Actor, director, poet, musician, photographer, publisher – there is nary a creative endeavour to which the American hasn’t turned his hand. He discusses his ‘strange’ work with Lisandro Alonso – and accidentally starring in his own film
Viggo Mortensen is a busy man. He is not only an actor, but also a poet, a musician, a photographer and the hands-on owner of a small arthouse press on the website of which he publishes regular updates on pressing issues of the day gleaned from media outlets around the world. He punctuates the newsroll with aphorisms from thinkers he admires. “It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: what are we busy about?” reads a recent one, from Henry David Thoreau, that accompanies an article on groundwater loss.
It is a question Mortensen clearly asks regularly of himself. Shortly before accepting the breakthrough role of Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings,...
Viggo Mortensen is a busy man. He is not only an actor, but also a poet, a musician, a photographer and the hands-on owner of a small arthouse press on the website of which he publishes regular updates on pressing issues of the day gleaned from media outlets around the world. He punctuates the newsroll with aphorisms from thinkers he admires. “It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: what are we busy about?” reads a recent one, from Henry David Thoreau, that accompanies an article on groundwater loss.
It is a question Mortensen clearly asks regularly of himself. Shortly before accepting the breakthrough role of Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings,...
- 2/8/2024
- by Claire Armitstead
- The Guardian - Film News
Dave Chappelle: The Dreamer, the comic’s seventh stand-up special for Netflix, opens with a quote about the nature of success by Henry David Thoreau before capturing the comic in stark black-and-white, moving through the crowd in slow-mo (cigarette in hand, naturally) to Radiohead’s “Daydreaming,” like a championship boxer before a fight. We’re at the Lincoln Theatre in Chappelle’s hometown of Washington, D.C., the very place where he filmed his first stand-up special, Killin’ Them Softly, 24 years ago. Quite a lot’s changed since then,...
- 12/31/2023
- by Marlow Stern
- Rollingstone.com
As Mick Jagger repeatedly declares in a famous 1971 Rolling Stones song, “Wild horses couldn’t drag me away.” And for filmmaker Ashley Avis, she could not be dragged away from chronicling the plight of wild horses in her award-winning documentary Wild Beauty: Mustang Spirit of the West.
It’s an issue for which awareness is rapidly growing — because of her documentary, the newly created nonprofit Wild Beauty Foundation, and a nationwide effort to get Congress to pass legislation to save wild horses and burros.
The film graphically illustrates how the beautiful animals are callously rounded up by contractors hired by the Bureau of Land Management to cull them from grazing on federal lands in a host of Western states including Colorado, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Wyoming.
Avis and her team, including producing partner and husband Edward Winters, her brother Richard Avis, their small camera team and sometimes even her parents...
It’s an issue for which awareness is rapidly growing — because of her documentary, the newly created nonprofit Wild Beauty Foundation, and a nationwide effort to get Congress to pass legislation to save wild horses and burros.
The film graphically illustrates how the beautiful animals are callously rounded up by contractors hired by the Bureau of Land Management to cull them from grazing on federal lands in a host of Western states including Colorado, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Wyoming.
Avis and her team, including producing partner and husband Edward Winters, her brother Richard Avis, their small camera team and sometimes even her parents...
- 12/13/2023
- by Hillary Atkin
- Deadline Film + TV
Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, the Harvard-educated mathematician who retreated to a dingy shack in the Montana wilderness and ran a 17-year bombing campaign that killed three people and injured 23 others, died Saturday. He was 81.
Branded the “Unabomber” by the FBI, Kaczynski died at the federal prison medical center in Butner, North Carolina, Kristie Breshears, a spokesperson for the federal Bureau of Prisons, told The Associated Press. He was found unresponsive in his cell early Saturday morning and was pronounced dead around 8 a.m., she said. A cause of death was not immediately known.
Before his transfer to the prison medical facility, he had been held in the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, since May 1998, when he was sentenced to four life sentences plus 30 years for a campaign of terror that set universities nationwide on edge. He admitted committing 16 bombings from 1978 and 1995, permanently maiming several of his victims.
Years before the Sept.
Branded the “Unabomber” by the FBI, Kaczynski died at the federal prison medical center in Butner, North Carolina, Kristie Breshears, a spokesperson for the federal Bureau of Prisons, told The Associated Press. He was found unresponsive in his cell early Saturday morning and was pronounced dead around 8 a.m., she said. A cause of death was not immediately known.
Before his transfer to the prison medical facility, he had been held in the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, since May 1998, when he was sentenced to four life sentences plus 30 years for a campaign of terror that set universities nationwide on edge. He admitted committing 16 bombings from 1978 and 1995, permanently maiming several of his victims.
