It’s that time of year again. While some directors annually share their favorite films of the year, Steven Soderbergh lists everything he consumed, media-wise. For 2021––another year in which he not only released a new film, but shot another (and produced the Oscars)––he still got plenty of watching in.
Along with catching up on 2021’s new releases, he took in plenty of classics, including Jaws, Citizen Kane, Metropolis, The French Connection, and Lubitsch’s Ninotchka and Design For Living. Early last year, he also saw a cut of Channing Tatum’s Dog, which doesn’t arrive until next month. He also, of course, screened his latest movies while in post-production, with three viewings of No Sudden Move and three viewings of Kimi, which arrives on February 10 on HBO Max and the first look of which can be seen below.
Check out the list below via his official site.
Along with catching up on 2021’s new releases, he took in plenty of classics, including Jaws, Citizen Kane, Metropolis, The French Connection, and Lubitsch’s Ninotchka and Design For Living. Early last year, he also saw a cut of Channing Tatum’s Dog, which doesn’t arrive until next month. He also, of course, screened his latest movies while in post-production, with three viewings of No Sudden Move and three viewings of Kimi, which arrives on February 10 on HBO Max and the first look of which can be seen below.
Check out the list below via his official site.
- 1/5/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Robert Altman's Images (1972) is showing on Mubi starting November 15, 2020 in the United Kingdom, Ireland, United States, and Canada.Robert Altman’s dizzying psychological horror film Images (1972) is one of those slippery films that has inspired a wide variety of poster art ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. I only recently came upon the stunning British double crown poster above, thanks to New York poster house Posteritati (more on that in a minute), but I’d long been aware of a number of very different pieces for the film. Seemingly tossed off in between Altman’s two indisputable masterpieces McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) and The Long Goodbye (1973), Images is unusual in the Altman canon for being a horror film of sorts (though it has been said to form a loose trilogy of female psychosis with That Cold Day in the Park [1969] and Three Women [1977]), and also for its non-American...
- 11/13/2020
- MUBI
Johnny Mandel, the prolific composer and arranger who worked with Frank Sinatra, Count Basie, Barbra Streisand and more — and famously composed the theme song for M*A*S*H — has died, Variety reports. He was 94.
No specifics about Mandel’s death have been revealed. The news was shared by singer and friend Michael Feinstein on Facebook early Tuesday morning: “A dear friend and extraordinary composer-arranger and all-around brilliant talent Johnny Mandel just passed away. The world will never be quite the same without his humor, wit and wry view of life and the human condition.
No specifics about Mandel’s death have been revealed. The news was shared by singer and friend Michael Feinstein on Facebook early Tuesday morning: “A dear friend and extraordinary composer-arranger and all-around brilliant talent Johnny Mandel just passed away. The world will never be quite the same without his humor, wit and wry view of life and the human condition.
- 6/30/2020
- by Jon Blistein
- Rollingstone.com
Robert Altman builds his films like dystopian prisons, convincing his residents they have the run of the place while working to ensure they can’t escape. When he actually buckles down for a psychological thriller (3 Women) or locked-room drama (Come Back to the Five and Dime, Secret Honor), any departure from the comedic tone we usually expect from him is balanced by a psychological continuity. His films consistently show that you can never really run away from your problems, and you’re inevitably due to return to them.
That Cold Day in the Park opens in a city so generic, I took the English-accented cast at face value and assumed we were somewhere in the U.K. Here, in a well-appointed apartment, lives Frances (Sandy Dennis), so entombed in the memory of her deceased parents that all her friends (and would-be suitors) are twice her age. She entertains them and...
That Cold Day in the Park opens in a city so generic, I took the English-accented cast at face value and assumed we were somewhere in the U.K. Here, in a well-appointed apartment, lives Frances (Sandy Dennis), so entombed in the memory of her deceased parents that all her friends (and would-be suitors) are twice her age. She entertains them and...
- 2/28/2017
- by Scott Nye
- CriterionCast
'Darling' Dir. Mickey Keating on Being Inspired by Classic Horror to Form Highly Stylized Nightmares
Channeling some of the most legendary masters of tension and fright in cinema history, young auteur Mickey Keating takes an empty New York house and a lonely young woman and molds these two seemingly traditional tropes into a black-and-white nightmare. Plunging into the viewer’s sense with bone-shaking atmospheric sounds and cohesively deranged editing, “Darling” shatters any expectations and delivers an immersive experience of intimate horror. The film’s star, Lauren Ashley Carter is an absolute revelation. Each scream, gesture, and diabolically spoken line of dialogue compliments the elegantly designed frames inspired by 1960s genre gems. Unsettling from its opening frame to its unshakable horrifying conclusion, Keating’s minimalist creation is an alluring and elegantly diabolical vision. An exquisite genre work to be counted among the best horror films of the year.
