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A working mom's efforts to raise cash to buy an upgraded trailer home lead her into a strange netherworld of human smuggling in Courtney Hunt's solid debut, Frozen River. No trendsetter or breakthrough, this is more than anything else a welcome chance for the fine actor Melissa Leo to finally dominate a film in a terrific and affecting lead role. Sony Pictures Classics acquired the pic at Sundance for under $1 million, spelling limited arthouse biz. Wednesday July 16, 2008 |
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In 2001, Josh Alexander, a New York stage actor and young Vassar grad, set out to write and produce a film about generation X as it struggles through prolonged adolescence and into adulthood, feeling that this was a demographic that was being under-served in the market place. With script in hand, he approached well known commercials director, Bruce van Dusen, who had directed Josh in his first television commercial for Morgan Stanley.
Thursday March 27, 2008
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The worm turns and squirms in "Frownland," an aptly named film made on the cheap in and around New York. An up-close, painfully intimate portrait of a hapless, manipulative schlub, a Loser with a capital L, the film offers for our horror and our empathy a creature whose very existence is a rebuke to the stultifying uniformity (the niceness, the neatness) of what now often passes for American independent cinema. Written and directed by Ronald Bronstein, making his feature-film debut, this is personal cinema at its most uncompromising and fierce.
Friday March 7, 2008
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Much has been written about the underserved demographic of middle-aged moviegoers starved for films that reflect life experience in their advancing years. They deserve better than "Bonneville," a bland road movie running on empty. It's depressing to see a deluxe cast wasted on such by-the-numbers material — from predictable plot to fabricated Hallmark sentiment to strenuous milking of warm-and-fuzzy laughs from the irrepressible spirit of three women whose youth is behind them. Rarely rising above pedestrian efficiency, Christopher N. Rowley's debut feature looks to get the most mileage out of cable dates.
Friday February 29, 2008
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St. Clair Bourne was a friend and colleague. I can't recall when I first met him, but it seems as though he's always been around IFP's programs and events.
Tuesday January 1, 2008
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A densely idiosyncratic, cubist-like cinematic portrait of a man who often calls to mind Bob Dylan, Todd Haynes' "I'm Not There" resembles a film a precocious grad student in musicology might make about a creative hero.
Tuesday November 20, 2007
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Ang Lee's "Lust, Caution" is first languid, then passionate, as it tells the story of a young woman who joins a political murder plot and then becomes emotionally involved with her enemy. It begins at a 1942 Mah-Jongg game in Hong Kong, when erotic undertones become clearly audible to us, and then flashes back to Shanghai, 1938, during the Japanese occupation of China. One of the rich ladies at the game table is revealed to have been a college student, and not really the wife of a wealthy (but unseen) tycoon.
Tuesday October 30, 2007
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By Roger Ebert
David Cronenberg's "Eastern Promises" opens with a throat- slashing and a young woman collapsing in blood in a drugstore, and connects these events with a descent into an underground of Russians who have immigrated to London and brought their crime family with them. Like the Corleone family, but with a less wise and more fearsome patriarch, the Vory V Zakone family of the Russian mafia operates in the shadows of legitimate business — in this case, a popular restaurant.
Thursday October 4, 2007
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John Sayles the storyteller and John Sayles the political progressive haven't always played well together, but, in the endearing musical time-piece "Honeydripper," the indie icon lets his narrative gifts take the lead and the social issues follow like a tight bass line. The result is one of Sayles' best films. The music, a mix of blues, seminal rock and newcomer Gary Clark Jr.'s performance, will be an obvious draw, as will the performances by some leading African-American actors.
Sunday September 16, 2007
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Filmmaker's annual survey of new talent.
Wednesday August 22, 2007
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As the world becomes more and more fascinated by fame and
entertainment culture I find myself fascinated with that fascination. However, Delirious is not about celebrity or show business. I chose that arena as a backdrop for a story that was intended to reflect more on our emotional culture today. I see a ferocious schizophrenia everywhere I look; a battle between those with value and those who are valueless.
Tuesday August 14, 2007
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Not so long ago, it looked like the Canadians had seduced film production away from the United States, beguiling studios and producers with sexy tax credits and friendly union agreements. But we weren't going to let our $10 billion industry get away that easily.
