1-20 of 35 items « Prev | Next »
Sundance Review: Joe Swanberg’s ‘Digging For Fire’ With Jake Johnson, Rosemarie DeWitt, Alison Brie, Sam Rockwell & More
31 minutes ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
Let’s get it out of the way immediately: Joe Swanberg’s “Digging For Fire” is being called an indier, small-scale “Eyes Wide Shut.” And while the prolific filmmaker’s latest is also about the anxieties of marriage, and is dedicated to the memory of relationship-curious filmmaker Paul Mazursky (“An Unmarried Woman,” “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice”), the funny/sad “Digging For Fire” finds Swanberg using different approaches to track some similar ideas. Set in Southern California, married couple Tim (Jake Johnson) and Lee (Rosemarie DeWitt) are two East L.A.-side dwellers, who decide to house-sit for one of Lee's yoga client’s, using the empty modern house in the Hollywood hills as an excuse for a weekend retreat, bringing their three-year-old son in tow (played by Jude Swanberg, stealing just as many scenes as he did in his father's previous film, “Happy Christmas”). As a yoga instructor, Lee is »
- Rodrigo Perez
Watch: 'The Nightly Show' Aims at 'American Sniper' Debate with War Veteran, Critic & Comedy Guests
38 minutes ago | Indiewire | See recent Indiewire news »
"American Sniper" is igniting more public discussion than any other 2014 film. Clint Eastwood's Iraq war drama has soared past financial expectations, with more than $200 million in the bank after only two weeks in wide release, and other than a brief (and silly) hangup regarding the fake baby used in one scene, the national debate has been a rather intense discussion over the film's merit. Is it pro- or anti-war? Is it a film made from an authentic veteran's perspective or one manipulating that perspective to tell a Hollywood-ized story? And now that the film is on pace to become one of the Top 5 highest-grossing films of the year, what does it say about Americans, that this is a movie we desperately want to see? Larry Wilmore brought in some help to answer these questions and more on "The Nightly Show" last night, breaking down the issue in the below »
- Ben Travers
'The Original Black Sheep' Uncovers Ghosts in This Coming-of-Age Story
53 minutes ago | Indiewire | See recent Indiewire news »
Here's your daily dose of an indie film in progress -- at the end of the week, you'll have the chance to vote for your favorite. In the meantime: Is this a movie you’d want to see? Tell us in the comments. Tweetable Logline: A quirky, coming-of-age story about a young man who inherits the ancestral family ghost from his eccentric grandfather. Elevator Pitch: On his deathbed, Bear's grandpa tries to impart his last words on his grandson, but Bear flees his bedside out of fear and escapist instincts. Bear later regrets his actions, but it appears to be too late. That is, until Qq shows up and offers Bear an unlikely do-over in the form of an old Chinese superstition: the belief that the soul of the deceased returns home on the seventh day of mourning to say goodbye. Together, Bear and Qq set off for Grandpa’s remote cabin in the mountains, »
- Indiewire Staff
Sundance 2015, Dispatch 4: Experimenter, Station to Station and Listen to Me Marlon
59 minutes ago | Filmmaker Magazine - Blog | See recent Filmmaker Magazine news »
It’s been far too long since Michael Almereyda’s last feature, 2009’s dreamy diary film Paradise; his 2015 return with not one but two features (the Ethan Hawke-starring Cymbeline adaptation Anarchy is set for release later this year) is overdue and very welcome. Experimenter, a pared-down biopic of social psychologist Stanley Milgram, ostensibly exists to hit his career highlights, but it’s far from standard issue. As in his career (the writer said with all the authority conferred by a quickly read Wiki), the film begins with, and is dominated by, Milgram’s obedience to authority experiments. The “teacher” sits on one side of […] »
- Vadim Rizov
Watch: Superheroes Get an Indie Edge in 'Fantastic Four' Trailer
1 hour ago | Indiewire | See recent Indiewire news »
After much anticipation, the first full-length look at director Josh Trank's "Fantastic Four" reboot is finally here, and it's already apparent that the film will have a different look and feel than its 2005 predecessor. Most notably, rather than starring celebrity heavy-hitters like Jessica Alba and Chris Evans, Trank's version features a group of young, up-and-coming actors known for their indie work. Making up the super hero team is Miles Teller as Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, Kate Mara as Sue Storm/Invisible Woman, Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch, and Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm/The Thing. Teller recently starred in the Academy Award Best Picture nominee, "Whiplash," an indie favorite where his co-star, J.K. Simmons, is sweeping the awards race. Jordan rose to fame after a breakout performance in "Fruitvale Station," which debuted at Sundance in 2013. Bell is fresh off a supporting role in the South Korean hit, »