"Darling" is now playing in NYC at the Village East Cinema and opens April 8 in Los Angeles at the Arena Cinema.
Carlos Aguilar: I made the big mistake of watching "Darling" at night. It was absolutely terrifying. It took me by surprise, because its very economical in its design, but its very powerful in the emotions that it provokes. Tell me a little bit about the inception of the project and the films that you use as references or influences that inspired its visual aesthetics.
Mickey Keating: I think first and foremost its an homage to 1960s psychological horror movies with fractured narratives told with untrustworthy protagonists. Films like "The Haunting," "The Innocents," "Repulsion," "Diabolique," "That Cold Day in the Park" by Robert Altman, which show a much more restrained, psychological decent into madness. That's what really inspired me to write this one. In terms of composition and framing and camerawork, I turned towards a lot of Haneke films and then also restrained Kubrick-ian and Hitchcock-ian type black-and-white horror movies. It was a great eclectic mix of all these insane, beautiful works of art.
Aguilar: While writing "Darling," were you certain from the start that you wanted it to be focused on a single character with a story that takes place in a single location and very economical in its mechanics?
Mickey Keating: Definitely. It was very important for me to have this movie be this way because my two previous films were really about characters that were playing off one another, really interacting, debating and fighting one another, so with this film I wanted to be much quieter. I wanted to focus on one single person predominately. From the very beginning it was this way. If we could have had no characters in the film we would have tried.
Aguilar: Can you talk about your stylistic decisions including choosing to make the film in black-and-white, the unique framing, and the evocative lighting? The film is definitely a departure from what we commonly see today in the horror genre.
Mickey Keating: I think what was really important for me with this movie was a certain level of restraint. Horror movies, especially indie horror movies, in the past 5 years, have been nothing but hand-held footage and not necessarily about anything beyond trying to capture this weird pathetic intensity and also jump scares. What I really wanted to try and do was push back and go in the complete opposite direction of that. From the get go it was supposed to be like this. The script's not very long and it was all about, "Ok, we’re going to try to make every shot a painting." We knew we were going to really fixate on how we could tell the story the best way possible with the composition, which is a much more traditional approach in terms of classical filmmaking techniques. It was very satisfying to strip that back and really get back on the same page as traditional audiences and not have to try to fool them with fake realism or anything like that.
Aguilar: Editing is a crucial part of what makes "Darling" successful. You chose to use intercuts that can be perceived as flashbacks to what brought the character to this point or as premonitions of what's yet to come.
Mickey Keating: Absolutely. While I was writing the movie, we were also watching a whole bunch of 1960s experimental films. Even the works of John Schlesinger, like "Midnight Cowboy," or especially that dream sequence in "The Exorcist."There was this really exciting notion back then that had this fluidity in editing. The editor is just as present as the cinematographer or anyone else on the film. That’s what we kind of wanted to do, create this almost liquid type of storytelling that’s very abrupt and in a weird way upsetting. I think the goal was to make the audience who endured the film really unsettled and uncomfortable and always on edge. I feel like an exciting, effective horror film for me is a horror film that I can never really see where anything is coming from. That’s what we really tried with this one.
Aguilar: What builds the unsettling atmosphere in "Darling" is the fantastic sound work that enhances the imagery on screen. This is clearly of crucial importance in horror films but sometimes it can be feel overused or on-the-nose. Not in this case. Tell me about the process of creating this other layer of emotion through sound.
Mickey Keating: Definitely. Because the film takes place mostly inside in the house, it was really important for me. Sound is a huge passion of mine, sound design is one of my favorite things in the world, and I think that it's often underutilized. Going back to that idea of pure naturalism, it just kind of exists in the space. What I wanted to do from the very beginning of shooting was give each room, each floor, each kind of location in the house its own sound and its own feeling, as if the house is its own being. Darling walks throughout its body. When she gets up to the door on the top floor, that’s like being in its brain and in the middle that’s like being in its lungs. Every single area is set up differently. It's really upsetting in a way because it makes you very disturbed. Where we looked to for that was the video game "Silent Hill." It has the greatest example of sound work in the entire world because the majority of the first game, especially, is walking around. There are very few monsters in that game, but you are so constantly horrified and on edge because you can never anticipate what’s gonna come next because that sound Is always moving, always liquid, and always changing. Very disturbing I feel.