Wednesday July 18, 2007
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Filmmaker Jeff Sumerel wandered into a New York City theater one day to inquire about renting space. As he left, he shouted out, "Tell Theodore he's got a fan in South Carolina. If he ever wants a documentary made about him, give me a call!" Sumerel was referring to Brother Theodore, the cult monologuist who performed at the theater, and within a month he actually got that call and found himself staring at a soft-spoken Theodore Gottleib in Mt. Sinai Hospital. "There's a reason you're going to meet all of these people," Theodore told him. "Do you understand?" Sumerel replied, "No, I don't, but probably in another three or four years I will." It's been five.
Thursday July 12, 2007
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Accustomed as we are to lavish, star-studded productions like Dreamgirls, Chicago and Moulin Rouge, it's rare to hear the words "low-budget" and "musical" uttered in the same sentence. Contrary to high-priced expectations, however, Colma: The Musical is an upstart indie produced on a shoestring budget in the San Francisco Bay Area that has built a groundswell of support on the festival circuit over the last year, earning awards and prominent placement on year-end critics' lists.
Thursday July 12, 2007
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"In Between Days," the sensitive, modest, thrillingly self-assured first feature by So Yong Kim, was one of the standouts of the 2006 Sundance Film Festival - exactly the kind of thoughtful, independent work one hopes to find there and too rarely does. Its theatrical release today is an encouraging sign that there is still room, even in the midst of the summer glut, for a small, serious, unpretentious film.
Monday July 2, 2007
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Asger Leth grew up with film as a way of life. His father, Danish film giant Jørgen Leth, featured him in Life in Denmark (1971) before young Asger could even walk or talk, and he also appeared in two more of his father's documentaries, Good and Evil (1975) and Moments of Play (1986). Keen to escape his father's shadow, Leth initially considered a career as a lawyer but ultimately could not resist the lure of filmmaking. A THINKFilm release.
Sunday July 1, 2007
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"Eagle vs. Shark" is a deadpan romantic comedy about two geeky losers whose out-of-itness is clearly meant to be funnier than it is. Writer-director Taika Waititi's Oscar-nommed short, "Two Cars, One Night," world preemed at Sundance in 2004, the same year "Napoleon Dynamite" bowed there, and his first feature is aimed at the same audience, which might be expected to find the uncouthness of these vid-game whiz characters hilarious.
Friday June 15, 2007
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A week before I leave for cannes to participate in L'Atelier du Festival, the co-production market of the Cannes Film Festival, I receive an e-mail from the festival reminding me to bring my black tie; without it I will not be allowed to ascend the Red Carpet for the competition screenings. Then, as an aside - a whisper of the protocol to come - they add, "And don't wear white socks."
Monday May 28, 2007
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Alicia Van Couvering reports on the ascending independent film movement currently being dubbed "mumblecore."
Tuesday May 1, 2007
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The premiere less than three months after her tragic death at age 40 of Adrienne Shelly's Waitress is indeed bittersweet: While the film may not be world-shaking, this warm and accomplished seriocomedy shows a talent much matured since her two prior directorial features, Sudden Manhattan (1997) and I'll Take You There (1999). While aspects verge on sitcom terrain, this tale of a pregnant small-town woman caught between a bad marriage and a risky affair is mostly as funny and charming as intended.
Thursday April 26, 2007
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Known as the "horse-fucking movie," Robinson Devor's lyrical nonfiction portrait "Zoo" is, on the contrary, one of the most beautiful films of the year, let alone at Sundance.
Opens April 25
A THINKFilm release
Monday April 23, 2007
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WITH the click of a mouse, Kathy Thomson brings a face out of the darkness - the face of a young African-American woman, looking with sadness and concern out of a small screened window in a white frame house. The face belongs to the actress Kaycee Moore, a star of Charles Burnett's 1977 debut feature Killer of Sheep, and it has been hidden in shadows for almost 30 years.
Friday March 30, 2007
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Imagine a Franz Kafka story with illustrations by Frank Miller, and you're ready for "The Prisoner, or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair," a riveting account of an innocent bystander who finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, and winds up somewhere much, much worse. Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein, the same filmmaking pair responsible for the critically acclaimed "Gunner Palace," offer another stark and unsettling look at post-Saddam Iraq in a documentary that could generate impassioned responses from op-ed writers and talkshow hosts while attracting serious interest from critics and venturesome ticketbuyers.
