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Activism and Terrorism Collide in If a Tree Falls
With the Oscar-nominated documentary If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, co-directors Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman turned their camera on an issue that is at once historical and current: The Earth Liberation Front (ELF), a '90s environmental activist group made up of once-peaceful protestors who took to committing acts of arson after the non-violent demonstrations they had been participating in were ignored by the government and often met with brutality by the police. Though the film resonates with the protest movements that have sprung up since its release, Curry didn't make the film with any particular agenda—environment, political or otherwise—in mind. Instead, he was intrigued by the story of Daniel McGowan, a former ELF member facing life in prison for his acts of what the government considers terrorism.
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Bringing Together Comedy, Politics and Economic Meltdown in Gnarr
In case you haven't heard, the economy hasn't been doing that well for the past few years. No country has felt the economic crisis so keenly as Iceland, where the collapse of a once-soaring economy left citizens feeling betrayed by their politicians. Against this backdrop rose an unlikely political hero: Jón Gnarr, the comedian who ran for mayor of Reykjavík as a joke… and won. His campaign—in which he promised to build a Disneyland in the city and refused to talk to his opponents if they hadn't watched "The Wire"—was filmed, from start to finish, by Gaukur Úlfarsson for his feature documentary Gnarr.
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Into the Sunset: Cinema’s Greatest Swan Songs
There’s a circular pattern to the careers of many directors: Their early films tend toward rough experiments. Then they mature and develop their own distinct artistic voice. Finally, secure in their success, they drive off into the sunset of their career, all too often trading in the fame they had at their peak for something more like the obscurity they started with. The decline of a director’s work at the end of their career is an all-too-common trend, but it's one that Hungarian director Bèla Tarr, with his final film The Turin Horse, has managed to avoid. With The Turin Horse coming out on Friday, we're taking a look at three other directors who refused to leave their legacy poorly wrapped.
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Don’t Go in There! Cinema’s Scariest Haunted House Movies
Creaky floorboards. Rattling window shutters. Creepy noises in the attic. What could be scarier than a lonely old house on a dark and stormy night? The haunted house subgenre has been around for a long time and has proven to be endlessly fascinating to moviemakers and audiences alike. With the two newest entries in this enduring subgenre—The Woman in Black and The Innkeepers—hitting theaters today, MM is taking a look back at some of the scariest haunted house movies of all time.
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The Challenges (and Rewards) of Big Miracle
Director Ken Kwapis: "It was brutal, but I loved every minute of it."
Let's not beat around the bush: Directing a movie with ten major characters sounds pretty tough. Directing a movie with ten major characters, a bunch of non-professional actors and three massive animatronic whales that can only be reached for repairs by diving into some pretty chilly water? Even tougher. Shooting in Alaska, where one of the only weather conditions that stays consistent from day to day is the freezing cold? Was Big Miracle director Ken Kwapis nuts?!
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Haskell Wexler: The Last Indie Rebel
As the director’s cut of Latino is released, the Oscar-winning moviemaker/social philosopher looks back on his long career
Haskell Wexler is simply one of our greatest living cinematographers. He’s in a class by himself as much for his fearless sense of justice as for his groundbreaking technical innovations, but it’s his lifelong commitment to putting his lens where his mouth is—as with his second film as a writer-director, 1985's stunning Latino—that makes Wexler such a unique source of inspiration to so many moviemakers.
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The World's Weirdest Shakespeare Adaptations
Featuring Lions, Fry Cooks and Robot Butlers
In Coriolanus, out in theaters tomorrow, director and star Ralph Fiennes brings to the screen one of Shakespeare's least-adapted plays. Replete as it is with guns, tanks and army fatigues, Fiennes' directorial debut is a decidedly modern take on a story that was originally set in pre-Imperial Rome. Still, even with all its modern accoutrements, Coriolanus is actually fairly traditional adaptation of the Bard's work... at least compared to some of the more off-the-wall approaches that other directors have taken in years past.