Years before the Sept.
- 6/10/2023
- by Melissa Romualdi
- ET Canada
Journalist Alissa Quart’s new book, “Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves From the American Dream,” seeks to discover the origins of two important American myths: that of the self-made man and that of the “the undeserving poor.” What is behind our country’s relentless demand for lonesome achievement and personal responsibility? Quart calls “bootstrapping” — derived from the phrase “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” — a collective delusion, a fantasy of American prowess that we must somehow be entirely self-sufficient to succeed, and that, if we manage this, riches await. It’s the...
- 3/14/2023
- by Alissa Quart
- Rollingstone.com
Exclusive: Henry David Thoreau’s at-one-with-nature classic Walden gets the indie film treatment in Walden: Life In the Woods. In this exclusive trailer, the reimagining keeps the spirit of Thoreau’s book — with 21st-century flair — by painting a narrative of three intersecting storylines. Alice (Lynn Cohen), haunted by visions of her late husband, yearns to uncover riddles from her past as she struggles with dementia — and her nursing home. Her grandson, Guy (Erik Hellma…...
- 10/11/2017
- Deadline
A version of this article originally appeared on ew.com.
Emma Watson loves to read.
The actress has that in common with her brainy Harry Potter character Hermione as well as bookish Belle, who she plays in the much-anticipated film Beauty and the Beast, out March 17. In addition to being a bookworm, Watson is also an outspoken feminist and as well as a Un Women Goodwill Ambassador and promoter of the organization’s HeForShe movement, which is dedicated to recruiting men into the movement for gender equality. As a response to her work with the Un, she launched the feminist...
Emma Watson loves to read.
The actress has that in common with her brainy Harry Potter character Hermione as well as bookish Belle, who she plays in the much-anticipated film Beauty and the Beast, out March 17. In addition to being a bookworm, Watson is also an outspoken feminist and as well as a Un Women Goodwill Ambassador and promoter of the organization’s HeForShe movement, which is dedicated to recruiting men into the movement for gender equality. As a response to her work with the Un, she launched the feminist...
- 2/21/2017
- by Madeline Raynor
- PEOPLE.com
This article was originally published in print in Fireflies Issue #4: Pedro Costa / Ben Rivers (purchase here), and has been posted here with the generosity of the magazine's editors.Origin of the SpeciesAs the titles of This Is My Land (2006) appear on the black screen, we hear Jake Williams’ voice: a song hum-mumbled that reminds me of my father ironing. I like him instantly. When we eventually see Williams, two leaves obscure his forehead and mouth as if to say, this is as close as you’re going to get, or maybe, aren’t these leaves nice, shouldn’t we all spend more time in the woods, playing with leaves? He holds the pose as though instructed. After a few minutes, we get Williams’ first words as he stands in front of his house in the forest: “If you want to make a hedge but you’re not in a big hurry,...
- 11/8/2016
- MUBI
Plus: Distribbber.com, Abramorama team up; and more…
The Last King Of Scotland producer Andrea Calderwood will deliver the opening keynote at the Strategic Partners market in Halifax, Canada, next month.
Calderwood, of Potboiler Productions, most recently produced Trespass Against Us starring Michael Fassbender and Brendan Gleeson, set to screen in Toronto and Strategic Partners’ sister event the Atlantic Film Festival.
Other keynote speakers include Marc Hustvedt, the founder and CEO of Peter Chernin-backed Supergravity Pictures, as well as Scandinavian TV producers Liselott Forsman and Lars Hermann.
“The programme this year is dynamic, progressive, and mindful of the issues and opportunities facing producers across the globe,” said programme manager Laura Mackenzie.
“Our speakers are able to provide a unique perspective because of their background and experience, but they are living and breathing the very same challenges facing producers daily.”
Strategic Partners runs from September 15-17. For the full line-up of panels and events click here.
GoDigital...
The Last King Of Scotland producer Andrea Calderwood will deliver the opening keynote at the Strategic Partners market in Halifax, Canada, next month.
Calderwood, of Potboiler Productions, most recently produced Trespass Against Us starring Michael Fassbender and Brendan Gleeson, set to screen in Toronto and Strategic Partners’ sister event the Atlantic Film Festival.
Other keynote speakers include Marc Hustvedt, the founder and CEO of Peter Chernin-backed Supergravity Pictures, as well as Scandinavian TV producers Liselott Forsman and Lars Hermann.
“The programme this year is dynamic, progressive, and mindful of the issues and opportunities facing producers across the globe,” said programme manager Laura Mackenzie.