Aguilar: "Darling" is also a period piece even though this is never specified or delved into. It's a very noticeable quality of the film that coincides with the films that inspire you, but is not a definite factor in how we perceive the story.
Mickey Keating: I think if we had decided to go full blown 1960’s black-and-white probably we would have been pushing it a little bit too far. I didn’t want tot make a movie that wouldn’t be able to get an audience on all, or at least some level. My favorite thing I’ve ever read about David Lynch is that his moves exist in a dream-time in a way. They’re very heavy handed 1950s but clearly there’s some from the 80s. All these references make all of his films very anachronistic, and that’s was my intention. While its definitely a 1960s type of horror film, we never explicitly say it. The fact that the world is all black-and-white and New York sounds very strange in the film, it almost seems like it exists on another plane, or at least that was my intention.
Aguilar: Tell me about your star, Lauren Ashley Carter, who is terrific and terrifying beyond belief. Her screams and her facial expressions are really hard to shake off once the film is over.
Mickey Keating: I knew Lauren because she was in my previous film, and in my previous film she's one of the victims. She screams, she’s terrified, and so for this movie I wanted to flip that on its head. I wanted to cast her again and see where else she, as an actor, could go. When I was talking to her I referenced a lot of movies like "The Seventh Continent" by Michael Haneke and we also talked about those old 1920s horror movies where you see those violent screams that burn in your mind. She totally took that and ran with it. It was very exciting to be able to bring her on board. She’s definitely fantastic. It was also very exciting to be able to bring Sean Young on board as well as Brian Morvant, from my previous film, who plays the antagonist in the film. I wanted to flip that again and have him play the victim in this one. It was really a total world of friends making movies with friends, which is very satisfying.
Aguilar: Her character is sort of a blend between a victim and a villain. She has this sort of duality about her throughout the film, which that doesn’t let us know what she really is until late in the film.
Mickey Keating: Absolutely. That even goes back to southern gothic literature or even a movie like "Taxi Driver." When Travis is doing the pushups and we see he has all these scars all up his back, we know he clearly has a very disturbed past, and yet somehow he's still the protagonist. Travis Bickle was always a big point of reference for that as well.
Aguilar: What would you say were some of the most difficult hurdles you had to overcome to make an independent horror film at this scale and with the particularities that "Darling" showcases? How difficult was it to get people on board with the project you envisioned?
Mickey Keating: There are plenty. Its never easy. I think that at all scales of movies there's always stuff that’s very difficult, stressful and horrible to deal with and that never really changes. If you have enough money to solve anybody's problem, then clearly theres somebody who will charge that rate. It's never quite easy. I think the main challenge on a film like this was first and foremost that I wanted to make a black-and-white movie. A lot of people, when I even mentioned it before I even shot it, would say, "Oh don’t do black-and-white because you can't sell it." Clearly that’s not the case, so it's interesting. I feel like if I had brought this to any other production company besides Glass Eye Pix it wouldn't have happened. Nobody wants to be the guy saying, "Alright, lets make a black-and-white period horror movie," but everyone wants to come on board after the fact, which is very very frustrating to me in a lot of ways. I think that’s one of the challenges, being able to step back and say, "No, we're going to find a way to make this. We're going to figure out something. No matter what anyone says we're going to make this movie this way." Another challenge that really kind of comes to mind was, shooting in New York City in November was not easy. It was raining and it was cold. I’m from Florida originally and I live in California, so it was just a nightmare. But I think what’s fortunate about these movies is that we make them for a price so we make the movies that we are excited to make. Hopefully the right people that are drawn to them are drawn to them and everybody is happy at the end of the day. Overall it was a great experience.
Aguilar: The constraints that come with independent filmmaking, whether these are financial or logistical, often force artists to elevate their creativity to new heights in order to find solutions. Of course having more money makes things easier. Creative freedom that comes with a reasonable budget would be ideal.
Mickey Keating: Absolutely, there is a difference between committee filmmaking and having an individual voice. For all these movies that we are referencing and celebrating that used to be a no-brainer. You got a lot of money and you could make something that was very personal. Now, the way that the landscape of filmmaking has changed, every cent that you get that’s more than $1 million comes with a great big asterisk. It was great to be able to do something that was very personal. I had a great support system through Glass Eye Pix, they were totally like, “Yeah, do your thing.” It was great.