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Exploring the Mystery of Creativity with Old School New School
My documentary Old School New School explores the nature of creativity, all within the context of storytelling through various crafts, including acting, cinematography, music, theater, dance and poetry. The film is an extension of many conversations I’ve had over the years with my artist friends. We’d meet in a café to talk about life, art and philosophy. They were stimulating discussions that ultimately segued to the obligatory question all serious artists eventually examine: How can we, as creative people, grow in the direction we want to grow?
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The Artist, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Lead 2012 BAFTA Award Nominations
Though Tomas Alfredson's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy has been notably absent from much of the awards season hoopla, the spy drama's dry spell may now be over. Its 11 nominations in this year's British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Awards, announced today, place it on the top of the heap; the only film to receive more nominations is The Artist, with 12. Martin Scorsese's Hugo also cleaned up with nominations in 11 categories, including Best Director.
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Ed Burns Is Forever Indie
Edward Burns is no stranger to the world of indie film. He launched his career with the $25,000 The Brothers McMullen at the Sundance Film Festival back in 1995, during the dark, pre-digital days of 16mm cameras and now-foreign concepts like optical houses and film prints. In 2010, after seven larger-budget features as a writer-director, Burns returned to the low-budget arena with Nice Guy Johnny. He bypassed traditional distribution methods by releasing the film himself, first with a short festival tour and then with a simultaneous day-and-date rollout on VOD, DVD and Pay-Per-View. Now Burns is taking this new model even further with Newlyweds, which he produced for a staggering $9,000 sum.
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The Artist Comes Out on Top at the Golden Globes
At last night's Golden Globes, it was Oscar frontrunner The Artist that came out on top, winning three awards, including Best Picture—Comedy or Musical. Still, it's probably best to keep the film's name written in pencil on your Oscar ballot for now; though it was one of only two films to win multiple awards, the winner in the Best Picture—Drama category (this year, The Descendants) historically has a better chance at victory come Oscar night. Additionally, The Artist missed out in both the Best Screenplay and Best Director categories, in which Midnight in Paris and Hugo, respectively, walked away with the gold.
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Martin Scorsese and Steve James Pick up Nominations for the 2012 DGA Awards
Three days after receiving a Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award nomination for Hugo, Martin Scorsese has picked up another nomination from the guild, courtesy of his documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World. Scorsese's competition in the Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary category consists notably of Steve James for The Interrupters. James' Hoop Dreams was famously snubbed by the Academy in 1995; this year, The Interrupters, despite receiving near-universal critical acclaim, was not included on the Academy's shortlist for Best Documentary nominees.
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The Ins and Outs of How to Sell a Banksy
When Christopher Thompson came across a work of art by Banksy—the infamous, anonymous street artist whose work sells for hundreds of thousands of dollars—he saw his acquisition as a twofold opportunity. First, there was a potentially huge amount of money to be made in selling the piece. Second, the effort it would take to find a buyer—getting it restored, authenticated and evaluated, all of which would require gate crashing the business world that's sprung up around the counterculture icon—would make for an interesting documentary. Four years later, co-directors Thompson and Alper Cagatay's debut film, How to Sell a Banksy, is finally complete.
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Mark Friedberg Designs The Tempest
Mark Friedberg has served as production designer on some of the most visually striking films to come out in recent years, among them Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and Julie Taymor's Beatles-infused musical Across the Universe. With his recent work on Taymor's The Tempest, Friedberg faced the challenge of rendering the magical island that serves as the locale for Shakespeare's strangest play using natural settings and locations. To celebrate the recent home video release of The Tempest, MM spoke with Friedberg about working with Taymor and creating a magical setting from a barren landscape.
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Five most anticipated films of Hollywood's worst month
Since the early 1990s, as the late season award contenders still linger in most cinemas, awaiting a surge in audiences as their prizes accumulate, a mid-winter onslaught of goofy genre fair begins to appear in cinemas the weekend after New Year's Day. The next couple of months generally become a veritable dumping ground for all sorts of sub-par studio projects, from would-be prestige films that just don't fit in the award season paradigm to other assorted misfits within the corporate conglomerates' tight-fisted slates.
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Directors Guild of America Announces Award Nominees
Scorsese, Hazanavicius and Fincher feel the love; Spielberg and Malick are out in the cold
The Directors Guild of America (DGA) has announced its five nominees for the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film, sending Oscar prognosticators into a tizzy as they attempt to determine what effect the DGA nominations will have on the Oscar chances for both the films that received nominations and those that did not.
