Tag: top-stories
Ryan Koo, Jordana Spiro & Marcella Said Among Sundance’s 2014 Feature Screenwriters Lab
Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Film selected Ryan Koo, The Summer of Flying Fish director Marcela Said (right on the pic above) and...
White Reindeer | Review
Black Christmas: Clark’s Nostalgia Tinged Nightmare of Christmas Tradition
Even those unfamiliar with previous films directed by Zach Clark (Modern Love is Automatic; Vacation!) will...
Blue is the Warmest Color Adds Louis Delluc Prize to Trophy Collection
Regardless that it is predetermined not to win Oscar's Best Foreign gold, Abdellatif Kechiche's latest (no matter what title it goes by) is the...
Toad Road | DVD Review
Known for its selection of unnerving and underrated acquisitions of films that appear to exist on the unconventional fray, Artsploitation Films brings Jason Banker’s...
The Unknown Known: Andrew Sodroski’s Holland, Michigan Tops 2013 Black List
We didn't know it when docu-helmer Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line, The Unknown Known) signed up for it last July, but by the...
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug | Review
Smaug Hat: Jackson’s Second Entry Back on Track
Beyond the glaring distraction of the 48fps digital cinematography in Peter Jackson’s first installment of his bloated...
Saving Mr. Banks | Review
Sugartime: Hancock Syrupy Recount Gets the Disney Dress Up
There’s a fascinating story lurking somewhere in John Lee Hancock’s Saving Mr. Banks, but it’s relegated...
What’s In a Name? | Review
By Any Other Name: Patellerie & Delaporte’s Debut a Comfortably Forced Farce
Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patelliere’s co-directorial debut, What’s in a...
Hours | Review
Katrina and the Hours: Walker’s One Man Show a Dismal Drizzle
With his unfortunate and untimely death so recent in our memories, there is bound...
Night Train to Lisbon | Review
Ride on Time: August and Another Puerile Adaptation
It’s evident that Danish director Bille August favors helming adaptations of challenging novels, though the end result...
American Hustle | Review
Hustle Bustle: Russell Returns With Surprising Verve
Just when you thought David O. Russell’s American Hustle might bow as an attempt at an awards friendly...
Some Velvet Morning | Review
Women Are From Velvet: Labute’s Latest Chapter in Power Struggles of the Sexes
Its title recalling that late 60’s psychedelic pop song from Nancy Sinatra...
Here Comes the Devil | Review
Lock Your Souls Up: Bogliano’s Latest a Decent But Frayed Exercise
Adrian Garcia Bogliano’s tenth feature film, Here Comes the Devil finally shows the Argentinean...
No Longer Funny Games Foes; Corbet Set to Direct Tim Roth, Cosmopolis’ Binoche & Pattinson Pair in “The Childhood of a Leader”
2014 has long been shaping up to be a memorable year for the "actor" Brady Corbet. The indie veteran whose worked with major auteur...
Dada Films Sees Double with Jenee LaMarque’s The Pretty One
It wasn't the best of years for the '13 edition of the Tribeca Film Fest, but there were a couple of mention-worthy items on...
How Do You Like Them Potatoes?; Tribeca Gathers “Beneath the Harvest Sky”
Variety reports that Tribeca are unearthing one of the better U.S indie items to have played at the recent Toronto Int. Film Fest. Featuring...
Sundance 2014: Latest From Amir Bar-Lev, Alex Gibney, Steve James, Joe Berlinger & Greg Barker in Docu Premieres
2014 is turning out to be a damn fine year for docus in Park City and we're not even mentioning the Competition line-up here....
Sundance 2014: Colangelo, Shelton, Corbijn, Winterbottom, Araki & Gareth Evans Among 16 V.I.Ps
The Sundance Film Festival made their final feature film line-ups with the Premieres category announcements. Sixteen films with huge name talent, returnee filmmakers and...
S#x Acts | Review
Sextette: Gurfinkel’s Debut an Uncomfortable Sashay into Female Victimhood
Exuding enough uncomfortable finesse to be ranked as one of several cinematic explorations that appear to...
Caught In the Web | Review
Once Upon a Time, in the Digital Age…: Chen’s Latest a Message Heavy Oddity
A critique of the hounding one sidedness of the omnipresent media...
Tommy Wirkola (Dead Snow: Red vs. Dead) & Adam Wingard (The Guest) Make Return to Park City at Midnight Section
I had a hunch that Cooties (read here) and Adam Wingard's The Guest (read here) might make it into what appears to be a...
Sundance 2014: Rossi, Belzberg, Soechtig Among 16 U.S. Docu Comp Invites
Of the sixteen titles that are listed here there are at least more than half that will be talked about throughout the calendar year...
Sundance 2014: Alex Ross Perry, Michael Tully, Tim Sutton, Sydney Freeland & Mark Jackson Among Stellar Class of 11 NEXT Features
Rolling out it's fifth edition and growing beyond just Park City (Los Angeles hosted a summer event this year) the NEXT section has grown...
Sundance 2014: Cutter Hodierne, Damien Chazelle, Kat Candler & Mona Fastvold Among Lucky 16 U.S. Dramatic Comp Selections
As I had predicted here, names such as Cutter Hodierne, Kat Candler, Maya Forbes, Mona Fastvold and Damien Chazelle would be among the invited...