Aguilar: How have audiences reacted to the film? There is, of course, a niche audiences that will probaly enjoy the elegant madness of the film. Has that been the case?
Mickey Keating: In general in terms of the movies that I make, people are either very rabidly passionate about them or rabidly hateful towards them [Laughs]. The people who have been supportive of “Darling” have been very vocally supportive. I feel like what’s so fun about a movie like this is that in the first 30 seconds of it you are going to decide whether it’s a movie for you or not. In a way that’s very exciting because people who have stayed on the roller-coaster and gone all the way through are very adamant about how they feel and the emotions that it invoked. To me it just comes down to the fact that you are creating a conversation with your audience. The more you can talk about it, it’s a sign of an effective film and there have been a lot of conversations about this one so far, which is very exciting.
Aguilar: This is a film that takes a seemingly peaceful locations and a passive character and turns those preconceived notions on their head.
Mickey Keating: Definitely, We kind of approached the movie almost like a drug trip using the chapters. I’m not use drugs guy, but I think you can see that at the beginning there is this excitement and the further you get along down the rabbit hole or down the drug trip it becomes more jarring and fractured, and then by the last chapter it’s almost something like a hangover. It was very exciting to try to tell that story that way.
Aguilar: Seems like this is a busy year for you. What is the next frightening trip you are taking us on?
Mickey Keating: I have another movie coming out soon called "Carnage Park" that we premiered at Sudnance and SXSW this year. It'll be out in the summer. I also just wrapped another film called "Psychopaths," which is an ensemble serial killers movie. It's basically a whole bunch of stories about a whole bunch of serial killers over the course of one night in Los Angeles. This film's sensibilities are a bit closer to "Darling's" because "Carnage Park" is definitely a Sam Peckinpah-esque, Neo-Western, survival type movie. "Psychopaths" is much more of a psychedelic fever dream, which we are very excited to start showing people.
"Darling" is now playing in NYC at the Village East Cinema and opens April 8 in Los Angeles at the Arena Cinema.
Carlos Aguilar: I made the big mistake of watching "Darling" at night. It was absolutely terrifying. It took me by surprise, because its very economical in its design, but its very powerful in the emotions that it provokes. Tell me a little bit about the inception of the project and the films that you use as references or influences that inspired its visual aesthetics.
Mickey Keating: I think first and foremost its an homage to 1960s psychological horror movies with fractured narratives told with untrustworthy protagonists. Films like "The Haunting," "The Innocents," "Repulsion," "Diabolique," "That Cold Day in the Park" by Robert Altman, which show a much more restrained, psychological decent into madness. That's what really inspired me to write this one. In terms of composition and framing and camerawork, I turned towards a lot of Haneke films and then also restrained Kubrick-ian and Hitchcock-ian type black-and-white horror movies. It was a great eclectic mix of all these insane, beautiful works of art.
Aguilar: While writing "Darling," were you certain from the start that you wanted it to be focused on a single character with a story that takes place in a single location and very economical in its mechanics?
Mickey Keating: Definitely. It was very important for me to have this movie be this way because my two previous films were really about characters that were playing off one another, really interacting, debating and fighting one another, so with this film I wanted to be much quieter. I wanted to focus on one single person predominately. From the very beginning it was this way. If we could have had no characters in the film we would have tried.
Aguilar: Can you talk about your stylistic decisions including choosing to make the film in black-and-white, the unique framing, and the evocative lighting? The film is definitely a departure from what we commonly see today in the horror genre.
Mickey Keating: I think what was really important for me with this movie was a certain level of restraint. Horror movies, especially indie horror movies, in the past 5 years, have been nothing but hand-held footage and not necessarily about anything beyond trying to capture this weird pathetic intensity and also jump scares. What I really wanted to try and do was push back and go in the complete opposite direction of that. From the get go it was supposed to be like this. The script's not very long and it was all about, "Ok, we’re going to try to make every shot a painting." We knew we were going to really fixate on how we could tell the story the best way possible with the composition, which is a much more traditional approach in terms of classical filmmaking techniques. It was very satisfying to strip that back and really get back on the same page as traditional audiences and not have to try to fool them with fake realism or anything like that.
Aguilar: Editing is a crucial part of what makes "Darling" successful. You chose to use intercuts that can be perceived as flashbacks to what brought the character to this point or as premonitions of what's yet to come.
