“The Future” took my breath away. And when I say it took my breath away, I don’t mean to say I was enraptured by its profound insight into the “frailty of the human condition,” a much loathed and overused phrase. Instead of being uplifted, I was left with a lump in my throat. This is [...]
The Berlin Film Festival is not just about watching films that have already been made: it also invests in the future of cinema by nurturing new talent. The Berlinale Talent Campus, now in its 9th year, is a week-long series of events, taking place in parallel with the festival. It is intended to guide and [...]
The legendary indie film “Colin Fitz Lives!” about two bumbling security guards posted at the grave of Colin Fitz, a dead rock star with fans obsessive enough to make Justin Bieber blush will finally get a proper release. What, never heard of it? Indie film buffs certainly have. Way back in 1997 this low-budget comedy with [...]
Two attractive twentysomethings meet for the first time in a Manhattan restaurant and engage in obligatory small talk. What was intended to be a meeting between indie film director and potential star soon promises to be the beginning of a long and complex relationship that won’t end how either had planned. So begins director Brian Ackley’s micro-budget [...]
After augmenting their rules for last year’s ceremony allowing 10 movies to be nominated for the prestigious Best Picture Oscar instead of five, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has decided to continue tweaking who they’re willing to bestow their little golden statuette upon. Variety has confirmed that the Academy, after some urging [...]
Jason Rosette’s no-budget tale of desolation, desperation and loss subtly weaves together the disparate lives of a group of struggling Southwesterners in “Lost in New Mexico.” Susan (Drea Pressley), grieving and aimless after the loss of her newborn daughter, thoughtlessly seeks out a rogue animal-cloning geneticist (Dr. Alan Rice) to reverse, or subvert, the most inevitable of human events [...]
Last year Paramount scored a monster hit with “Paranormal Activity,” the Oren Peli-directed film shot for only $15,000 that eventually grossed $151 million. Can they do it again?
“I’ve liked every script I’ve ever written,” Bill Gunn told an interviewer in 1971, “I’ve hated every movie made from them.” It’s a prickly statement for a screenwriter, especially one with such a precarious reputation: fresh off two box-office failures, Gunn had already scandalized Warner Brothers with the wildly pan-sexual “Stop,” which the studio funded [...]
Most advancements in technology, notably the incredible strides digital video has made in recent years, are hailed as grand steps towards some idealized zenith of uninhibited collectivist creativity. With HD video and professional-grade editing suites readily available to the general public there’s no telling what magnificent works of art are being produced by middle-aged divorced [...]
What are the Indie Spirit Awards? No, really, what are they? What purpose do they serve? Logic would suggest that they celebrate films that exemplify the spirit of independent filmmaking. You know, like an ambitious director with loads of talent and a singular vision that all the studio big-wigs passed on who maxes out his [...]
Loco: London’s 1st Comedy Film Festival
Orlando: Does Sex Matter?
A soothing demise: Lars von Trier’s ‘Melancholia’ considered
The Power of Limits in The Five Obstructions
Surviving ‘Surviving Life’
‘The Other’ at The 2nd London Iranian Film Festival
‘Leaving’: Made in Prague
A Step Forward: New African Film in Paris
Adapting to The Skin I Live In: The Antidote to Horror
Chicken with Plums: Better on Paper