A Taste for Flesh; Film Movement’s Bites into Manuel Martín Cuenca’s Cannibal
Are the taste-buds at the Film Movement offices shifting? After opening up a spanking brand new, smart idea label for genre items (RAM Releasing)...
Out of the Furnace | Review
Fire Walk: Cooper’s Sophomore Effort a Somber, Fatalistic Malaise
Director Scott Cooper returns with Out of the Furnace, his first film since his Oscar winning...
Tim’s Vermeer | Review
Teller Makes Watching Jenison's Paint Dry Fun
Tim Jenison is not a painter. In fact, he lies on the opposite end of the spectrum of...
Twice Born | Review
Emulating Almodóvar: Castellitto Employs Cruz To Pull Heartstrings
The renowned Italian actor turned middling director Sergio Castellitto returns to his place on both sides of...
Leviathan Snubbed, but…The Act of Killing, Dirty Wars, Stories We Tell Among Oscar’s 15 Short List
It's been an extremely rich year for doc film and while The Academy appear to have included some of the year's most critically acclaimed...
Criterion Collection: Nashville | Blu-ray Review
Robert Altman’s Nashville resurfaces for the home video market in a nicely packaged DVD/Blu-ray combo set from Criterion. A Best Picture nominee from 1975,...
Criterion Collection: Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion | Blu-ray Review
Winner of the Best Foreign Language Film in 1970, as well as the Grand Jury and FIPRESCI Prize Winner at the Cannes Film Festival,...
General Della Rovere | Blu-ray Review
Back in 2009, the Criterion collection released Roberto Rossellini’s 1959 film General Della Rovere on DVD, which won the Golden Lion at the Venice...
La Jaula de Oro | Review
Trains of Innocence: Savage Road Story to the Land of Broken Dreams
Among the vast and redundant collection of tales dealing with illegal immigration, very...
The Act of Killing, Fruitvale Station & Inside Llewyn Davis Top 2013 Gotham Awards
While technically this was Forest Whitaker's big night (Actor Tribute plus the weight he threw behind as a producer accolades for a small San...
Hollywood Sells Californication; Tribeca Film Shows Affection for Gia Coppola’s Palo Alto
It landed in public consciousness in book form and then the film format via the perfect fall film festival trifecta of Venice, Telluride and...
OldBoy | Review
Let’s Do It Again: Lee’s Reimagining Imaginative Enough
Call it what you will, reimagining, reinterpretation, or remake, Spike Lee’s Oldboy can’t escape its describing root...
2014 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: 80 Possible Titles
The elusive "Golden Ticket". Beginning next Wednesday (December 4th) in a wave of four announcements, is when the official word comes out. Plenty of...
Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom | Review
Half Nelson: Chadwick’s Biopic Stretched Thin
An attempt to cover fifty years in the life of South African President Nelson Mandela in the time span...
Interview: Shaul Schwarz (Narco Cultura)
Shaul Schwarz comes from a different ilk of filmmaker than your standard shooter of vérité imagery and sit down interviews. He made his name...
Philomena | Review
Catholic Kisses: Frears’ Returns with a Loveable Crowd Pleaser
Just when you thought that Stephen Frears’ latest film, Philomena, would be yet another questionable exercise...
2014 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Kelly Reichardt’s Night Moves
And for the final Sundance Film Festival prediction on the 80-list, I'm selecting a film that might have premiered at both Venice and Toronto,...
2014 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Robinson Devor’s You Can’t Win
A return visitor at the festival for all three of his feature films The Woman Chaser (2000), Police Beat (2005) and Zoo (2007), I'm...
2014 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Ryan Piers Williams’ X/Y
He broke into the Sundance Film Fest U.S. Dramatic Comp back in 2010 with The Dry Land, and not surprisingly, shooting on his sophomore...
2014 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Zac Braff’s Wish I Was Here
He received unnecessary flack for his Kickstarter campaign, and while Garden State isn't my cup of kool-aid, the 2004 dramedy which premiered at Sundance...
2014 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Lawrence Michael Levine’s Wild Canaries
He managed to put together the Indie actress all-star team of Sophia Takal, Amy Seimetz, Kate Lyn Sheil and Lena Dunham (forgive the pun)...
2014 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash
If Whiplash breaks into the line-up, I believe we're in for a treat. It'll have meant that Damien Chazelle, who broke out with 2009's Guy...
2014 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Adam Rapp’s Why Now?!
Don't let the lack of theatrical output foul you. Adam Rapp is a man of many hats, alternating between novelist, playwright, television, guitarist, actor...
2014 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Gregg Araki’s White Bird in a Blizzard
The Living End (1992). Totally F***ed Up (1993). The Doom Generation (1995). Nowhere (1997). Splendor (1999). Mysterious Skin (2005). Smiley Face (2007). Kaboom (2011)....
2014 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Mark Jackson’s War Story
His brilliant feature debut Without, broke out in Park City....but at the neighboring, competing fest. From Slamdance onwards (BFI London, Deauville, Chicago, Locarno Film...
2014 Sundance Film Festival Predictions: Laura Poitras’ Untitled Surveillance Documentary
Traction and the kernel of the idea on this third, and final installment technically began when the filmmaker herself became a "subject" to domestic...