Mickey Keating: Absolutely. While I was writing the movie, we were also watching a whole bunch of 1960s experimental films. Even the works of John Schlesinger, like "Midnight Cowboy," or especially that dream sequence in "The Exorcist."There was this really exciting notion back then that had this fluidity in editing. The editor is just as present as the cinematographer or anyone else on the film. That’s what we kind of wanted to do, create this almost liquid type of storytelling that’s very abrupt and in a weird way upsetting. I think the goal was to make the audience who endured the film really unsettled and uncomfortable and always on edge. I feel like an exciting, effective horror film for me is a horror film that I can never really see where anything is coming from. That’s what we really tried with this one.
Aguilar: What builds the unsettling atmosphere in "Darling" is the fantastic sound work that enhances the imagery on screen. This is clearly of crucial importance in horror films but sometimes it can be feel overused or on-the-nose. Not in this case. Tell me about the process of creating this other layer of emotion through sound.
Mickey Keating: Definitely. Because the film takes place mostly inside in the house, it was really important for me. Sound is a huge passion of mine, sound design is one of my favorite things in the world, and I think that it's often underutilized. Going back to that idea of pure naturalism, it just kind of exists in the space. What I wanted to do from the very beginning of shooting was give each room, each floor, each kind of location in the house its own sound and its own feeling, as if the house is its own being. Darling walks throughout its body. When she gets up to the door on the top floor, that’s like being in its brain and in the middle that’s like being in its lungs. Every single area is set up differently. It's really upsetting in a way because it makes you very disturbed. Where we looked to for that was the video game "Silent Hill." It has the greatest example of sound work in the entire world because the majority of the first game, especially, is walking around. There are very few monsters in that game, but you are so constantly horrified and on edge because you can never anticipate what’s gonna come next because that sound Is always moving, always liquid, and always changing. Very disturbing I feel.
Aguilar: "Darling" is also a period piece even though this is never specified or delved into. It's a very noticeable quality of the film that coincides with the films that inspire you, but is not a definite factor in how we perceive the story.
Mickey Keating: I think if we had decided to go full blown 1960’s black-and-white probably we would have been pushing it a little bit too far. I didn’t want tot make a movie that wouldn’t be able to get an audience on all, or at least some level. My favorite thing I’ve ever read about David Lynch is that his moves exist in a dream-time in a way. They’re very heavy handed 1950s but clearly there’s some from the 80s. All these references make all of his films very anachronistic, and that’s was my intention. While its definitely a 1960s type of horror film, we never explicitly say it. The fact that the world is all black-and-white and New York sounds very strange in the film, it almost seems like it exists on another plane, or at least that was my intention.
Aguilar: Tell me about your star, Lauren Ashley Carter, who is terrific and terrifying beyond belief. Her screams and her facial expressions are really hard to shake off once the film is over.
Mickey Keating: I knew Lauren because she was in my previous film, and in my previous film she's one of the victims. She screams, she’s terrified, and so for this movie I wanted to flip that on its head. I wanted to cast her again and see where else she, as an actor, could go. When I was talking to her I referenced a lot of movies like "The Seventh Continent" by Michael Haneke and we also talked about those old 1920s horror movies where you see those violent screams that burn in your mind. She totally took that and ran with it. It was very exciting to be able to bring her on board. She’s definitely fantastic. It was also very exciting to be able to bring Sean Young on board as well as Brian Morvant, from my previous film, who plays the antagonist in the film. I wanted to flip that again and have him play the victim in this one. It was really a total world of friends making movies with friends, which is very satisfying.
Aguilar: Her character is sort of a blend between a victim and a villain. She has this sort of duality about her throughout the film, which that doesn’t let us know what she really is until late in the film.
Mickey Keating: Absolutely. That even goes back to southern gothic literature or even a movie like "Taxi Driver." When Travis is doing the pushups and we see he has all these scars all up his back, we know he clearly has a very disturbed past, and yet somehow he's still the protagonist. Travis Bickle was always a big point of reference for that as well.
Aguilar: What would you say were some of the most difficult hurdles you had to overcome to make an independent horror film at this scale and with the particularities that "Darling" showcases? How difficult was it to get people on board with the project you envisioned?
