watching Brad Pitt act his heart out as Billy Beane, the manager of the Oakland A's, is much more satisfying if you understand how and why players are traded and the ingrained culture that preceded Beane and his Assistant GM’s innovative method for evaluating undervalued players. But are there other factors at work to keep you engaged just in case you're a baseball-ignorant heathen? Yes...

John Madden’s THE DEBT: old people kicking ass

Annie and Lisa — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 19:38:24 +0000

The greatest thing about THE DEBT, and this is no spoiler, is that it features older people acting out through violence. When's the last time you saw that? Real ass-kicking and blood by the 50+ club? I loved David Edelstein’s review in New York Magazine, which doesn’t exactly talk about the violence enacted by retired-set, but he instead writes about the film’s somewhat maudlin properties and how they're somehow forgiven. The second half of the film "turns into one howler after the other … yet it’s still gripping.”

Grief-stricken: THE FATHER OF MY CHILDREN and ANOTHER EARTH

Annie and Lisa — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 21:00:18 +0000

Recently I’ve seen two very different films that deal explicitly with grief, Mia Hansen-Løve’s THE FATHER OF MY CHILDREN and Mike Cahill’s ANOTHER EARTH. One's a drama, and very French at that. The other a science fiction melodrama, and quite American. I saw them nearly back to back and the experience inspired a few thoughts. First, WOW - these directors are really young (Love 29 when she made her film; Cahill 32). Second, how bold (in a good way) to mine this experience of family and loss from an adult (parent, spouse) perspective from the other side (that is, under 40). Third, does it work?

Soderbergh’s CONTAGION: a no-thrills thriller

Annie and Lisa — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 19:15:15 +0000

I saw CONTAGION last weekend and by God it’s the first thriller I’ve ever seen where a lingering shot of a coffee cup (or martini glass, or door handle) recently fondled by the recently infected is one of the scariest shots. A coffee cup! And it actually is scary. The camera holds just long enough to make the object - and the unseen germs just deposited there - terrifying. I’m not talking about a gasp-out-loud- sort of terrifying, but a sick to the stomach, this-could-surely-happen-to-me sort of terrifying. Friends on Facebook have cried “Blah!” as in, “It’s boring!” Well, maybe. Moments, I admit, feel slow. But isn’t that refreshing for a thriller? Nobody but Soderbergh could impose a new pace on a well-worn genre, and nobody could rally such high power stars to, one by one, froth at the mouth. They die so well.

9/11 StoryCorps animations from the Rauch Brothers

Annie and Lisa — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 17:27:38 +0000

The 9/11 media blitz is well under way, and will rise steadily by the hour until we hit total saturation on Sunday. I’ve been subjecting myself to quite a bit already, ranging from news analysis to anecdotal retellings. Regarding the latter, NPR certainly knows how to go to the heart of the emotional matter, but it’s been this series of Rauch Brother animations that have so far been the most resonant material for me. The Rauch’s have basically created a visual to a selection of 9/11 StoryCorps interviews, part of the oral history project which, amongst many other goals, aims to record one interview for every life lost. If you haven't encountered StoryCorp before, it’s fantastic. Members of the public simply book an appointment and then bring a friend or loved one to a roving StoryCorp “booth” for an interview about his or her life. The StoryCorp site features edited excerpts from these interviews, categorized by topic. And, as one might imagine, there’s a sizable 9/11 section. The Rauch Brothers use their playful style for these heartbreaking stories, lending them an extraordinarily moving, as well as surreal effect; We're watching cartoons suffer, for Godssake.