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Alex Stapleton Pays Tribute to a Hollywood Rebel
Considering her status as a first-time moviemaker, Alex Stapleton’s choice of subject matter for her debut film couldn’t be more apt. With her documentary Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel, Stapleton has constructed a tribute to the consistently revolutionary producer/director/writer Roger Corman, a man known for not only his influential body of film, but also for the importance he placed on supporting young, up-and-coming talent. The list of film icons who started their careers working with Corman is a long and impressive one that includes names like Scorsese, Coppola, Bogdanovich and Nicholson. Stapleton interviewed these moviemakers and more to make Corman’s World, which explores the impact of the legendary moviemaker and his cult film empire.
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Who’s Got Spirit?
2012 Independent Spirit Award nominees announced; The Artist and Take Shelter lead the pack with five each
With the Gotham Awards having taken place last night, awards season is now in full swing, and will stay that way until the Oscars air this February. For those who prefer their awards ceremonies a bit more laid-back than the evening gown- and tuxedo-filled affair that comes to the Kodak Theater annually, there's the Film Independent Spirit Awards, which honors the best in independent moviemaking. The 27th annual Spirit Awards ceremony, which will be held in a tent on the beach in Santa Monica, California, doesn't take place until February 25th—but luckily for those of you who can't get enough awards season coverage, the nominees were announced today.
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Borderline Normal
Sean Durkin, Antonio Campos and Josh Mond do “indie” on their own terms
At first, it’s a film that feels familiar. Late-twentysomething guys in tank tops and jeans work the grounds of a rural farmhouse while their women, completing their own domestic tasks, look on. A dirty, blissfully oblivious toddler plays in an unkempt yard that leads to a roughshod shed. John Hawkes shows up, languid yet commanding, setting this scene of a 21st-century paradise on the edge of calamity.
Strip off the opening credits and, for the first five minutes, Martha Marcy May Marlene plays like a Winter’s Bone retread. But any sense of been-here, seen-that familiarity is wrenched away as a determined young woman-on-the-edge flees the farmhouse for the mysterious world that lies beyond the surrounding forest. With this, the film becomes a study in unrelenting paranoia, the kind perfected by Roman Polanski in films like Repulsion, as we follow the titular Marcy May née Martha née Marcy May (and sometimes Marlene) during the first two weeks of her life after escaping a violent cult.
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From Wallace and Gromit to "Shaun the Sheep": The Best of Aardman Animations
Arthur Christmas, out in theaters tomorrow, is the latest offering from Aardman Animations, whom most know better for their work with Claymation. Wallace and Gromit? "Shaun the Sheep"? Chicken Run? Aardman. Arthur Christmas is only the second full-length non-Claymation project Aardman has ever done, the first being the somewhat underwhelming Flushed Away. Between Arthur Christmas and the recent release of the trailer for Aardman's next project, The Pirates! Band of Misfits (currently in production), we thought it a good time to take a look back at merely a few of the contributions Aardman has made to the cinema landscape over the years.
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Kid’s Movies. Adult Directors.
Jack. Popeye. The Last Airbender. When a director of serious adult fare decides to helm a kids flick, let’s just say it doesn't always end well. But with Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, based on Brian Selznick’s Caldecott Award-winning YA novel The Invention of of Hugo Cabret, coming to theaters this Wednesday, we at MM decided we’d rather focus on the positive. To that end, we present the three best kids movies directed by more “adult” directors. Disagree with our choices? Let us know in the comments.
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Joshua Leonard Tells The Lie
A commercially successful screenwriter friend of mine recently attended a showing of my film, The Lie. Afterwards, as folks were milling about and drinking the booze that I was hoping wouldn’t run out, he approached me and began a wistful ramble that I often hear from well-paid acquaintances. Something like, “It’s so fantastic how you guys keep it real with your work, man.” Or worse yet, “You know what’s great about you guys? You manage to make cool things for no money.”
