Clik here to view.
Nastassja Kinski: From the Heart
As a former model and the daughter of a well-known actor, Nastassja Kinski entered the business with a background that might meet with skepticism. How does an actress already under the dual burden of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ten Really Good Things in Film Biz 2014
Ted Hope is an influential figure in the film community who has served as inspiration and mentor to countless filmmakers. In 1990, Hope co-founded production and sales powerhouse Good Machine with...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Festivals: Doclisboa 2014
“That arid wisdom that holds there is nothing new under the sun, because all the pieces in the meaningless game have been played, and all the great thoughts have already been thought. That is the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fassbinder Diary #3: Querelle
Fassbinder died either on the evening of June 9 or the early morning of June 10 in 1982, just three weeks into the editing of Querelle. As has been well-documented elsewhere, his prodigious filmic...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Deep Focus: Unbroken
From the opening shot of Unbroken—a gorgeous view of B-24 “Liberator” bombers flying in blue sky and dawn-tinged clouds—director Angelina Jolie and her ace cinematographer, Roger Deakins, prepare the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bombast: George Armitage
When Charles Willeford died, aged 69, in the spring of 1988, he’d been publishing fiction for 35 years. He’d only begun to be handsomely remunerated for his work in the final months of his life, an...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Film of the Week: A Most Violent Year
The first thing that impressed me in A Most Violent Year, written and directed by J.C. Chandor, was the overcoats worn by Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain—pale, bulky, very sumptuous. Very significant...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Review: The Dying of the Light
To put it in Scorsesean terms, Paul Schrader’s The Dying of the Light was supposed to be “one for them”: a commercially minded spec script that Schrader put on the market in 2009 with the intention of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Making Film: Behind the Scenes with Beckett
He scurries through the rubble, a furtive man in shabby clothes. Afraid of being seen, he hides from the camera following him, pushing aside aghast pedestrians and stumbling over construction detritus...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Interview: Serge Bozon
Starring Isabelle Huppert and Sandrine Kiberlain as investigating judges looking into the murder of a police informer in a predominantly Algerian-French suburb of Lille, Serge Bozon’s Tip Top may be...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Interview: Sergei Loznitsa
Sergei Loznitsa’s Maidan had its world premiere last May in a special screening at Cannes, where it could be easily missed amidst the usual ballyhoo surrounding the main Competition. Yet Loznitsa’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Festivals: Migrating Forms
The Migrating Forms festival of film and video is a cinephilic matchmaker, joining the hands of art-gallery devotees and repertory cinema denizens in moving-image harmony. Whether it’s gallery...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Deep Focus: Top Five
Chris Rock finds his crackling identity as a moviemaker in his third film, Top Five, the way he found his incendiary personality as a standup in his 1996 HBO special, Feel the Pain. Whippet thin and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Films of the Week: Maidan and We Are the Giant
We Are the Giant It may not be strictly true to say that history is happening faster than ever. But today—thanks to electronic media in general, and social media in particular—we can certainly see and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Interview: Park Jung-bum
With one of the highest suicide rates in the developed world, death permeates the lives of the poor in South Korea. Park Jung-bum's breakthrough debut The Journals of Musan (10), which follows a North...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Best Unreleased Films of 2014
1. The Wonders Alice Rohrwacher, Italy 2. Hill of Freedom Hong Sang-soo, South Korea 3. Pasolini Abel Ferrara, U.S. 4. The Iron Ministry J.P. Sniadecki, U.S. 5. From What Is Before Lav Diaz,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Best Films of 2014
A note on the poll’s workings: over 100 North American colleagues ranked their favorites in two categories: 1) those that received theatrical runs and 2) those viewed this year but currently with no...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Interview: Mike Binder
The first time Kevin Costner opens his mouth in Mike Binder’s Black or White, viewers are likely in for a surprise. The man whose genial California drawl once charmed Susan Sarandon and Eighties...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Interview: Matt Reeves
The wittiest line in Birdman is a quote from Roland Barthes: “The cultural work done in the past by gods and epic sagas is now done by laundry-detergent commercials and comic-strip characters.” Few...
View Article