Michael Keaton on THE MERRY GENTLEMAN
The gentleman is not merry. The gentleman is quite morose, as a matter of fact. The title only becomes comprehensible once you know that the THE MERRY GENTLEMAN, Michael Keaton’s directing debut, takes place during Christmas. Thus, by placing a “God rest ye…” before the title, you get some idea of the film’s emotional outlook.
Keaton [...]
Paolo Sorrentino on IL DIVO
Okay, no fooling, IL DIVO is a challenge. It boasts tons of characters who probably have some notoriety in Italy but are pretty obscure here, and on top of that, deals with the Italian political system, which appears to be just slightly less mind-boggling than the Klingon-language edition of Finnegan’s Wake.
So what’s to recommend the [...]
Marc H. Simon & Matthew Makar on NURSERY UNIVERSITY
Episode 10! And they said it couldn’t be done. Actually, no one said it couldn’t be done — everybody’s been quite supportive. But I’m feeling extra dramatic today.
If you don’t have kids or live outside of New York, you hear about the nightmarish process that attends enrolling a child in the city’s better nursery schools, [...]
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So Yong Kim on TREELESS MOUNTAIN
Ohhhhh, the pitfalls director So Yong Kim faced in making the protagonists of her film, TREELESS MOUNTAIN, two young children. One false move, and the effort could’ve turned into a sloppy, mawkish mess. Fortunately for her, the nonprofessional actresses she cast in the roles — Hee Yeon Kim as Jin and Song Hee Kim as [...]
REPOST: Eran Riklis on LEMON TREE
We at MMP proudly salute the developers of our completely seamless and absolutely foolproof podcasting software, software that would never, say, send out blank e-mails to our subscriber list, or spontaneously truncate the mp3 file.
This is by way of apology to anyone who suffered from these glitches. Hopefully this repost will behave better.
Eran Riklis has [...]
Alex Rivera on SLEEP DEALER
Whatever happened to cyberpunk, a.k.a. virtual reality? Used to be a big thing at one point, then THE MATRIX came and everybody just seemed to lose interest. Was there a general consensus that it was just too hard a genre to pull off effectively on film? Or did everyone just think the Wachowskis had said [...]
Slava Tsukerman on PERESTROIKA
The plus side of not having IFC, Sundance Channel, NetFlix, VOD, etc, etc, was that when you saw an indie film, you were pretty much sure your friends saw it as well, and so it was easy to discuss the merits, or lack thereof, of any title. And, man, did we discuss the hell out [...]
Preview of INGLORIOUS BASTERDS
“Business is a-boomin’.”
Here’s the brief (too brief, some might say) glimpse of Tarantino’s upcoming INGLORIOUS BASTERDS that aired on AMERICAN IDOL.
embedded by Embedded Video
Tim Disney on AMERICAN VIOLET
For director Tim Disney, the irony of one, brave woman taking on an unfairly balanced, Texas criminal court system at the same time that George Bush was gaming the Supreme Court to get into the White House was irresistible. Based on a true story (as the saying goes), AMERICAN VIOLET explores what happens when innocent [...]
Director Sacha Gervasi on ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL
We wrap up our debut week with an interview with director Sacha Gervasi about his documentary, ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL.
I’ve never been a major metal-head — my musical tastes in the late seventies/early eighties skittered between Genesis and Elvis Costello — so the likes of a seminal Canadian metal band, formed by Steve “Lips” [...]
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