The ‘long take’, a film technique born in the middle of the 20th century, is often neglected by modern directors in favor of a more rapid-fire, MTV-inspired editing style. In fact, as the medium grows older, the average shot length (ASL) decreases; according to Swivel.com, the ASL of American films has dropped from 10.5 seconds …
All the Oscar attention he got for Little Children payed off in a big way for former child star turned toast of the town Jackie Earle Haley. Haley, who made fanboys cream their pants with his performance as Rorschach (Watchmen) and soon to star upcoming Michael Bay-led reboot of Nightmare on Elm Street (playing Freddy …
Two Lines (2008) Directed by Selim Evci At first, Selim Evci’s Two Lines seems almost as taciturn as another Turkish export, Distant (it must be a Turkish film-maker thing, for the real-life Turks I know simply love talking) and also features two main protagonists with hardly any supporting characters to speak of. It hardly feels …
London Film Festival: Lessons in Love Dear Lemon Lima, dir Suzi Yoonessi Wah Do Dem dir Sam Fleischner/Ben Chace A Thing Called Love (shorts programme) Today’s lesson is all about love: the things we we do, etc. Poor Vanessa Lemor (l’amour—get it?). All she wanted when she entered Nichols High School was to maintain the …
George A. Romero knows what scares you. He also knows what your insides look like, and since 1968’s Night of the Living Dead, he’s been putting both on display in what’s now an epic six film zombie series. The first three films in the hexalogy, widely regarded as classics of the horror genre, were released …
Enter The Void Directed by Gasper Noé Ever since the notorious Irreversible prompted the dubious honor of causing the largest walkout in Cannes history back in 2002, Gallic maverick Gasper Noé appears to have been paying the rent with a couple of music videos, an advert (appropriately enough) for condoms and a contributing entry to …
The director of gut-wrenching films such as Dancer In The Dark, chalk line experimental films about America (Dogville), and the co-founder of a movement of pure cinema known as Dogma, Lars Von Trier returns to the realm of Science Fiction with a psychological disaster film called Planet Melancholia. The title refers to an enormous planet …
At long last, the cult series Millenium may be paying a visit to the big screen. The show was one of the darkest series in both subject matter and texture to ever grace television screens. It was very stylized, with a neo-gothic colour palette. Key to the series was Lance Henriksen, who starred as Frank …
On and offscreen couple Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer will no doubt glamour True Blood fans into viewing their new project Open House, a thriller that according to Dread Central is about a young and wealthy couple hosting an open house to sell off their estate only to find that one of their guests never …
According to Comics2Film at Mania.com, director Brad Anderson (The Machinist, Session 9) is set to direct a feature based on the 128 page epic and terrifying graphic novel by Robert Tinnell and Todd Livngston, the creators of The Black Forest and The Wicked West. Brad Anderson who has become known for his work on edgy …
Paranormal Activity Directed by Oren Peli There’s nothing more terrifying than things that go bump in the night while we lay awake helpless under our bedsheets. Writer-director Oren Peli obviously recognizes this, as he expertly exploits this fear to create the genuinely frightful paranormal thriller Paranormal Activity. Adding to the fear factor, Paranormal Activity opens …
Fausta: La Teta Asustada / The Milk of Sorrow Spain, Peru, 2009 Director: Claudia Llosa Writer: Claudia Llosa Fausta is a young woman afflicted with a rare disease. The milk of Sorrow, passed on to her through her mother’s breast milk, affects the children born to women tortured and raped during Peru’s terrorist era. Frightened …
Antichrist Directed by Lars von Trier Plunging headfirst into a realm of depraved evil, leaving behind him any and all polite norms of filmmaking (mainstream, independent or otherwise), Lars von Trier has unleashed his most audacious creation to date, which has been branded everything from “misogynistic” (according the Cannes` Ecumenical Jury, who awarded it a …
Director Spike Jonze may have spent the past seven years in hiding, but this week movie audiences will find out whether Where the Wild Things Are – Jonze’s labor of love and the product of years of work – is worth the wait. Appropriately, considering Jonze’s hip reputation, the soundtrack is handled by Karen O …
House of Satisfaction 2009, USA Director: Jesse Hartman Writer: Jesse Hartman (story), Greg Takoudes (screenplay) “New York fairy tale” House of Satisfaction takes director Jesse Hartman’s real-life club and music as inspiration, setting up camp inside Mo Pitkin’s House of Satisfaction, and turning Hartman’s band Laptop into an underground legend. Content-wise, it’s unclear where fact …
Fish Tank Directed by Andrea Arnold The UK has a proud tradition of social realist cinema, pioneered by the so-called British New Wave in the mid-1960’s and the grimly dour, class conscious debuts of Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson and Lindsay Anderson. Although the contemporary British film industry primarily serves as an adjunct to the Hollywood blockbuster machine, keeping their …
Montreal orchestral rockers, Arcade Fire have officially completed the score to Richard Kelly’s latest directorial project, The Box. The band initially backed away from the project when front man Win Butler stated he was only interested in composing one or two instrumental pieces. However, according to Pitchfork, Butler has confirmed writing the entire score with …
Ramata 2008, Dakar, Gorée Directed by Léandre-Alain Baker Written by Miguel Machalski, Léandre-Alain Baker, Abasse Ndione A rare African co-production that forgoes European assistance, Ramata is a sombre tale of love, loss, and despair. Directed by Léandre-Alain Baker, and based on the novel by Abasse Ndione , the film follows a tragic aging beauty on …
According to the L.A. Times, Canadian metal band Anvil, the subject of the excellent Sacha Gervasi-directed documentary, Anvil! The Story Of Anvil, have recently shot a cameo in Michel Gondry’s The Green Hornet. Michel Gondry, who is a long time Anvil fan, included a concert scene in the film in which the metal band literally …
Dogtooth (Kynodontas) Directed by Giorgos Lanthimos Currently touring the festival circuit is a bizarre Greek film called Dogtooth, the third feature by writer, director, and producer Giorgos Lanthimos. Its plot could be likened to that of American Gothic, focusing on a family living in a large, secluded house. The parents have never allowed their two …
Romantic Comedies promise love through impossible and inspiring circumstances; the first person you kiss always seems to be your soul mate, and the person you are supposed to marry is always left at the alter when you realize who you really wanted was the casual friend who has been there all along. Modern romances seemed …
Leave the Scream Mask at home, this Halloween Sound on Sight has you covered. Before asking “Why so serious?” with a grin only Heath Ledger can really pull off and unlike the thousands of others who will try this Halloween (like last, and like the ones to come) why not browse through other films for …
The mad mind of Warren Ellis is once again to be unleashed on the big screen. According to Variety, Legendary Pictures is picking up the film rights to Gravel, the comic book series created by Warren Ellis (The Authority and Planetary) and published by Avatar Press. Gravel is sort of a hybrid between the spy/espionage …