MCN Videos

TIFF ’11 Review: Pina

pina

One of my favorite films of this year’s TIFF so far is Wim Wenders terrific 3-D documentary, Pina, a visually evocative, stunningly lovely tribute to legendary German choreographer Pina Bausch. If you are inclined to enjoy the language of dance, and you like to see terrific, creative choreography that utilizes all the subtleties of movement…

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TIFF ’11 Dispatch #1: Can You Say Party? I Knew You Could.

Another year, another Toronto International Film Festival. It doesn’t feel like a whole year since the last TIFF, but here we are, back in the land of ketchup chips and butter tarts, churning through four-five movies a day. The fest has a different feel to it this year, with most everything officially moved down to…

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CONFESSIONS OF FILM FESTIVAL JUNKIE: Toronto 2011

There are some festivals that pivot abruptly from being a film geek favorite to an industry whistle stop. Historians cite the 1989 screening of sex, lies, and videotape as just such a turning point for Sundance. It wasn’t simply a rabid audience response (it was crowned their favorite but failed to nab the jury award)…

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TIFF ’11 Preview: Real to Reel

dark girls

There are 26 films in the Real to Reel section of TIFF this year, of which I’ll be able to catch maybe five or six. As always, it’s hard to tell by the catalog descriptions which films you’re going to love and which you aren’t; in 2009, I wouldn’t have necessarily had The Topp Twins…

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Two Doc Reviews – Crazy Horse & Paul Williams Still Alive

williamscrazyhorse

One is classic documentary form… no voice over… no director in the movie… beautifully shot and edited reality about an interesting subject. The premise of the other is that the director thought a star he once loved was dead and found out otherwise.

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TIFF ’11 Preview: Contemporary World Cinema

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TIFF ’11 Preview: Special Presentations

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TIFF’11 Preview: Galas and Masters

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6 Weeks To TIFF: a 20 weeks to oscar prequel (part 3 of 3)

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6 Weeks To TIFF: a 20 weeks to oscar prequel (part 2 of 3)

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6 Weeks To TIFF: a 20 weeks to oscar prequel (part 1 of 3)

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DP/30@Sundance: The Devil’s Double, actors Dominic Cooper & Ludivine Sagnier

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TIFF Review: Hereafter

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TIFF Review: It’s Kind of a Funny Story

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TIFF Review: Let Me In

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MCN Festivals

“Young men live in the present and the future, old men in the past.”
67-Year-Old Richard Corliss On 72-Year-Old Francis Coppola

NY Times

“In the cinematic war of the sexes, Mr. Fassbender’s penis and howls in Shame are no match for Ms. Knightley’s tumescent rage.”
Dargis Talks TIFF

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“I’m in Locarno, my movie is premiering for 1,000 people, which is nuts. A huge-ass screening, second day of the festival, 7:30pm in the sidebar competition. It’s comparable to Un Certain Regard or Director’s Fortnight. Every movie I saw in that section was fun, brilliant movies from around the world. The main competition was like Aza Jacobs and Mia Hansen-Løve, people who have been around. And I was like, “This is crazy. What am I doing inside the bloodstream of this establishment? I’m 27. I don’t belong here.” Every person I talked to there couldn’t believe what the movie cost, and then couldn’t believe when I told them what other American movies cost. We were the cheapest movie there by 65%. The next cheapest movie cost I think three times as much as we did. And they were just like, “You can’t make movies for what you’re telling us your movie cost.” And I told them, “Well, I can, I’m here, I’m in the same section as you are, so you are wrong. People think I’m lying when I tell them my budget. And also everyone likes it. I’m having a great time and people are being very responsive. Maurice Pialat’s widow was like, “I heard your movie’s good, I want a copy of it.” I’m like, “Well this is f**kin’ crazy.” Pedro Costa saw it there and really liked it and I’m like, What am I doing? I had gone in two months from screening at BAM for a lot of friends to Pedro Costa? This is the exact sentence: “Pedro Costa saw your movie. He’s a huge Jerry Lewis fan. He wants to talk to you about your movie and also Jerry Lewis.” And I thought, “I’m out of my element. I cannot have that conversation because that’s ridiculous.” Because his retrospective was happening at Anthology when I worked at Kim’s, and his Criterion box set came out when I was working at Kim’s. He can’t want to talk to me. That’s not possible. That’s not allowed. There is no world where that makes any sense!”  Or like when you wrote me to say that David Gordon Green wrote you to say, “I’m watching The Color Wheel and then I’m going to see Tree of Life.” There is no world where this is allowed! Again, somebody whose DVDs I was putting on the shelf, as, like, a hero. And it’s just like, “Oh, I’ll watch this movie.” There’s just a very fuzzy area in the middle there and it happened very quickly and I don’t understand why.  I still have a voice-mail from Sean [Price Williams, cinematographer]. I wish he was here to talk about it, but the voice-mail is a long pause and he’s just like, “I don’t want to tell you this, because it’s gonna make you so insufferable. I hate having to tell you this, but Leos Carax watched your movie and he really loves it, and he wants to meet you when he comes to New York.” I can’t live in a world where Leos Carax knows who I am, watches my movie, likes it, and thinks, “I wanna meet that guy.”
~ It’s Alex Ross Perry’s World

“I don’t know. It’s been a lot harder than I thought it was going to be to make the films I really dream of making. I was in Italy a few years ago scouting for this very beautiful film I wanted to make with Richard Linklater. We worked really hard on the script for a couple of years and couldn’t get the money together. It was an expensive idea. It’s heartbreaking when that happens over and over again and then the movies that do get made are ones that have lots of women being beaten up or zombies being killed. It’s all fine, it’s all okay, but it’s hard. I remember when River Phoenix died, he was ahead of me on this curve. He kind of realized how hard it was to make serious movies. People like Sidney Lumet figured out how to walk that line, but it’s hard. And it requires patience. It’s a life’s work and I wonder if I’m up to the task.”
~ Weary, Wary Ethan Hawke

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