Valuing the unexpected in cinema

Annie and Lisa — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 18:28:00 +0000

Yesterday, a brand new crop of Filmmaking MFA students appeared before me at Ohio University, as suddenly as Fall weather. It’s that time – August is gone, baby, and us teachers are back in the classroom. One exercise conducted yesterday involved each person articulating what he or she values in the cinema - not a specific type of character or scene, but a methodology, strategy or approach that can be identified from film to film. I noted a pattern: many valued the experience of feeling surprised – when the storyteller crafted moments that veered from a familiar course with either plot or character (INCENDIES, above, does just this). Our collective expectations have been molded through years of watching films, so an innovation of form, complexity of plot or sophistication of character truly do deserve value. I thought back to my own summer movie-going experiences and measured how a few stacked up. Watch out, hold up - the teacher is giving out grades:

Michael Winterbottom’s THE TRIP on the big screen

Annie and Lisa — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 21:00:57 +0000

The new Michael Winterbottom film, starring beloved duo Steve Coogan and Rob Bryden, is at times hilarious and often insightful, if not a little slap-dash. Meaning? Well, it’s been put together quickly and simply with a disarmingly straightforward premise: Two actor frenemies named Steve Coogan and Rob Bryden (basically playing slightly ridiculous versions of themselves) go on the road in Northern England for a promotional food tour. Hilarity ensues. But is that hilarity a product of a series of escalating mishaps otherwise known as plot? No. There is no plot. There is a series of locations, a series of over-the-top gourmet meals featuring the likes of duck fat lollipops, a series of Coogan one-night stands, and a series of very funny conversations.

Is 3D the new normal?

Annie and Lisa — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 15:36:04 +0000

I've seen two films recently in 3D, FRIGHT NIGHT and SPY KIDS, two very solid, genre films. A kid's movie with bright colors, bubble gum complexions and gee-whiz humor, and a horror film with dark interiors and tired tropes of let-the-camera-follow-the-guy-who’s-about-to-be-jumped. And then it struck me. It happened when I laid eyes on Toni Collette, who plays a suburban mom in FRIGHT NIGHT, which is not her usual indie fare. I suddenly got very scared: will independent films soon be in 3D? What the hell will THAT look like? The LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE van hurtling towards you? Robert Duvall reaching for your head to bless you, APOSTLE-style? The SIDEWAYS spit bucket in your face?

In support of THE HELP

Annie and Lisa — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 18:30:00 +0000

I resisted Katherine Stockett’s book THE HELP for years – which in premise alone inspired a personal cringe-fest of sorts. But after the online chatter on America’s new box office darling rose to a peak, I gave in and headed to the multiplex. And really? Not half bad. Here are some thoughts about THE HELP, given the online chatter from multiple critics of the film. (A quick google search will help you find the most prominent voices – but this statement from the Association of Black Women Historians [ABWH] - saw a lot of traffic.)

Giuseppe Capotondi’s THE DOUBLE HOUR

Annie and Lisa — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 17:36:03 +0000

There’s a fantastic indie thriller now playing in limited release, and if you have a chance to see it, you SHOULD. It’s THE DOUBLE HOUR, and features a wonderful performance by Russian actress Kseniya Rappoport, who won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the 2009 Venice Film Festival. An Italian romantic thriller with undertones in both noir and psychological drama, this film has more loop-de-loops plot-wise than anything else I’ve seen lately. The movie also manages to seamlessly integrate fairly disparate elements and events – affecting a bizarre, pleasurable experience that will definitely keep you guessing.

Brad Pitt and parenting in the movies, part 2

Annie and Lisa — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 20:30:11 +0000

I recently posted on THE TREE OF LIFE, the Terrence Malick lush-fest that has been blowing minds - like explosions in space - since its recent release. I wrote about the film and parenting, a subject that comes up infrequently if you Google the two terms together. After a few conversations with friends, I’d like to follow up. And yes, full disclosure, I’m a parent of two boys (7 and 2), and a filmmaker too (SMALL, BEAUTIFULLY MOVING PARTS), so both are equally relevant. (Did I just equate my love for my children to my love for movies? The parent police should be at my door momentarily.)