- Travis Clark
30 Films You Forgot Were Oscar Winners
1 hour ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
We've now got a little under a month until the Academy Awards ceremony, and this year's race continues to twist and turn, with "Birdman" now moving into the presumptive front-runner slot after surprise victories over "Boyhood" and "The Imitation Game" at the PGA and SAG awards. There's still everything to be played for, but any nominees should be cautious in thinking that, even if they do end up winning, their place in the history books is assured. Of course, there are some Oscar winners that we'll never forget, in part thanks to their groundbreaking nature, colorful speeches, or the sheer greatness of their movies. But others, particularly in the more technical categories, can have a tendency to fade from memory for all but the most obsessive Academy Awards-watchers, and the result is that there are more than a few movies that you'd be surprised to learn have little golden men in their trophy cabinets. »
- Oliver Lyttelton
Cinematographer Bradley Stonesifer on Shooting Bobcat Goldthwait’s Sundance Competition Doc, Call Me Lucky
1 hour ago | Filmmaker Magazine - Blog | See recent Filmmaker Magazine news »
Call Me Lucky is Bobcat Goldthwait’s documentary portrait of fellow comedian Barry Crimmins, who is not as famous as he should be for his barbed political satire — and whose outsider activism led him to dark places, as this documentary reveals. To visually capture Crimmins on and off stage, Goldthwait turned to his frequent cinematographer Bradley Stonesifer, who previously screened at Sundance with Lee Toland Krieger’s dramatic feature, The Vicious Kind. Below Stonesifer answers questions about that collaboration and doing big theatrical lighting on a shoestring budget. Call Me Lucky premieres January 27, 2015 in the Sundance Documentary Competition section […] »
- Scott Macaulay
Cinematographer Rob Givens on Shooting Sundance Premiere I’ll See You in My Dreams
1 hour ago | Filmmaker Magazine - Blog | See recent Filmmaker Magazine news »
Rob Givens reteams with The New Year director Brett Haley with I’ll See You in My Dreams, a drama starring Blythe Danner as a retired widower suddenly adjusting to the loss of her dog. The film screens in the Premieres section beginning Tuesday, January 27, and below Givens discusses his ongoing collaboration with Haley, why he chose to shoot on the Sony F55, and getting out of the way of the actors. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this […] »
- Scott Macaulay
“I Believe the Most Important Changes Will Come from Women Lifting Up Other Women”: Sarah Hack on Business and Legal Affairs
1 hour ago | Filmmaker Magazine - Blog | See recent Filmmaker Magazine news »
I’m with a small group of friends for our inaugural weekly movie night. Thinking that a club name will beget commitment, we arbitrarily choose “Zeitgeist.” It’s the first word we see, frozen on the makeshift projector screen. Zeitgeist Films is the distribution company for our opening film, the first in Laura Poitras’ post-9/11 trilogy and a 2007 Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary, My Country, My Country. For her film Citizenfour, Poitras is one of two female directors nominated for Best Documentary in the 2015 Oscar race. None have been nominated this year for Achievement in Directing. None have been […] »
- Taylor Hess
Magnolia Acquires Duplass Brothers-Produced 'Tangerine' After Acclaimed Sundance Debut
1 hour ago | Indiewire | See recent Indiewire news »
Magnolia Pictures has acquired worldwide distribution rights to the well-received Sean Baker film “Tangerine,” which just premiered in the Next section of the Sundance Film Festival. "Tangerine" stars Mya Taylor and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, two trans actresses making their feature film debuts. The official synopsis, courtesy of Magnolia, describes them as: "two working girls in search of a wayward pimp on a fateful Christmas Eve in Hollywood." Frequent Baker thespians James Ransone and Karren Karagulian also star. "Tangerine" was executive produced by the Duplass Brothers and produced by Through Films and Baker's longtime collaborators Darren Dean and Shih-Ching Tsou. The film was lensed by Radium Cheung. Baker said of the acquisition, "The 'Tangerine' team is overjoyed to find a home at Magnolia Pictures and are humbled to be a part of their roster of prestigious, bold and forward-thinking films.Audiences will have the chance to »
- David Canfield
Sundance Review: Kris Swanberg's Sweet But Slight 'Unexpected' Starring Cobie Smulders
1 hour ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
