David Lynch got his filmmaking start with short films, and of late the short form seems to be what he’s most interested in whenever he goes back to the moving image. One of his latest works is a short called Idem Paris. Like his early film shorts, it represents an intersection between the worlds of film and art, albeit in a different form.
Anyone looking for a narrative experience here is going to be disappointed, as the film is essentially a documentary, free of any narration, that watches lithographic printmakers at work in a facility in Paris.
But those who appreciate Lynch’s affinity for tone may welcome this short. The high-contrast black and white images, the focus on specific machinery, and the clanking and hissing array of sounds within all call back to Lynch’s early shorts, and his feature debut Eraserhead. Read More »
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TriStar Pictures has released the first trailer for the Morgan Spurlock-directed One Direction 3D movie. The trailer makes it seem more of a puff-piece documentary than the cash-grab 3D concert film most were expecting. Watch the trailer embedded after the jump, and leave your thoughts in the comments below.
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An audience favorite film at Sundance and Fantastic Fest 2012 was Room 237, the documentary from Rodney Ascher that attempts to detail and unpack the various secrets of Stanley Kubrick‘s The Shining. What messages did he code into the movie? (If any?) Is The Shining just a great horror movie, or does it really feature a hidden conversation about the genocide of Native Americans? That notion is just one of the theories in Room 237.
IFC picked up the film and will release it later this year as part of its IFC Midnight label. The first US trailer is out (the one we posted last year has been pulled) and it is an appropriately simple thing. It won’t take you long to figure out where this one is going, especially if you’re familiar with the teaser for The Shining, but that doesn’t make the payoff any less entertaining when it happens. Read More »
Live in Southern California? Big Dan Harmon fan? Well we’ve got good news and better news. The good news is his touring show, Harmontown, returns to Los Angeles at 8 p.m. Monday February 4 at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. The creator of Community will be on hand to chat with comedians Marc Maron, Duncan Trussell and director Bobcat Goldthwait. Plus director Neil Berkeley will be on hand to film it for an upcoming documentary. Tickets are on sale now. That’s the good news.
The better news? Not only can you buy tickets now, we’ve got two pairs of free tickets to the event that include a special meet and greet with Dan and his friends. Read More »
First-time feature documentary director Zachary Heinzerling makes a quietly assured debut with the tender and perceptive Cutie and the Boxer. In documenting the 40-year marriage between Japanese “action painter” Ushio Shinohara and his wife Noriko Shinohara, the film paints a keen vision of the ways in which the halves of a life-long couple learns to life with, and often in spite of one another. Read More »
Good news, Stanley Kubrick fans. The fantastic and fascinating documentary Room 237 directed by Rodney Ascher will be released by IFC Films on March 29. The film, which premiered at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, is an incredible look at secrets and theories buried in The Shining. Read our review here and check out the trailer below. Read More »
Posted on Friday, January 25th, 2013 by Angie Han
Movie projects fall apart all the time, and most of the time they simply fade from memory soon afterward. Years later, the people who actually worked on the movie might be the only ones who remember it even existed to begin with. But sometimes a failed effort is so bizarre or so high-profile — or both — that the public is still wondering about it, long after it’s become clear that it’ll never come to fruition.
One film that definitely falls into the latter category is Superman Lives, a proposed take from the ’90s that would’ve featured Nicolas Cage in the lead role with direction by Tim Burton and a script by Kevin Smith (among others). Even now, over a decade later, we’re intrigued when old bits of concept art or toy prototypes surface. While we’ll never get to see Burton’s vision for ourselves, an upcoming documentary by Jon Schnepp (Metalocalypse, Venture Bros.) aims to explore what could have been. More after the jump.
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Sarah Polley‘s documentary Stories We Tell is absolutely brilliant. I don’t use that word lightly, but I’ll say it again: brilliant. The actress-turned-director trains the camera on herself in a movie exploring not only her own family, but how people tell stories. She focuses on the truths embedded in them and different points of view. To help bolster that approach, Polley films not only her family, but herself filming the documentary, and cuts between the two seemlessly.
So while we’re hear Polley’s family history — how her mother and father met, got married, had kids, went through terrible trials, tribulations — we see the family, we see archival footage, we hear different points of view from all parties involved, and we see Polley behind the camera doing this, manipulating and prodding her subjects. And from there things get even more amazing.
After premiering at Berlin and playing Toronto and Telluride, Stories We Tell hit the slopes of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and just might be the best film at the festival. Read More »
