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Adventures in Filmmaking: Something Resembling Forward Motion

The other day I was grumping to my colleague Ray Pride about how I needed something to stir a fire in me to write about. Usually a stroll through my Twitter and Facebook feeds and my routine pit stops through my morning bookmarks is good way to shift my writing mode into gear, but I…

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The Komen Controversy: Rethinking Pink

The internet is all in a tizzy today over the Susan G. Komen Foundation cutting off a grant to Planned Parenthood. I don’t know why everyone is so shocked that an organization founded by a major GOP supporter would have an agenda around not supporting a pro-choice organization. It’s not like Komen CEO Nancy G….

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Sundance: Wrapping the Fest

My Sundance pace finally caught up with me, knocking me pretty much flat for a couple days, but here’s the last bit of my Sundance coverage this year. For me, this year was what my great-grandma would have called a “fair to middlin’” sort of Sundance. In other words, there were plenty of films that…

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Frenzy On Blog

SNL Recap – Helen Mirren and Foo Fighters

If you’ve ever seen an interview with Helen Mirren, then you’d know that in addition to being a world-class actress, she also has a wicked sense of humor.  She has the twin traits of being both regal enough to play Queen Elizabeth II (The Queen) and versatile enough to play the proprietor of a Nevada…

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Come Back, Warren Beatty!

So I just finished reading Peter Biskind’s biography about Warren Beatty, “Star,” and I found it as enjoyable as all of Biskind’s other books about Hollywood.  He has a knack for finding people that are willing to speak their minds about subjects that are usually taboo and off-limits according to the modern-day PR machine.  Even…

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SNL Recap – Elton John

I mean, we all know that Elton John is a world-class singer/pianist and he’s crafted some of the greatest songs of all-time, but I’m curious to see if he’ll be able to entertain us when he’s not singing on SNL.  My guess is that there will probably be a lot of skits revolving around John…

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Movie City Indie

RIP Peter Breck

Seen here in Samuel Fuller’s Shock Corridor, after exclaiming in interior monologue, “Nymphos!”

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For Valentine’s Day, T-Mobile Clips A Joe Swanberg Movie

A clip from Alexander The Last? Um…. thanks, Cupid? [Via Joe Swanberg.]

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The Help

Quote Unquotesee all »

“The ad itself was directed by 36-year-old David Gordon Green, the earnest oddball regionalist (in films like All the Real Girls) turned maker of stoner action comedies (most recently Your Highness). The only personal touch would seem to be Green’s goofy sanctimoniousness and lyrical feel for derelict rural landscapes, although it’s a bit uncanny that his first movie, the 2000 indie production George Washington would have as its hero a silent, self-contained black kid with a justified sense of destiny, nicknamed for the first president of the United States. ‘Halftime in America’ seems to be one of these presents that America gave to itself.”
~ Hoberman On “New Obama Cinema”

“It’s hard when you ask the audience to go on a different trip than the one they already know. Also, the film industry doesn’t want to finance every movie that aims to be different. They want it to be like Coca-Cola. You get it and it’s Coca-Cola and you drink it and they make it again and again and again and they make good money. It happened a long time ago. When modern cinema and storytelling really became sophisticated in the silent era in Berlin and these Germans were learning how to tell a story with images, sound came in and stopped everything and movies became plays. Murnau once said sound was inevitable but that it came too soon because we were really learning how to make cinema. He died very young but he made many beautiful films.”
~ Coppola On Coca-Cola Filmmaking

ELIC The Artist