Sundance 2015 features many, many films regarding women trying to get pregnant or trying to deal with being pregnant (notably, there are no women trying not to be pregnant, unlike last year’s breakout hit “Obvious Child"). Kris Swanberg’s latest feature “Unexpected” tells the story of two unexpected pregnancies and the ways in which these women navigate their choices and futures with a baby on the way. Cobie Smulders plays Sam, a science teacher at an inner city Chicago high school. Almost instantly she discovers that she’s pregnant, and although she’s got everything she needs —a loving live-in boyfriend John (Anders Holm), and easy maternity leave because the school’s closing down— she’s still incredibly anxious and doesn’t know what to do about the pregnancy. At the same time, she discovers that her best student Jasmine (Gail Bean) is also pregnant. This upsets Sam even more, »
- Katie Walsh
Watch: Tom Hardy & Gary Oldman Face Off In The First Trailer For Thriller ‘Child 44’
2 hours ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
We're still waiting for Swedish-raised filmmaker Daniel Espinosa to make good on the promise of his 2010 thriller "Snabba Cash" (aka "Easy Money"). The movie launched the international career of Joel Kinnaman (2013’s “RoboCop”) and made Espinosa a much in-demand filmmaker for Hollywood studios —after juggling several offers, he directed “Safe,” starring Denzel Washington. But will Espinosa become of those acclaimed foreign filmmakers who devolve into the anonymous Hollywood hackwork (like, ahem, Baltasar Kormákur)? Maybe Espinosa will fare a little bit better with his upcoming film “Child 44.” Based on the first novel in author Tom Rob Smith’s trilogy featuring disgraced Mgb Agent Leo Demidov investigating a series of gruesome child murders in Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union, the movie stars Tom Hardy as Demidov and co-stars Noomi Rapace, Kinnaman, Gary Oldman and Vincent Cassel. Here's the official synopsis: A politically-charged serial killer »
- Edward Davis
'Gone Girl' (and Now Oscar Nominee) Rosamund Pike On Landing the Role of a Lifetime
2 hours ago | Indiewire | See recent Indiewire news »
[Editor's Note: This post is presented in partnership with Movies On Demand. Catch up on this year’s Awards Season contenders and past winners On Demand. Today's selection is 'Gone Girl." This interview originally ran in October.] If you were one of the many who didn't know Rosamund Pike by name last year, chances are you probably do now. As the titular "Gone Girl" in David Fincher's chilling adaptation of Gillian Flynn's hit novel (Flynn also penned the script), Pike has been everywhere promoting the film and wowing everyone who made the thriller the top film of the weekend's box office in the Us. The 35-year-old Brit made her onscreen debut as a Bond girl in 2002's "Die Another Day," and has since gone on to appear in a number of high profile films including Joe Wright's "Pride & Prejudice," "Wrath of the Titans" and the Tom Cruise vehicle "Jack Reacher." Despite all this activity, a plum leading role has evaded the »
- Nigel M Smith
The 10 Best Films Of 2006
2 hours ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
With 2015 upon us, we figured it was a good time to look back on the movies the millennium has brought us. We've dug into the archives and are re-running our Best of the 2000s pieces, from way back in 2009 when the Playlist was a little Blogspot site held together with tape and string. Each list runs down the top 10 films of each year (it's possible that, half-a-decade on, we'd put them in a different order and even change some of the movies, but we wanted to preserve the original pieces untouched as far as possible). Check out 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005 if you missed them, and today we continue with 2006. The original piece follows below, and thanks to staffers past and present who contributed. The mid-aughts were incredibly strong for movies — we dealt with 2005 yesterday, and had to expand the list it was such a good year, while 2007 (coming tomorrow) had several of »
- The Playlist Staff
Rotterdam at 44, Volume #2: Yanks in Holland, Suicidal Poets & the limits of J-Horror
2 hours ago | Filmmaker Magazine - Blog | See recent Filmmaker Magazine news »
The program of American narratives assembled in Rotterdam by Ralph McKay and Inge De Leeuw includes a smattering of world premieres and, for the first time in a while, no films making their international debuts after bows at Sundance. (The latter likely due to the first-time collision of dates between the two festivals.) There is a consistency to the loose narratives in a lot of the work. We get by turns somber and cluttered ensemble pieces with light running times, generously adorned with micro-indie actors whose faces will be familiar to the ever-shrinking flotilla of scenesters who follow such films, […] »
- Brandon Harris
Watch: Trailer For Oscar Foreign Film Nominee And Cannes Winner 'Timbuktu'