Cindy Meehl’s BUCK

Annie and Lisa — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 19:29:03 +0000

Cindy Meehl’s BUCK is a horseman’s story. A character portrait featuring trainer Buck Brannaman - probably one of the best looking modern cowboys you’ll ever see (never mind his beautiful wife and daughter), BUCK is a story of self-realization. This coming-of-self angle may be why the film has been winning awards all over the place and crossing over to audiences who don’t give a lick about horses. That’s me, really (a rider I am not), but I have to say I wasn’t as charmed as I wanted to be. I took my son and had to explain beforehand that much of the movie was going to concern the fact that Buck had been mentally and physically abused by his alcoholic father. (“What’s abuse?” asked my son. When I told him some children are beaten he looked at me earnestly and said, “You and daddy don’t do that.”) Buck’s journey from foster child to world-class horse whisperer who revolutionized the way horses are trained is definitely interesting, but this is a case of slight overhype. “Much of the movie - too much of it - is just Buck in the corral, riding, working with ropes and flags, conditioning a horse to behave,” says Orlando Sentinal critic Roger Moore.

Terrence Malick and … parenting

Annie and Lisa — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 18:30:16 +0000

I saw THE TREE OF LIFE last night at the Sunshine Theatre in New York, and no surprise here - I loved it. As an urbanite at heart and decades-long Malick fan, I went in expecting to like it, and this epic look at life through lenses both broad and narrow did not disappoint. Here’s one revelation: if a twenty-something newbie director had paired dinosaurs with the intimate story of one Texas family, I very well may have balked. But I’ve been in a relationship with Malick for years now, and I trust him. I’d go anywhere with the guy, so cuts between sunshine-drenched babies draped in gauzy white to (next shot) an exploding star deep within space seem amazing, not pretentious. The scope of the project and its ability to move between things small and large feels truly groundbreaking. The one thing I was not expecting from the film was its specific meditation on parenting. In detailing small moments in the daily lives of the adoring-playful Mother and the adoring-stern Father (Jessica Chastain and Brad Pitt), Malick paints a stark contrast between child-rearing approaches but is never overtly critical. As a friend said, it was the most patient and thorough examination of the small trials of parenting that she’s seen on the screen (and the day after with her own kids was more or less a misty-eyed affair), as the film ultimately asks us to cherish the living through all the small struggles and heart aches - especially if they happen to be our progeny.

The more things change, the more they (mostly) stay the same

Annie and Lisa — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 21:21:59 +0000

It’s summer, and even the must-read daily film and TV daily “Film News Briefs” admitted recently that there’s just not a lot going on. It’s July. Business in the entertainment world is not unfolding with lightening speed. Not that “summing it up” is an unusual practice at any time – but the slower months do prompt, therefore, some serious reflection. indieWIRE has been publishing articles from their archives (in celebration of their 15 year anniversary), which encourages a little cud-chewing as well. Where are we? Where are we going? What’s the state of the state in screen-based storytelling? While clicking through indieWIRE, I also happened upon veteran producer Ted Hope’s recent conversation with film business guru Brian Newman on the future of film – mostly regarding missed ad and marketing opportunities via social networking. They were chatting as part of a “master class” at the Karlovy Vary Film Fest in the Czech Republic. (The reaction shots of the extraordinarily stoic audience members are perhaps the funniest aspect of this video.)

Denis Villeneuve’s INCENDIES

Annie and Lisa — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 21:22:25 +0000

Like two other films I posted on in the past year, Jacques Audiard’s A PROPHET and David Michôd’s ANIMAL KINGDOM, Denis Villeneuvie’s INCENDIES is a film of epic proportions. The story follows a young French Canadian woman (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) and her twin brother (Maxim Gaudette) as they investigate the past of their now-deceased Lebanese mother (Lubna Azabal), who turns out to have lived a life far more dramatic -- and traumatic -- than her children ever imagined.

Michael Fassbender: big world small world

Annie and Lisa — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 20:07:25 +0000