Wednesday March 14, 2007
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NETHERBEAST INCORPORATED is a quirky twist on the vampire tale set in modern day corporate America. Employees of Berm-Tech Industries, Inc. have kept the family secret for a long time. For years it has been business as usual, until the top "vampire" in charge, contracts a dreaded disease and invites the first humans to work in the office in more than a century. Soon the new employees discover that some of their associates are not what they appear to be, especially the dead one in the cubicle with a wooden stake through his heart.
Wednesday March 14, 2007
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The biggest smash of the year in the U.K. (where it had the sixth-biggest opening of all time for a comedy), Hot Fuzz is the action-packed new comedy from the makers of the hit movie Shaun of the Dead.
Monday March 12, 2007
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AS REMEMBERED BY ALLAN NICHOLLS
On the day that Bob died I was sitting in my office in Burlington, Vermont, when - at the exact same time - a co-worker paged me, a friend e-mailed me and a staff member from Bob's office called. It was so Altman, come to think of it, with so much being said simultaneously. Each one saying something that I just couldn't process.
Wednesday February 28, 2007
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Visualizing the world of Black Snake Moan
In Black Snake Moan Christina Ricci plays Rae, a nymphomaniac wracked by vivid memories and dreams of being sexually abused during her childhood. Also in Craig Brewer's follow-up to his Sundance-hit Hustle and Flow is Samuel L. Jackson, who plays Lazarus, a God-fearing farmer who picks at his guitar, sings blues songs about sin, and, after a chance encounter, attempts to oversee Rae's salvation.
Tuesday February 27, 2007
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An opus in three parts, Iraq In Fragments offers a series of intimate, passionately-felt portraits: A fatherless 11-year-old is apprenticed to the domineering owner of a Baghdad garage; Sadr followers in two Shiite cities rally for regional elections while enforcing Islamic law at the point of a gun; a family of Kurdish farmers welcomes the US presence, which has allowed them a measure of freedom previously denied.
Friday February 16, 2007
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Thrilling, important, and invigoratingly bleak, Children of Men is one of the very best movies to come out in 2006. I think about it still, weeks after viewing, as scenes of the disintegrating near future envisioned by the prodigiously talented filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón - the year is 2027 in a ''civilized'' Great Britain barely distinguishable from ruined current-day Iraq - literally haunt my dreams. Yet, to my enduring regret, I failed to include Children of Men on my list of last year's top 10 movies.
Thursday February 15, 2007
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Anthony Kaufman checks the status of no-budget filmmaking.
With digital-video cameras, credit cards and Final Cut Pro, any aspiring director can make a movie for $100,000. But few producers can earn a living helping directors make these no-budget productions.
Tuesday February 13, 2007
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Here's how four filmmakers became distributors to get their films in front of audiences.
"Do it yourself" is a simple phrase. Filmmakers have been "doing it themselves" for years, especially when it comes to production. However, the concept of DIY distribution, often considered to be a last resort or even a sign of failure, has recently become a first choice for many filmmakers.
Monday February 12, 2007
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HD continues its journey into the mainstream.
As the transition from film to digital feature production ramps up before us, one thing is certain: HD is here. Still to be answered, however, is the dilemma: is HD there yet?
Monday February 12, 2007
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First time filmmaker Gary Tarn had to stumble in the dark for years before finding the right way to tell the story of a blind painter in Black Sun
Wednesday February 7, 2007
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Maria Maggenti finds humor within the complexities of modern sexual relationships in her romantic comedy, Puccini For Beginners.
Wednesday February 7, 2007
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2003's Interview was one of three features Dutch director Theo van Gogh hoped to remake in English when he was assassinated the next year by an Islamic extremist. His producers have gone ahead with the first of them as a tribute. Steve Buscemi's adaptation preserves the original's biting basic scenario while adding a few Americanizing tweaks to this tale of a disdainful journo's unpredictable night with the seemingly vacuous starlet he's assigned to interview.
Tuesday January 23, 2007
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