2 hours ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
The Oscars are just under a month away, and while many of the nominated films have already opened, some of the smaller – and foreign, especially – films are only now opening across the country. Case in point, the Mauritanian Best Foreign Language Film nominee “Timbuktu” is finally hitting theaters in the U.S. this week, and it has a brand new trailer. Very musical throughout, the nearly two-minute trailer showcases some of Sofian El Fani’s beautiful cinematography and does a great job of giving a taste of the unusual rhythms of Abderrahmane Sissako’s film. Set in the small titular town, the drama follows a family trying to survive while living under the thumb of Jihadists, who have banned everything from music to sports. We were quite fond of the film at Cannes – read our B+ review here – and we’re glad it’s finally getting out in the world »
- Cain Rodriguez
Sundance Review: 'Kurt Cobain: Montage Of Heck' Is An Entertaining And Moving Rock Star Portrait
3 hours ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
The medium of film is often used as a way to bring someone lost to life again. To take the traces that they left behind and stitch them together into a living thing that breathes with it’s own energy, that reanimates a spirit long gone. While introducing “Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck” at Sundance, director Brett Morgen said that he wanted to make something to give to Frances, Kurt’s daughter. A gift of knowing and seeing her father in a new way. With Frances as an executive producer on the film, the access to personal effects, family history and music rights allowed Morgen to create what is both the definitive piece of work on Cobain’s life, and the most intimate. It’s a journey deep into the psyche of the tormented genius, that is as all-encompassing and expressive of Cobain's spirit as a film could possibly be. »
- Katie Walsh
For Your Consideration: The 6 Oscar Races That Are Still Actually Exciting
3 hours ago | Indiewire | See recent Indiewire news »
As this past weekend's Screen Actors Guild Awards made crystal clear, three of the four races for acting Oscars are essentially sealed deals. Betting against Julianne Moore, Patricia Arquette and J.K. Simmons to add Oscars to the mighty award collections they already have for "Still Alice," "Boyhood" and "Whiplash," respectively is definitely not something any level-headed gambler would recommend. While that should make for a hardly suspenseful portion of the Oscar ceremony, there are still quite a few nail-biters left to keep us on our toes (and make or break our Oscar pool ballots). Here are seven in particular:Best ActorNo too long ago, Michael Keaton seemed like the man to beat in what has been the most competitive of all the acting races all season long. He's the sentimental favorite, starring in the film with the most Oscar nominations. Not to mention he won both a Golden Globe (in the »
- Peter Knegt
Cinematographer Matthias Grunsky on Shooting Andrew Bujalski’s Sundance Competition Film, Results
3 hours ago | Filmmaker Magazine - Blog | See recent Filmmaker Magazine news »
Austrian-born cinematographer Matthias Grunsky has been a steady collaborator of director Andrew Bujalski from his 2001 debut, Funny Ha Ha to the more recent Computer Chess, for which Grunsky was nominated for Best Cinematography at the Independent Spirit Awards. From grainy black-and-white to what appears to be a slicker look for their latest, Results, Grunsky has adapted his technique to Bujalski’s desire for small crews and low-key environments. Below, Grunsky discusses that process as well as the detailed testing process he undertakes on his pictures. Results premieres Tuesday, January 27 in the Dramatic Competition of the Sundance Film Festival. Filmmaker: […] »
- Scott Macaulay
New TV Spots & Images For 'Jupiter Ascending' Reveal Weird Creatures, Sci-Fi Spectacle & First Look At Terry Gilliam
3 hours ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
With the Wachowskis, you just never know who's going to show up. Will it be the filmmakers who crafted an inventive, sci-fi surprise with "The Matrix"? Or will it be the duo who let that franchise get out of hand with two bloated, unsatisfying sequels, and whose last effort was the sprawling, new age, sci-fi mess that was "Cloud Atlas"? And so, it's with some trepidation we approach "Jupiter Ascending." Certainly, getting booted out of its planned release last summer, just weeks before it was slated to open, isn't a great sign. But then again, if there is any behind-the-scenes bad buzz, thus far Warner Bros. has contained it. Anyway, with the movie coming next week, the marketing machine is finally lurching into motion with a couple of TV spots and a ridiculous amount of new photos landing online. And we have just one question: is Channing Tatum even in this movie? »
- Kevin Jagernauth
1-20 of 35 items « Prev | Next »
« Prev | Next »