Last night I ventured out to see XMEN: FIRST CLASS. It’s a big, big world. Its cast? Many arrived by way of much smaller worlds. As I watched, it struck me: What artist gets to participate in such completely different modes of making other than the film actor, who, if lucky and smart, goes from Hollywood to Indiewood or vice versa? A musician may be the closest – from orchestra to a more edgy or experimental gig? But an orchestra ain’t Hollywood. A new media artist who moonlights at Microsoft or Google? Nope, not art. Maybe XMEN isn’t art either – but the actor brings the same set of tools to the table when approaching something like XMEN or a teeny tiny film, in order to make his or her… art. Two of the XMEN stars are recent graduates of indie hits. Jennifer Lawrence (Mystique) starred in the Sundance film WINTER’S BONE, wherein she brought nuance and grace to her role as Dee. Michael Fassbender has the bigger role in this big world, though, as the tortured Magnito. Fassbender recently starred as a duplicitous and ethically-challenged player-bloke in Andrea Arnold’s coming of age story FISH TANK, and he brought a great sense of humanity to his Rochester in Cary Fukunaga’s excellent JANE EYRE. He’s also listed on imdb as one of the stars of Jim Jarmusch’s next film. How must it be to coexist in these worlds?

Allen’s MIDNIGHT IN PARIS and the Mysterious Floating Master

Annie and Lisa — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 21:50:31 +0000

In my own filmmaking education, the term ‘floating master’ was floated my way during one fine day of learning, uttered by an esteemed and respected editing teacher. I remember sitting in the classroom thinking … “Huh?” It sounded more Buddha-on-a-lily-pad than technical film coverage term. I believe she referenced the phrase – which is really ‘floating master shot’ in the same breath as the name Woody Allen, and as I watched MIDNIGHT IN PARIS this week, I harkened back to this particular method of working and its effects on narrative. MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, by the way, is a finely charming narrative indeed. And Woody Allen does, by gum, utilize the floating master over and over and over.

Waves crashing on a BIG BEACH

Annie and Lisa — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 19:44:48 +0000

I’m writing to give props to a small company that I love … Big Beach Films. Why do I love them? (They have summarily rejected plenty of my own scripts … so why?) Well, they’ve been making good work. They’ve been taking chances. Formed in 2004 by producer Peter Saraf and funder/producer Marc Turtletaub, one of Big Beach’s first films was Liev Schrieber’s EVERYTHING WAS ILLUMINATED. A success? Well, not really. It had some beautiful elements. But overall, adaptation is really difficult, and this epic Jonathan Safron Foer novel was simply tough to reduce to the screen. When the documentary OPERATION FILMMAKER hit the screen, a profile of ILLUMINATED’s Iraqi intern, it didn’t help in making the film look a little indulgent. But Big Beach survived it without a hiccup – and maybe ended up looking okay. (Trailer here.) The next film out was LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE. Nuf said.

Ahhhhhh, BRIDESMAIDS! Thank you.

Annie and Lisa — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 20:37:47 +0000

Thank God for you. Or Goddess. Or maybe just Thank Goodness, goddammit. It’s about time for a breakthrough female-penned and starred bona fide hit, one that inspires more of the same ridiculous editorial content like “Hey, are women funny?” Trampling its way over MEAN GIRLS and HOUSE BUNNY (sorry – but both of those scripts were funny but slightly overwritten), it’s not only laugh out loud hi-larious, but also truly crosses over to the boys without hiding that it’s solely about the girls. Moreover -- what Manohla said – the film has some serious content exploring the nature of female friendship and the female sense of self.

Chang-dong Lee’s POETRY and the world of MEN

Annie and Lisa — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 20:11:58 +0000

I saw POETRY last week and was moved by many elements, one of which being the simple fact that this long, contemplative feature is about -- sit down now -- an elderly female protagonist. Hollywood it ain’t. Sixty-six year old Mija (Jeong-hie Yun) has two recent challenges: memory loss and a sullen teenage grandson, whose escapades with his friends, we later discover, make the trouble one hundred fold for his grandma. In fact, in Lee’s accomplished second feature, the world of men – their desires and back-room dealings -- are the root of most of Mija’s problems, and her quiet strategies toward solutions are a major force of subversion, even rebellion. But does she feel like a kick-ass protagonist with a big bad agenda? Hell, no.