“Our speakers are able to provide a unique perspective because of their background and experience, but they are living and breathing the very same challenges facing producers daily.”
Strategic Partners runs from September 15-17. For the full line-up of panels and events click here.
GoDigital...
- 8/30/2016
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Documentary festival announces winners.
Cameraperson, a documentary about the career of cinematographer Kirsten Johnson, has won the grand jury award at Sheffield Doc/Fest (June 10-15).
Johnson, who also directs the film, is the Us cinematographer behind Laura Poitras’ Oscar-winning Edward Snowden doc Citizenfour and Kirby Dick’s The Invisible War among many others.
The award, supported by Screen International and Broadcast, comes with a cash prize of £2,000 ($2,800).
The jury described the film as “a work that´s both expansive and intimate, formally ambitious and morally humble”.
“Though this filmmaker has travelled the world to tell others stories, her real...
Cameraperson, a documentary about the career of cinematographer Kirsten Johnson, has won the grand jury award at Sheffield Doc/Fest (June 10-15).
Johnson, who also directs the film, is the Us cinematographer behind Laura Poitras’ Oscar-winning Edward Snowden doc Citizenfour and Kirby Dick’s The Invisible War among many others.
The award, supported by Screen International and Broadcast, comes with a cash prize of £2,000 ($2,800).
The jury described the film as “a work that´s both expansive and intimate, formally ambitious and morally humble”.
“Though this filmmaker has travelled the world to tell others stories, her real...
- 6/14/2016
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
Sundance top brass celebrate the tenth anniversary of the New Frontier programme with an exhibition of new work that includes Vr projects involving Björk and Ridley Scott’s global hit The Martian.Scroll Down For Full List
The dynamic roster encompasses features, a live performance, documentary and narrative mobile virtual reality experiences and a look inside the innovations at some of world’s leading media research labs.
Tenth anniversary exhibitions will also be presented with MoMA in New York City in April, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis as part of Northern Spark in June.
The New Frontiers line-up will take place in Park City’s Claim Jumper, The Gateway, a large-scale installation on Swede Alley by Chris Milk and a performance by Gingger Shankar at Festival Base Camp Presented by Canada Goose.
Beyond the dedicated physical exhibition spaces, audiences can experience more than 20 virtual reality pieces on mobile Vr headsets. This year’s...
The dynamic roster encompasses features, a live performance, documentary and narrative mobile virtual reality experiences and a look inside the innovations at some of world’s leading media research labs.
Tenth anniversary exhibitions will also be presented with MoMA in New York City in April, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis as part of Northern Spark in June.
The New Frontiers line-up will take place in Park City’s Claim Jumper, The Gateway, a large-scale installation on Swede Alley by Chris Milk and a performance by Gingger Shankar at Festival Base Camp Presented by Canada Goose.
Beyond the dedicated physical exhibition spaces, audiences can experience more than 20 virtual reality pieces on mobile Vr headsets. This year’s...
- 12/3/2015
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Ales Kot is one of the freshest, most cerebral voices in comics. He cut his teeth on DC Comics’ Suicide Squad with a run focused on the demented serial killer Jim Gordon Jr. before taking his talents to Marvel. Kot wrote two of their quirkiest titles, namely, Secret Avengers, which made supervillain Modok a full-fledged Avenger and had a good mix of references to Jorge Luis Borges and Nick Fury Jr. and Agent Coulson having existential crises in the middle of space. Speaking of space, he has also written Bucky Barnes, Winter Soldier, which followed the titular character’s trippy adventures on distant planets depicted in the style of Heavy Metal by artist Marco Rudy.
But Kot has also worked on creator owned comics as part of the Image Comics renaissance. Zero is an espionage series created by him and his Secret Avengers collaborator Michael Walsh and has found critical and commercial success.
But Kot has also worked on creator owned comics as part of the Image Comics renaissance. Zero is an espionage series created by him and his Secret Avengers collaborator Michael Walsh and has found critical and commercial success.
- 6/8/2015
- by Logan Dalton
- SoundOnSight
"We are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect."
- David Henry Thoreau
"If you point out the errors of your brother's ego you must be seeing through yours"-A Course In Miracles
You may succeed in making another feel guilty about
something by blaming him, but you won't succeed in changing whatever it
is about you that is making you unhappy. " -Wayne Dyer
There has been a profound amount of finger pointing and guilt seeking online this week. From Congressman Anthony Weiner to daytime soap star Crystal Chappell, I have seen online boards flooded with pages and pages devoted to seeking fault and perceived moral deficit in other people. Twitter offers a unique and effective way to complain and blame, given that 140 characters hardly allows you to experience a rich discussion or get a sense of complexity or depth that fuel people actions.