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Sam Levinson Brings Another Happy Day to Life
In the darkly comic filim Another Happy Day, hitting theaters this Friday, Ellen Barkin plays Lynn, a high-strung woman whose interactions with her family at her estranged eldest son's wedding make it pretty clear to the audience why family reunions aren't something this clan does often. The exceedingly high caliber of Another Happy Day's cast (which includes Barkin, Ellen Burstyn, Demi Moore, George Kennedy, and Ezra Miller), combined with the fact that it won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award when it debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January, makes it even more amazing the film is writer/director Sam Levinson's first. But as charmed as Levinson's life as a moviemaker may seem at first, making Another Happy Day was no easy task. Levinson took the time to chat with MovieMaker about his debut film and how he "wake[s] up every day and thank[s] Sundance for their film festival."
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Kevin Spacey and Jameson Irish Whiskey Join Forces for Jameson First Shot
“If you’re doing well, send the elevator back down,” legendary actor Jack Lemmon once told Kevin Spacey, one of the most acclaimed actors of our day. These words served as an inspiration behind the partnering of Spacey's Trigger Street Productions with Jameson Irish Whiskey to create the visionary Jameson First Shot short film competition, which is designed to discover talented screenwriters and directors from the United States, Russia and South Africa. The winning artist from each of the three countries will have their script made into a short film. But here's the kicker: Each of the three shorts will be produced by Trigger Street Productions and will star two-time Oscar winner Spacey himself.
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Annemarie Jacir Learns from the Best
“I don’t like to label myself as a ‘female’ director, but just a director,” says Annemarie Jacir, and yet the award-winning moviemaker intimately understands the particular difficulties of women in cinema today. Banned from her native country of Palestine, Jacir sees the world of independent film as an important place of dialogue for female directors. Through the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, which pairs emerging artists with experts in their field for a year-long, one-on-one mentorship, Jacir had the opportunity to study under acclaimed Chinese director Zhang Yimou (Raise the Red Lantern, Hero). Under his tutelage, Jacir began her newest feature film, When I Saw You. Jacir took the time to talk with MovieMaker about the state of female directors in the film industry, her goal in making When I Saw You and the number one lesson she learned from working with Zhang.
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Lessons From the Jungle
Director Lavinia Currier shares lessons learned from shooting her film Oka! in the remote jungles of the Central African Republic
Director Lavinia Currier’s (Passion in the Desert) film Oka! is based on the unpublished memoir of ethnomusicologist Louis Sarno, a New Jersey native who has lived with the Bayaka pygmies in the southwestern part of the Central African Republic (CAR) for more than 25 years as a welcome member of their community. Currier shot most of the film in the remote jungles of CAR with a cast comprised primarily of members of the Bayaka tribe. Here, Currier describes the most important lessons she will take away from this extreme and profound experience.
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Tarsem Singh Draws from the Classics (Literally) with Immortals
Tarsem Singh is on a roll. With his new film Immortals soon coming out in theaters across the globe and Mirror Mirror—his highly anticipated take on the story of Snow White—making its way through post, the director is picking up the pace. No more the promising, often brilliant visual stylist who comes out with a rare movie gem (The Cell, The Fall) every few years, Singh has set his sights on becoming a more constant force in moviemaking, and he certainly has the potential to become one to be reckoned with. Singh recently chatted with MovieMaker about how he constructs the always-striking visuals of his films and the somewhat unlikely inspiration for the overall look of Immortals, in theaters this Friday.
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Daron Ker on Biker Bars, Baseball and Cambodian Heritage
Our past informs our present and our future. For moviemaker Daron Ker, his past as a Cambodian refugee has informed his career as a director of documentaries. In Rice Field of Dreams, Ker follows a refugee’s return to Cambodia to start the nation’s first baseball team, while his I Ride tells the very different story of The Fryed Brothers Band, famous among American bikers. Ker, who is now in pre-production on his film Holiday in Cambodia, about a Cambodian deported from the U.S., spoke with MovieMaker about the pride he feels in his Cambodian heritage, the inspiration for his films and his first foray into narrative moviemaking.