JANE EYRE and shooting the classics

Annie and Lisa — Wed, 25 May 2011 20:06:40 +0000

I loved Cary Fukunaga’s recent take on the classic JANE EYRE. (He’s pictured above with his Director of Photography Adriano Goldman.) And in addition to the deft direction, Moira Buffini’s adaptation is searingly concise and dramatic – it never feels like a stuffed-to-the-gills adaptation. But what I really want to talk about here is the cinematography, which is revelatory. The last two ‘classic’ films I’ve seen, this and Jane Campion’s BRIGHT STAR (not classic literature but based on Andrew Motion’s biography of John Keats) have both blown me away in terms of visual approach. (See my post from fall ’10 on BRIGHT STAR here.) Both eschew traditional coverage and framing in service of something more dynamic – a fluid, organic camera approach that plays mightily with depth of field, creative frames, and in short, ways of seeing. (Or, the DP and crew are not just there to document or illuminate the actors. The camera absolutely dances with performance – enhancing, contrasting, participating, rejecting -- story.) The effect? Something that feels more modern, more present, more emotionally important – it’s not homework, it’s art.

WIN WIN … wins!

Annie and Lisa — Thu, 19 May 2011 20:15:55 +0000

Wow – here’s something amazing. Tom McCarthy’s WIN WIN is enjoying a 95% approval rating with RottenTomatoes.com’s “Top Critics” – the same score as something like Altman’s NASHVILLE. Not that these two movies have a lot in common. They don’t. But just in the general zeitgeist of movie-liking and likability, this movie is really … winning. Why? Read on to find out. (By the way, no secrets here. I really… liked it.)

CERTIFIED SOURCE CODE COPY

Annie and Lisa — Wed, 11 May 2011 19:52:11 +0000

Well, this is certainly random. But the last two movies I’ve seen: Duncan Jones’ SOURCE CODE and Abbas Kiarostami’s CERTIFIED COPY have more in common than at first meets the eye. Maybe in reality this correlation should only speak to my slightly diverse movie-going habits – big budget to small budget, American thriller to Iranian-directed drama – and the human need to draw lines between things. Nonetheless, back to back, both of these films engage with the notion that a copy or version of the self, if sent forward into the world or a parallel world, will behave differently and respond to different stimuli than would original ‘self’ (see how I’m getting all meta here with the single quotation marks?), and thus render strikingly different results for one’s life path. Characters from both films accomplish this. Cool, right?

UNCLE BOONMEE and an A+ for Originality

Annie and Lisa — Wed, 04 May 2011 21:04:40 +0000

As Cannes 2011 approaches, it was nice to have the opportunity to see last year’s Palme d’Or winner on the big screen: Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES. Tim Burton was last year’s head of the jury -- if you see this film, you’ll see the affinity here – UNCLE is a slow, strange, plot-less journey, relying on visuals and a slow-burn Ozu-like filmmaking that gets better as it goes. The sprinkling of visual surprises feel shocking in comparison to the rest of the material. There are some strange, visceral and unforgettable images, right up Burton’s alley. It’s a real treat in terms of originality -- promises abound here that you’ve never seen anything like it before.

Megan Griffiths’ THE OFF HOURS

Annie and Lisa — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 19:54:42 +0000

THE OFF HOURS, which premiered in January in the Sundance NEXT category, blew through my town this week and I was happy to have the chance to see it. Meticulously crafted, the film simply felt to me like years and years of work, as in, “This filmmaker has seen these shots in her head for some time now!” Turns out, that’s close to true. Another product of the “I almost made this movie 1,000 times with ‘name’ actors and a budget” syndrome, Seattleite Megan Griffiths bit the bullet last year and made her film the good ol’ microbudget way. I can sympathize, as I was on the same path last summer, buying batteries in bulk and making props in my living room. Griffith’s film has a solid polish that belies any major funding deficits, and the performances are subtle and sophisticated.

One more film set in the snow-scape of Fargo, North Dakota

Annie and Lisa — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 19:22:29 +0000

Goran Rusinovic’s 2009 film BUICK RIVIERA was playing in my town tonight, and it was an interesting ride of a road movie. The road traveled here is mostly psychological, as two characters, both from the Balkans, one Bosnian Serb, one Bosnian Muslim, intersect on a deserted snowy road in Fargo, North Dakota. One has slid off the icy road in his beloved Buick Riviera, which functions as a sort of refuge space for him from the painful memories of war-torn Bosnia and the death of his parents. The Serb, on the other hand, who helps out at the scene, seems to take refuge in pushing his own suffering onto others, in this case, on our hero Hasan.

