The New York Times has a piece on the statistical quest for a sure thing box office hit. Meanwhile, The AV Club pans Netflix’s original series, very much grounded in algorithms, Hemlock Grove: “The genius of Netflix’s computer-programmed, demographic targeting approach to TV is that it doesn’t need to create amazing, or challenging, or even [...]
“Room 237 is like an act of revenge from a filmmaker upon the critics,” writes Robert Greene in his review. And The Verge’s Adi Robinson interviews Room 237 director Rodney Ascher on The Shining, interpretation and conspiracy theories. “[Room 237 is] about what happens when the movie leaves the filmmaker’s hands, and the audience is [...]
I’ve been spending a portion of my wee small hours (normally spent standing under a solitary street lamp on a lonely street, staring in melancholy reverie at my cigarette) revisiting old horror films. As a budding cult film obsessive, I cut my teeth on the horror films of cinema’s early decades. In the days before [...]
“As a Black man in American, I brought something to the screen that hadn’t really been there before.”Jim Brown talks about his film career, making the transition from football to film and producing films in two parts of a documentary by Spike Lee. Here and here.
Mr. White and Mr. St. Mary have an in-depth look at Reservoir Dogs at The Projection Booth podcast. Special Guests: podcaster Jamie Jenkins, Film Threat‘s Paul Zimmerman and Reservoir Dogs executive producer, Monte Hellman. Special features include, Mike White’s video, “Who Do You Think You’re Fooling?” comparing Ringo Lam’s City On Fire and Reservoir Dogs, [...]
A complete, online documentary about legendary film maker, Chang Cheh. Thanks to the ladies of the Heroic Sisterhood for reminding us that Feb. 10 would’ve been his 90th birthday. “He liked all actors, but he liked the naught ones more, especially the ones who didn’t listen to him.”
Scouting NY writes of the difficulty of finding a Chinese restaurant that satisfies directors’ ideas of a Chinese restaurant in New York, because that restaurant doesn’t exist. “Literally every time I get asked to find a Chinese restaurant, it’s the same description. ‘I want a place with really over-the-top Chinese decor,’ our director will say. [...]
Director Steven Soderbergh has a thought-provoking conversation with Mary Kaye Schilling at Vulture: “You’re supposed to expand your mind to fit the art, you’re not supposed to chop the art down to fit your mind.”
Friend of The Gutter, Robert Mitchell interviews Birdemic director, James Nguyen. They discuss film-making, Birdemic: Shock and Terror, Birdemic 2 and what people can do to reduce their negative impact on the environment.
The Documentation Officer for the Ray Harryhausen collection shares some of Harryhausen’s film materials.
Hong Kong film legend Ti Lung/Di Long discusses his career and Bruce Lee (turn on close captioning for English translation). And Ti Lung’s debut in Return of the One-Armed Swordsman.
Jim Munroe is programming a series of sci fi salons as a run-up to the 48 Film Challenge! The first is a chat with Louis Savy, Programmer for SCI-FI-LONDON, over Skype and a screening of shorts fro m SFL’s 48 Hour Film Challenge on Monday, August 31. See the entire schedule and more details here. (Full [...]
Screenwriter and director Frank Pierson has died. Pierson wrote such films as Dog Day Afternoon, Cat Ballou, The Anderson Tapes and Cool Hand Luke. Pierson also wrote teleplays for Have Gun Will Travel, The Naked City, Lakota Woman: The Siege at Wounded Knee, Mad Men and The Good Wife. The Hollywood Reporter has more on [...]
TVOntario’s Saturday Night At The Movies interviewed Bruce Campbell when he was in Toronto for Bubba Ho-Tep‘s premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival’s 2002 Midnight Madness Programme. (via Bruce-Campbell.com)
A trailer for the documentary Golden Slumbers, which looks at the Cambodian film industry from 1960 to 1975, when the Khmer Rouge seized power and declared Year Zero.
Lonely serial killer and film smarty Harry S. Plinkett reviews the Star Wars prequels: The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith. Trenchant analysis aside, current favorite segments are his love advice to Anakin and “Citizen Vader”–starts here and continues. (Trigger warning for those sensitive to ladies held captive in basements [...]
Spectactularoptical interviews the gentlemen of the Canadian genre film making collective, Astron-6, and includes a retrospective–with video!
David Bordwell tells the story of digital projection, 3D and how James Cameron lobbied theaters to buy the technology to show the films he wants to make. Meanwhile, Christopher Nolan wants to save 35mm film. (Thanks, Kimberly Lindbergs!)
“Shot in Vancouver by one-time producer Clarence Neufeld and a cast of unknown exhibitionists, the adult monster spoof Sexcula is not only an almost lost piece of undeniably sleazy Canadiana, it’s also one of earliest monster movies made north of the border, a spoofy take-off on the Universal classic horror films.” More at Canuxploitation!
Canuxploitation has an extensive interview with filmmaker Zale Dalen. They talk about filming in Vancouver, making educational shorts and Dalen’s Canuxploitation classic, Skip Tracer.
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