To review: people...
- David Henry Thoreau
"If you point out the errors of your brother's ego you must be seeing through yours"-A Course In Miracles
You may succeed in making another feel guilty about
something by blaming him, but you won't succeed in changing whatever it
is about you that is making you unhappy. " -Wayne Dyer
There has been a profound amount of finger pointing and guilt seeking online this week. From Congressman Anthony Weiner to daytime soap star Crystal Chappell, I have seen online boards flooded with pages and pages devoted to seeking fault and perceived moral deficit in other people. Twitter offers a unique and effective way to complain and blame, given that 140 characters hardly allows you to experience a rich discussion or get a sense of complexity or depth that fuel people actions.
To review: people...
- 6/13/2011
- by Damon L. Jacobs
- We Love Soaps
Last night, J-Woww wore a dress that made full-frontal nudity look like G-rated Pixar stuff. It was like seeing those black “censored” bars in dress form. As if she had stolen netting from a sadomasochist barbarian fisherman, cut out a couple strips roughly as wide as a crayon, and then rubber-cemented those strips over her lady parts. In what I can only call a demure moment, she decided to cover her girls with glow-stickers. “I look at her, and I think, this girl’s a f—ing whore!” said Snooki, sounding like the proud mother of the first female President of the United States.
- 10/15/2010
- by Darren Franich
- EW.com - PopWatch
Three years ago, the NYTimes did a profile on Colin Beavan and his wife, Michelle, who were engaged in a year-long experiment to see if they could go that length of time without causing detriment to the environment. One in four Americans over the age of 25 must have read that piece -- I remember it, as well as the conversations it inspired around my home about whether we could go a year without using toilet paper. (The answer is a resounding 'no').
While that headline certainly attracted eyes (which is why I'm repurposing it), it was also reductive, cheapening Beavan's year-long experiment into a gimmick to sell a book. The cynics among you, of which I include myself, would no doubt come to the same conclusion. But that's because it's easier to assume the worst -- it requires the least amount of thought. Colin Beavan, whose year-long experiment is also the subject of the documentary,...
While that headline certainly attracted eyes (which is why I'm repurposing it), it was also reductive, cheapening Beavan's year-long experiment into a gimmick to sell a book. The cynics among you, of which I include myself, would no doubt come to the same conclusion. But that's because it's easier to assume the worst -- it requires the least amount of thought. Colin Beavan, whose year-long experiment is also the subject of the documentary,...
- 6/10/2010
- by Dustin Rowles
Over the weekend, news of two competing adaptations of Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" surfaced (pun intended). One was a revival of sorts; late last year, Disney put a planned "20,000 Leagues" project with "Terminator Salvation" director McG attached to helm on indefinite hold. Now Disney is back, and they're looking at Scott Z. Burns to write and David Fincher to direct.
Elsewhere in Hollywood, Fox is planning an adaptation of their own with Scott brothers Ridley and Tony on board to produce. "Clash of the Titans" co-writer Scott Beacham will provide the script and "Wanted" director Timur Bekmambetov is in talks to helm it. Fox's "20,000 Leagues" will reportedly take the setting into the future, which makes it perfect for the "Wanted" director.
Since I'm a sucker for a mash-up, I have to wonder what other wacky tales from the public domain would best be tackled with Bekmambetov's unique vision attached to them.
Elsewhere in Hollywood, Fox is planning an adaptation of their own with Scott brothers Ridley and Tony on board to produce. "Clash of the Titans" co-writer Scott Beacham will provide the script and "Wanted" director Timur Bekmambetov is in talks to helm it. Fox's "20,000 Leagues" will reportedly take the setting into the future, which makes it perfect for the "Wanted" director.
Since I'm a sucker for a mash-up, I have to wonder what other wacky tales from the public domain would best be tackled with Bekmambetov's unique vision attached to them.
- 5/17/2010
- by Adam Rosenberg
- MTV Movies Blog
Maurice Sendak’s 1963 children’s classic Where the Wild Things Are first struck critics and teachers as too dark for little darlings. But kids clamored for the book, and parents soon fell under its spell, too. Now Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers have created a movie based on Sendak’s illustrated fantasy. As anticipation builds, we explore the enduring power of this beloved story, which continues—after nearly 50 years—to unleash our collective imagination.
“. in Wildness is the preservation of the World.”
—Henry David Thoreau...
“. in Wildness is the preservation of the World.”
—Henry David Thoreau...
- 9/15/2009
- Pastemagazine.com
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