Aaron Katz’ COLD WEATHER

Annie and Lisa — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 20:56:02 +0000

Both COLD WEATHER and LOVERS OF HATE, two IFC / Sundance Selects releases, made it to my local-art-house-theatre-in-the-boonies in the past two weeks. I had seen LOVERS OF HATE (director Bryan Poyser) at SXSW last year, and enjoyed it – in all of its high-concept-low-budget-plot-dependent-character glory. COLD WEATHER (Aaron Katz) is harder to categorize and is, simply, a very unusual film. Is this good? Yes! Is this bad? Yes, as well.

What THE KILLING has going on

Annie and Lisa — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 22:00:13 +0000

Executive Producer Veena Sud’s THE KILLING premiered on AMC last weekend, and it’s got a lot going on. First of all, in concept, it proves the brilliance of European storytellers. Based on the Danish series Forbrydelsen, the premise is one episode per narrative day – so one 13-episode season equals 13 days on a murder investigation. Three stories surrounding the murder of a Seattle teen intertwine: the police, the grieving family and the suspects. Now why couldn’t an American think of that? It subverts the entire cop procedural formula, allows for a type of storytelling that is practically non-existent in the States, and pairs a crime story with serious character investigation -- a joy.

WENDY AND LUCY and A SINGLE GIRL: Separated at Birth?

Annie and Lisa — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 02:49:23 +0000

I’m gearing up for Kelly Reichardt’s MEEK’S CUTOFF this spring, and in preparation, sought out a film of hers I’d not yet seen, the 2008 release WENDY AND LUCY. It’s such a simple and effective piece, beautifully rendered visually. It’s also driven significantly by sound. Dialogue operates here mostly at the level of basic function (“Where’s the nearest garage?” “I lost my dog.” “How much will that cost?”), allowing the sound design of trains and traffic to enhance the tension in quiet dramatic turning points of epiphany or realization, as Wendy’s situation worsens. As the film basically asks us to linger with the protagonist moment to moment, replicating the feeling of real time, it reminded me of another young-woman-in-trouble-in-slow-motion-film, A SINGLE GIRL (Benoit Jacques, 1995).

ANOTHER YEAR

Annie and Lisa — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 21:52:54 +0000

Mike Leigh’s ANOTHER YEAR is, simply put, generous and amazing. It’s lovely. It’s heartbreaking. It’s been called his best film, and I’m not sure I disagree. Structured around the seasons, stitched together by repetition – scenes of two primary characters, a long-time married couple gardening in a huge community garden – Leigh essentially looks at time as it stretches across very different lives within one small group of friends: those lives that are beautifully stable, and those that are definitively … not.

BLACK RODEO – bucking broncos with the Queen of Soul

Annie and Lisa — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 21:01:00 +0000

Last night we sat down around the boob tube to watch the recently-released documentary BLACK RODEO. (What can we now call our flat screens to disparage them and our mildly comatose activity staring at them? The Bean Screen? It just doesn’t have the same ring.) BLACK RODEO is a 1972 doc on an all-black rodeo in NYC – it delves into the history of black involvement in building the ranch-laden West, and boasts some amazing footage of cowboys gone crazy on bulls gone wild, all to an amazing soundtrack of James Brown and Aretha Franklin. It’s not your typical red neck “That is one rank bull!” commentary … it’s bucking broncos with the Queen of Soul! Now that’s awesome.

SOUND OF MY VOICE at SXSW

Annie and Lisa — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 20:17:02 +0000

One of the best films I saw at SXSW this year was SOUND OF MY VOICE, a lean, disturbing micro-thrill of a film that features strong relationships as well as a strong genre bend. The film debuted at Sundance 2011’s NEXT series and the director, Zal Batmanglij, co-wrote the screenplay with his enigmatic star Brit Marling. An actress with no formal training, Marling dominates the screen in this small vehicle, which makes the other performances less compelling (this is due mostly to a brief bout of clichéd writing).