The Box Directed by Richard Kelly Anyone expecting Donnie Darko and Southland Tales director Richard Kelly to finally dial back on his idiosyncrasies in service of a familiar conceit may be surprised to find his peculiar voice very much present in The Box, his third feature. Where initial reports suggested a fairly conventional take on …
I remember seeing a trailer for the live action Chipmunks movie, and after I picked my jaw up off the floor, I realized without a doubt that computer generated Smurfs were soon to follow. Sure enough, word came not long after that such a movie was being planned and the writers of Shrek were considering …
A Single Man Directed by Tom Ford With fashion supremo Tom Ford at the helm, the very least you’d expect from this adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s novel is a parade of gorgeous men in well-cut suits. There’s certainly enough Kennedy-era period detail here to satisfy the most ardent fan of Mad Men (along with an …
Before Cinéma l’Amour started showing hardcore porn, 40 years ago, it opened as Le Pussycat and showed exploitation films. It was a time when Montreal’s movie palaces were struggling to stay in business due to the popularity of television and the emergence of conglomerate-owned multiplex chains. To stay afloat, dozens of theatres started showing grindhouse …
Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno Directed by Serge Bromberg and Ruxandra Medrea Serge Bromberg’s much-lauded documentary, on limited UK release from today, tells the story of revered French director Henri-Georges Clouzot’s ill-fated attempt to create his cinematic opus: L’Enfer (‘Inferno’ or, more commonly, ‘Hell’). In 1964, Clouzot, working with an unlimited budget, a handpicked crew, and total …
SOS: This is your second short film. What would you say was the most difficult part of the entire process? SA: I think each film presents its own unique challenges, and like our previous short The Merciful Death of Jonas Blake, major hurdles presented themselves at each stage of production. It’s difficult to pinpoint one …
In March 2006 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences sprung one of its annual surprises by awarding the best picture Oscar to Crash, rather than Ang Lee’s acclaimed gay cowboy drama, Brokeback Mountain. At the time it looked as though racism and multiple vehicular pile-ups had trumped homosexuality in the battle of the …
As the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall approaches on November 9th, many events are planned to mark the occasion and assess the changes Germany has undergone since reunification. In such moments, artistic considerations often take a back seat, but the Goethe Institut in London, whose remit is to promote German culture, …
New Moon, as anyone frequenting any type of mass media would probably know, is the second part of the filmings of Stephanie Meyers’ Twilight Saga. This part, directed by Chris Weitz, has its release on November 20, and apparently the soundtrack sizzled as it hit the audience. The New Moon soundtrack is more expansive in …
The Men Who Stare at Goats Directed by Grant Heslov According to Jon Ronson’s book The Men Who Stare At Goats, the U.S. government has experimented with various extra-sensory ‘abilities,’ such as remote-viewing and mind control, since the 1950s. These highly classified sub-divisions of the Army were developed in the hopes of creating a different …
Undertones: Volume 7 It’s the time of the year again where folks’ minds turn to the macabre and the ghoulish; where death is celebrated rather than feared and of course, when dusty copies of horror films are taken off the shelf to terrify and amuse. So, in honor of the Halloween season it would seem …
I like to consider myself one part book nerd, the other part film geek. So nothing excites me more than when these two worlds come together. That’s why news that we’re one step closer to a film adaptation of Yann Martel’s prize-winning novel Life of Pi really “floats my boat.” Well, you’ll get that reference …
By William S. Gooch At first glance, Anthony Fabian draws a strong resemblance to Alan Cummings, so I expected him to be funny, which he was; witty, which he undoubtedly is, and a bit irreverent, which I saw shades of as well. Maybe because he’s British, I was slightly offset by his relaxed charm and …
In an unsurprising piece of news, director Kenny Ortega’s posthumous Michael Jackson documentary Michael Jackson’s This Is It had a sensational gross over the first five days of its release. The film became “…the highest-grossing concert film worldwide” in the five days since its release. The $101 million dollar worldwide gross pushed the film well …
Taking Woodstock Directed by Ang Lee I’ve never been able to sit through more than a few minutes of Michael Wadleigh’s revered documentary Woodstock. Every time it’s on TV, I hope I’m going to catch some footage of Crosby Stills and Nash or Jimi Hendrix. Invariably, what I get is a (split) screenful of hippies …
Cracks Directed by Jordan Scott The opening scene of Cracks is very Madchen in Uniform, as the innocent 1930s school girls stuck on a remote English island sing their hymns, awaiting the arrival of the figurehead: Miss G, the striking, eyeliner-wearing cool teacher, the one the girls all have a pash for, especially head girl …
A Serious Man Directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen Written by Joel and Ethan Coen 2009, USA The Coens are getting positively prolific these days, treating their hardcore fans with a movie a year, and with their latest release, A Serious Man they have taken the comedic strand of their work into uncharted waters …
The Times BFI 53rd London Film Festival announced its winners at the high profile awards ceremony held at London’s Inner Temple this evening. Hosted by journalist and broadcaster, Paul Gambaccini, the six awards were presented by some of the most respected figures in the film world. BEST FILM In recognition of original, intelligent and distinctive …
Screen Plays: How 25 Screenplays Made it to a Theatre Near You – For Better or Worse David S. Cohen, HarperCollins 2008. From the onset, Screen Plays looks like promising reading material for screenwriters and others interested in how screenplays make it from paper to screen. Cohen’s credits are respectable, and the promise of “valuable …
Some people don’t like the first Dune by David Lynch, but of course, they’re crazy. With a stunning cast like the effortless Kyle MacLachlan, badass Sting, the mysterious Jürgen Prochnow, the black-goop-dripping Kenneth McMillan, the incomparable Linda Hunt as Shadout Mapes…coupled with the as-cool-and-strange-as-it-gets-for-1984 effects, not to mention the storyline itself… come on, it rocks! …
Avatar, James Cameron’s $200 million dollar sci-fi epic and the first feature film he’s directed since Titanic, has been surrounded by much hype, anticipation, and now controversy. Sci-fi fans and film bloggers are calling into question Cameron’s ethics as discussions of plagiarism start to make the rounds on the web. Speculation started in full force …
The Informant! Directed by Steven Soderbergh You can’t keep a good executive down. After ENRON, after Lehman Brothers and the continuing fury at executive bonuses it was quite a change to see the corporate executive class as brimming with ineffective buffoons rather than coldly calculated capitalist psychopaths, in The Informant! Matt Damon stars as the …
In the past ten years MODERNCINÉ has been dedicated to making high-quality, groundbreaking and edgy horror films avoiding clichés and complacency in favor of original ideas and memorable performances. Founded by Andrew van den Houten during his college years, Andrew began producing and directing a number of award-winning short films including the 2005 multiple award …