Mickey Keating: There are plenty. Its never easy. I think that at all scales of movies there's always stuff that’s very difficult, stressful and horrible to deal with and that never really changes. If you have enough money to solve anybody's problem, then clearly theres somebody who will charge that rate. It's never quite easy. I think the main challenge on a film like this was first and foremost that I wanted to make a black-and-white movie. A lot of people, when I even mentioned it before I even shot it, would say, "Oh don’t do black-and-white because you can't sell it." Clearly that’s not the case, so it's interesting. I feel like if I had brought this to any other production company besides Glass Eye Pix it wouldn't have happened. Nobody wants to be the guy saying, "Alright, lets make a black-and-white period horror movie," but everyone wants to come on board after the fact, which is very very frustrating to me in a lot of ways. I think that’s one of the challenges, being able to step back and say, "No, we're going to find a way to make this. We're going to figure out something. No matter what anyone says we're going to make this movie this way." Another challenge that really kind of comes to mind was, shooting in New York City in November was not easy. It was raining and it was cold. I’m from Florida originally and I live in California, so it was just a nightmare. But I think what’s fortunate about these movies is that we make them for a price so we make the movies that we are excited to make. Hopefully the right people that are drawn to them are drawn to them and everybody is happy at the end of the day. Overall it was a great experience.
Aguilar: The constraints that come with independent filmmaking, whether these are financial or logistical, often force artists to elevate their creativity to new heights in order to find solutions. Of course having more money makes things easier. Creative freedom that comes with a reasonable budget would be ideal.
Mickey Keating: Absolutely, there is a difference between committee filmmaking and having an individual voice. For all these movies that we are referencing and celebrating that used to be a no-brainer. You got a lot of money and you could make something that was very personal. Now, the way that the landscape of filmmaking has changed, every cent that you get that’s more than $1 million comes with a great big asterisk. It was great to be able to do something that was very personal. I had a great support system through Glass Eye Pix, they were totally like, “Yeah, do your thing.” It was great.
Aguilar: How have audiences reacted to the film? There is, of course, a niche audiences that will probaly enjoy the elegant madness of the film. Has that been the case?
Mickey Keating: In general in terms of the movies that I make, people are either very rabidly passionate about them or rabidly hateful towards them [Laughs]. The people who have been supportive of “Darling” have been very vocally supportive. I feel like what’s so fun about a movie like this is that in the first 30 seconds of it you are going to decide whether it’s a movie for you or not. In a way that’s very exciting because people who have stayed on the roller-coaster and gone all the way through are very adamant about how they feel and the emotions that it invoked. To me it just comes down to the fact that you are creating a conversation with your audience. The more you can talk about it, it’s a sign of an effective film and there have been a lot of conversations about this one so far, which is very exciting.
Aguilar: This is a film that takes a seemingly peaceful locations and a passive character and turns those preconceived notions on their head.
Mickey Keating: Definitely, We kind of approached the movie almost like a drug trip using the chapters. I’m not use drugs guy, but I think you can see that at the beginning there is this excitement and the further you get along down the rabbit hole or down the drug trip it becomes more jarring and fractured, and then by the last chapter it’s almost something like a hangover. It was very exciting to try to tell that story that way.
Aguilar: Seems like this is a busy year for you. What is the next frightening trip you are taking us on?
Mickey Keating: I have another movie coming out soon called "Carnage Park" that we premiered at Sudnance and SXSW this year. It'll be out in the summer. I also just wrapped another film called "Psychopaths," which is an ensemble serial killers movie. It's basically a whole bunch of stories about a whole bunch of serial killers over the course of one night in Los Angeles. This film's sensibilities are a bit closer to "Darling's" because "Carnage Park" is definitely a Sam Peckinpah-esque, Neo-Western, survival type movie. "Psychopaths" is much more of a psychedelic fever dream, which we are very excited to start showing people.
- 4/2/2016
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
In their biggest ever announcement, British distributor Eureka! Entertainment revealed a quartet of new acquisitions, as well as announced a number of upcoming releases on their Masters of Cinema and Eureka! Classics labels. Kawase Naomi's tender drama An (also known as Sweet Bean), Kurosawa Kiyoshi's latest thriller Creepy, Alex Ross Perry's Queen Of Earth and Tobias Nölle’s Aloys were all picked up at this year's Berlinale and will be released theatrically by Eureka, before hitting Blu-ray. Specific release details will be revealed later in the year, but Kurosawa and Perry both have titles in the Masters of Cinema series already, so it seems likely at least those two titles will follow suit. Robert Altman's That Cold Day In The Park (out 20 June, dual-format), Billy Wilder's...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
- 3/30/2016
- Screen Anarchy
Editor's Note: RogerEbert.com is proud to reprint Roger Ebert's 1978 entry from the Encyclopedia Britannica publication "The Great Ideas Today," part of "The Great Books of the Western World." Reprinted with permission from The Great Ideas Today ©1978 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
It's a measure of how completely the Internet has transformed communication that I need to explain, for the benefit of some younger readers, what encyclopedias were: bound editions summing up all available knowledge, delivered to one's home in handsome bound editions. The "Great Books" series zeroed in on books about history, poetry, natural science, math and other fields of study; the "Great Ideas" series was meant to tie all the ideas together, and that was the mission given to Roger when he undertook this piece about film.