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Oddfellas: Cinema’s Quirkiest Heist Teams
What’s the key to pulling off a successful heist? Having a competent and quick-witted team, for starters. But, as many heist movies have proved, it’s not as easy as it looks. In Brett Ratner’s Tower Heist, in theaters today, Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy lead a group of hard-working guys (among them Casey Affleck, Matthew Broderick and Michael Peña) who discover they’ve fallen victim to a Wall Street billionaire’s Ponzi scheme and, as a result, conspire to rob his high-rise penthouse. But before you check out Tower Heist, join MM as we take a look at some of the quirkiest heist teams in recent movie history.
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Nick Hamm Talks Killing Bono
Directors are constantly looking for original areas in which to work; we are always searching for the unique and different. Every story has its challenges, and even though Neil McCormick’s had more than most, it was so original I couldn’t resist. Killing Bono isn't your run-of-the-mill biopic charting the rise to stardom of a now very famous band. It is a story of failure. A tale of how hubris and jealousy can both motivate and destroy. Our hero—or anti-hero, in this case—is an everyman whose story asks the audience to reflect upon the question of who among us, at one point in our lives, has not stood in front of the mirror and dreamed of stardom? Most of us give up on the idea very quickly; we either recognize that we posses no discernible talent, or we don't have the stomach for the fight. Lack of talent or belief did not affect Neil McCormick. He pursued his dream regardless, and he failed—but he failed gloriously.
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Aaron Yeger Discovers A People Uncounted
In his feature directorial debut A People Uncounted, directed Aaron Yeger sheds light on the story of the Roma, commonly referred to as Gypsies. While the Roma have to a large extent been romanticized in popular culture, the real-life intolerance and persecution, both past and present, inflicted upon them has been largely ignored. With his documentary, Yeger explores the rich culture of the Roma, linking their present state to the tragedies of their past, notable among them the murder of an estimated 500,000 of the Roma during the Holocaust.
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On The Double
Michael Brandt and Derek Haas continue their longtime collaboration
2 Fast 2 Furious. Catch That Kid. 3:10 to Yuma. Wanted.
Michael Brandt and Derek Haas are no strangers to what audiences want when it comes to action-packged moviemaking. But the longtime writing partners, who met as students at Baylor University, aren't content to keep things get too comfortable in their collaboration. For their latest co-venture, the duo decided to shake things up as Brandt stepped into the director's chair and Haas took on the role of producer for The Double, a spy tale starring Richard Gere and Topher Grace.
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Mixing Yuks with Yucks: The Best Horror Comedies of the Past 30 Years
What is it about the combination of horror and comedy that’s so irresistibly entertaining? Mixing macabre humor with bountiful bloodshed has lead to some horror-comedy classics over the years. One of the earliest, 1948’s Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, proved that comedy and scares could be achieved in equal measure. And the sub-genre has continued to prove endlessly entertaining today—already this year we’ve gotten such treats as Tucker & Dale vs. Evil and the Fright Night remake, both of which provide an unsettling but satisfying blend of yucks and yuks. With Halloween just around the corner, MM thought it a perfect time to take a look back at some of the most spooktacular horror comedies of the last 30 years.
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Jennifer Fox Turns to Crowdfunding for My Reincarnation
When moviemaker Jennifer Fox (“Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman”) completed her latest project—the documentary My Reincarnation, about a Tibetan Buddhism Master and his Western-born son—a last-minute funding emergency left her with a dilemma not many moviemakers face: Though her film was already finished and had even begun screening at festivals, she had no money to pay off the debt the film had accumulated or arrange for its theatrical distribution. To raise the necessary completion funds, Fox turned to crowdfunding and ended up exceeding her $50,000 goal by over 300 percent. MovieMaker had a chance to chat with Fox about My Reincarnation and her crowdfunding experience in advance of the film's theatrical release on October 28th.
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Gotham Independent Film Awards Nominations Ring in the (Awards) Season
Martha Marcy May Marlene and The Descendants lead with three nominations each
Strap on your boots, moviemakers… award season's back in town. Nominations for the 21st Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards, the first major awards ceremony of the 2011 season, were announced today; The Descendants and Martha Marcy May Marlene lead the pack with three nominations each, while Beginners and Take Shelter each received two.
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