Telluride film festival

Birdman is highly reminiscent of Noises Off, a play by Michael Frayn, about the insanity of actors as they weave in and out of doing scenes live in front of an audience on-stage. The unpredictable actor Mike Shiner (Edward Norton) throws Riggan Thomson’s life even more into chaos by his refusal to bend to his wishes. Emma Stone plays Sam, Riggan’s recovering addict daughter who has long been put on the back-burner by her dad. Stone and Norton’s challenging forces irritate but eventually bring Riggan face to face with some hard truths about himself.

Telluride 2011, Day 4 Tilda Swinton is the ideal Telluride guest. She’s just famous enough to provide the fest with a bit of an exclusive sheen, but she has more than enough credibility as an artist to suit the fest’s reputation of catering to people who are serious about film. At the public tribute and …

Telluride 2011, Day 3 After being a no-show yesterday, Wim Wenders graciously made up for his trespass by coming in at 7am for the regularly scheduled student meetup in order to give the Q&A he was originally on the books for. I had a question about Pina‘s ediitng which was to open with an admission …

Telluride 2011, Day 2 The most perilous and difficult aspect of attending Telluride – whether you’re a passholder, a guest, a sponsor, or a ticketholder – is going to the bathroom. Really. Because the great majority of the fest’s venues are assembled specifically for the event, some of its facilities are ill-equipped to deal with …

Telluride Film Festival 2011, Day 1 The first day of the festival proper also means the first round of Symposium speakers have arrived, and two of them are program fixtures. The first is documentarian Ken Burns, who’s spoken to the Symposium students every year since the second edition; the second is theater director / arts …

Telluride 2011, Day 0 (Anyone hoping for reviews should check back around this time tomorrow in the next entry. The fest proper starts tomorrow.) Here’s hoping the adventuring is over. The trip up to Telluride included a bonus trip through US customs, a canceled flight, a night spent in Cortez at a deeply Coens-y motel, …

For the last couple of years, September has, along with the beginning of the school year, meant one thing: the Toronto International Film Fest has again reared its head. This year, though, things turned out differently. Way back in April, I applied to be one of fifty students admitted to the Telluride Film Festival’s Student …