Given the venue he was writing for, it's probably wisest to look at Roger's long, wide-ranging piece as a snapshot of the...
It's a measure of how completely the Internet has transformed communication that I need to explain, for the benefit of some younger readers, what encyclopedias were: bound editions summing up all available knowledge, delivered to one's home in handsome bound editions. The "Great Books" series zeroed in on books about history, poetry, natural science, math and other fields of study; the "Great Ideas" series was meant to tie all the ideas together, and that was the mission given to Roger when he undertook this piece about film.
Given the venue he was writing for, it's probably wisest to look at Roger's long, wide-ranging piece as a snapshot of the...
- 2/12/2015
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
Long unavailable for home viewing, Robert Altman’s 1982 title Come Back to the 5 and Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean has languished as a remote, minor title of the auteur’s filmography, trotted out to devotees at retrospectives. Based on the play by Ed Graczyk and featuring a bevy of eclectic actresses, it’s often and unfairly lumped into consideration with Altman’s other adaptations of stage material from the time period, including David Rabe’s Streamers (1983), Sam Shepard’s Fool For Love (1985) and Christopher Durang’s Beyond Therapy (1987). Often described as typically Altmanesque with its examination of Americana, a dialogue heavy showcase of melodrama squeezed from the banalities of everyday existence, at last it’s available for a wider appreciation, ripe for a recuperation as more than a mere trifle lost in a flood of greater titles from an American auteur.
It’s 1975 and a group of extreme James Dean fans,...
It’s 1975 and a group of extreme James Dean fans,...
- 11/25/2014
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
The 61st Sydney Film Festival today announced 32 films to be featured in this year.s event (June 4-15) in advance of the full program launch on May 7.
The line-up includes the world premiere of The Redfern Story, 19 Australian premieres, 13 features, 11 documentaries and an eight-film retrospective on maverick American filmmaker Robert Altman. Altman.s son, filmmaker Michael Altman, will attend festival and introduce several of the Altman screenings.
Darlene Johnson.s The Redfern Story chronicles the volatile birth of the first all-Indigenous theatre company, the National Black Theatre. It features interviews with indigenous media pioneer Lester Bostock, writer Gerry Bostock, actor Lillian Crombie, activist-academic Gary Foley, academic Marcia Langton, actors Rachael Maza, Bryan Brown and Bindi Williams. .We are pleased to present this sneak preview of 32 of the 180-plus films in this year.s program,. said Festival Director Nashen Moodley. .We have gathered a selection of the best films from the...
The line-up includes the world premiere of The Redfern Story, 19 Australian premieres, 13 features, 11 documentaries and an eight-film retrospective on maverick American filmmaker Robert Altman. Altman.s son, filmmaker Michael Altman, will attend festival and introduce several of the Altman screenings.
Darlene Johnson.s The Redfern Story chronicles the volatile birth of the first all-Indigenous theatre company, the National Black Theatre. It features interviews with indigenous media pioneer Lester Bostock, writer Gerry Bostock, actor Lillian Crombie, activist-academic Gary Foley, academic Marcia Langton, actors Rachael Maza, Bryan Brown and Bindi Williams. .We are pleased to present this sneak preview of 32 of the 180-plus films in this year.s program,. said Festival Director Nashen Moodley. .We have gathered a selection of the best films from the...
- 4/1/2014
- by Staff writer
- IF.com.au
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Dec. 3, 2013
Price: Blu-ray/DVD Combo: $39.95
Studio: Criterion
The gang's all here in Robert Altman's Nashville.
Robert Altman’s (That Cold Day in the Park) 1975 drama-comedy masterwork Nashville is a cornerstone of 1970s American moviemaking, offering a panoramic view of the country’s political and entertainment landscapes.
Set in the nation’s music capital. Nashville weaves the stories of twenty-four characters—from country star to wannabe to reporter to waitress—into a cinematic tapestry that is equal parts comedy, tragedy, and musical. Many members of the astonishing cast—which includes Lily Tomlin, Jeff Goldbum, Keith Carradine, Henry Gibson and Michael Murphy—wrote and performed their own songs live on location, which lends another layer to the film’s quirky authenticity.
Altman’s ability to get to the heart of American life via its eccentric byways was never put to better use than in this grand, rollicking triumph,...
Price: Blu-ray/DVD Combo: $39.95
Studio: Criterion
The gang's all here in Robert Altman's Nashville.
Robert Altman’s (That Cold Day in the Park) 1975 drama-comedy masterwork Nashville is a cornerstone of 1970s American moviemaking, offering a panoramic view of the country’s political and entertainment landscapes.
Set in the nation’s music capital. Nashville weaves the stories of twenty-four characters—from country star to wannabe to reporter to waitress—into a cinematic tapestry that is equal parts comedy, tragedy, and musical. Many members of the astonishing cast—which includes Lily Tomlin, Jeff Goldbum, Keith Carradine, Henry Gibson and Michael Murphy—wrote and performed their own songs live on location, which lends another layer to the film’s quirky authenticity.
Altman’s ability to get to the heart of American life via its eccentric byways was never put to better use than in this grand, rollicking triumph,...
- 9/20/2013
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
Director Robert Altman.
Robert Altman: Eclectic Maverick
By
Alex Simon
Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the April 1999 issue of Venice Magazine.
It's the Fall of 1977 and I'm a bored and rebellious ten year old in search of a new movie to occupy my underworked and creativity-starved brain, feeling far too mature for previous favorites Wily Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) and Return of the Pink Panther (1975), and wanting something more up-to-date and edgy than Chaplin's City Lights (1931). I needed a movie to call my favorite that would be symbolic of my own new-found manhood (and something that would really piss off my parents and teachers). Mom and Dad were going out for the evening, leaving me with whatever unfortunate baby-sitter happened to need the $10 badly enough to play mother hen to an obnoxiously precocious only child like myself. I scanned the TV Guide for what...
Robert Altman: Eclectic Maverick
By
Alex Simon
Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the April 1999 issue of Venice Magazine.
It's the Fall of 1977 and I'm a bored and rebellious ten year old in search of a new movie to occupy my underworked and creativity-starved brain, feeling far too mature for previous favorites Wily Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) and Return of the Pink Panther (1975), and wanting something more up-to-date and edgy than Chaplin's City Lights (1931). I needed a movie to call my favorite that would be symbolic of my own new-found manhood (and something that would really piss off my parents and teachers). Mom and Dad were going out for the evening, leaving me with whatever unfortunate baby-sitter happened to need the $10 badly enough to play mother hen to an obnoxiously precocious only child like myself. I scanned the TV Guide for what...
- 2/15/2013
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Feb. 19, 2013
Price: DVD $24.95, Blu-ray $29.95
Studio: Olive Films
Sandy Dennis tries to overcome her loneliness in That Cold Day in the Park.
Sandy Dennis (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) stars as a wealthy and mentally disturbed spinster who goes to extraordinary lengths to assuage her loneliness in the 1969 drama That Cold Day In The Park, a seldom-screened film directed by Robert Altman (3 Women) that is now seeing its first-ever release on DVD and Blu-ray.
On a cold, rainy Vancouver day, Frances (Dennis) encounters a shivering blond youth (Michael Burns) sitting alone on a park bench. She offers him food and shelter and the apparently mute teenager accepts. Every night she locks his bedroom door, but the boy goes in and out of his room through the fire escape window, returning early next morning without her knowledge. Frances eventually attempts to seduce him and the boy soon...
Price: DVD $24.95, Blu-ray $29.95
Studio: Olive Films
Sandy Dennis tries to overcome her loneliness in That Cold Day in the Park.
Sandy Dennis (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) stars as a wealthy and mentally disturbed spinster who goes to extraordinary lengths to assuage her loneliness in the 1969 drama That Cold Day In The Park, a seldom-screened film directed by Robert Altman (3 Women) that is now seeing its first-ever release on DVD and Blu-ray.
On a cold, rainy Vancouver day, Frances (Dennis) encounters a shivering blond youth (Michael Burns) sitting alone on a park bench. She offers him food and shelter and the apparently mute teenager accepts. Every night she locks his bedroom door, but the boy goes in and out of his room through the fire escape window, returning early next morning without her knowledge. Frances eventually attempts to seduce him and the boy soon...
- 12/10/2012
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
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