Written by Alison Willmore, the all-seeing Indie Eye blog reads the news so you don't have to. (Well, maybe just the A & E section).
Alison Willmore
is the editor of IFC.com's film coverage and one of the site's video hosts. Follow her at twitter.com/indie_eye
Email: ifcblog (at) ifc dot com
October 2008
The week on IFC.com: Makeup artistry, child vampires and black eyes.
By Alison Willmore on 10/31/2008
Filed under: The week on IFC.comWhat's been happening on the rest of IFC.com: + Video: How to Give Yourself a Black Eye - For Halloween, or just to scare your parents -- makeup artist Rachel Pagani demonstrates how to make your own shiner, + Feature: Puddy In Their Hands - The Experts Speak - Stephen Saito gathers opinions from the pros on their favorite creature and makeup effects work from the history of horror flicks. + Interview: Tomas Alfredson on "Let the Right One In" - Aaron Hillis talks to the director about his vampire/coming-of-age movie, working with child actors and how technology has crushed... MORE »
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Critic wrangle: "Zack and Miri Make a Porno."
By Alison Willmore on 10/31/2008
Filed under: Critic wrangleI liked Kevin Smith's rom-com just fine when I caught it at Fantastic Fest last month, though I'm getting pretty tired of the Smith/Apatow tendency to obscure sappiness with poop jokes. Own it or get over it, boys. The critics are all over the place with "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," which is either heartfelt, tiresome or both. On the pro side: Roger Ebert, who compares Smith, favorable, to a line cook, and Robert Wilonsky at the Village Voice, who shrugs that "nothing about Zack and Miri feels terribly fresh, much less transgressive," but adds that "there is something... MORE »
"Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father."
By Alison Willmore on 10/31/2008
Filed under: ReviewsThe common refrain when describing Kurt Kuenne's documentary "Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father" is that you shouldn't -- that the shocking events that occur over the course of the film should blindside audiences as much as they blindside the filmmaker and his subjects. But you wouldn't be watching "Dear Zachary" if it were merely the film Kuenne first set out to make: a celluloid memorial to his childhood friend Andrew Bagby, a cheery 28-year-old with a touch of the hobbit to him, an Eagle Scout, an eager on-camera participant in all of Kuenne's teenage attempts... MORE »
Rudy Ray Moore, 1927-2008.
By Alison Willmore on 10/20/2008
Filed under: MemoriamThe man was Dolemite, not to mention otherwise funny like burning. From Mike White: Moore passed away at age 81 on Sunday October 19, 2008. Via rhymed couplets, free form verse, and dirty versions of the alphabet, Moore entertained audiences for decades. His best-remembered routine, "The Signifying Monkey," continues to echo through the world of popular culture. Without two turn tables, and only a mic, Moore rocked the world as Dolemite. [Photo: "Dolemite," Dimension Pictures, 1975] + Dolemite to Kick God's Ass (Impossible Funky)... MORE »
Trailering: Heartbreaking memorials, Irish dramas, more superheroes.
By Alison Willmore on 10/20/2008
Filed under: TraileringHere's a trailer for "Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father," Kurt Kuenne's documentary that begins as a memorial to his murdered best friend and goes to even more distressing places from there. The film, which has had a very successful festival fun since its premiere at Slamdance, opens in New York on Halloween and L.A. the week after. Here's a trailer for "Eden," "from the producers of 'Once'," or maybe just its executive producer, according to IMDb. An adaptation of Eugene O'Brien's play about a suburban Irish couple facing marital problems on their tenth anniversary, the... MORE »
The Gothams big heart "Ballast."
By Alison Willmore on 10/20/2008
Filed under: AwardsLance Hammer's self-distributed Sundance hit "Ballast" is the favorite amongst the Gotham Awards nominees, with the film's four nominations including Best Feature, Best Ensemble Performance, Best Breakthrough Director and Best Breakthrough Actor. The Gothams are now officially called the "Gotham Independent Film Awards," and while their criteria for which films can be nominated are not as stringent as those of the Spirit Awards, which give a budget cap, this year's awards have been limited to films that have received a "theatrical release through a specialty division of a studio, an independent distributor or via self-distribution" -- no more "The Departed."... MORE »
The week on IFC.com: Catherine Deneuve, comebacks and Ukrainian mustaches.
By Alison Willmore on 10/17/2008
Filed under: The week on IFC.comWhat's been happening on the rest of IFC.com: + Video: Lars Ulrich Loves Indie Film - The Metallica drummer on how '07 was a great year for independent film, his friendship with Thomas Vinterberg and why there's still hope for low-budget cinema. + Feature: Four Actor-Director Duos Who Are Joined at the Hip - Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott aren't the only actor/director pair attempting to be the John Wayne/John Ford of our time. + Interview: Eugene Hütz on "Filth and Wisdom" - Wrangling with the Gogol Bordello frontman over perversity, mustaches and his role in Madonna's directorial debut.... MORE »
Critic wrangle: "What Just Happened?"
By Alison Willmore on 10/17/2008
Filed under: Critic wrangle"And Bruce Willis as himself" -- Barry Levinson's industry satire "What Just Happened?" wasn't the buzzy Sundance hit those who made it clearly had expected, despite a bright and shiny cast of biggish names like Robert De Niro, Robin Wright Penn, John Turturro, Stanley Tucci. Catherine Keener and the aforementioned Willis. In theaters today, it's generated mixed reviews -- I'd count myself amongst the many that seem impatient with continued tales of high-larious Hollywood woe. "What Just Happened? is a doodle, but its aura of dread seems earned," writes David Edelstein at New York, saluting De Niro's "killer timing" and... MORE »
Critic wrangle: "Filth and Wisdom."
By Alison Willmore on 10/17/2008
Filed under: Critic wrangleAh, it's been a while, By the way, did you hear Madonna made a movie? "Filth and Wisdom" came out of its premiere at Berlin this year with some of the expected scorching reviews and a few others that noted, with a shrug, that the movie wasn't actually so bad, which about reflects the reviews not that it's reached theaters. And why not? As Manohla Dargis notes at the New York Times, the film "is a ridiculously easy target, but it also creaks and strains with more ambition than most mainstream throwaways that just recycle the usual guns and poses,"... MORE »
"W."
By Alison Willmore on 10/17/2008
Filed under: ReviewsWhen the "South Park" boys looked at George W. Bush not long after he'd been sworn in in 2001, they saw in the malapropism-prone Texan we'd sort of elected the perfect sitcom character, a genial doofus whose hijinks could always be resolved in the space of half an hour, even though those problems hung on the unresolvable ones over which our country regularly tears itself apart. And with all that's happened in the intervening years, with "W." we find that when Oliver Stone looks at our current president, he apparently also sees...a genial doofus. "W." isn't a vitriolic indictment of... MORE »
NYFF 2008: The rest.
By Alison Willmore on 10/15/2008
Filed under: Festivals, Reviews"I'm Gonna Explode" An unhappy girl and a troubled boy meet in detention in their high school in a suburb of Mexico City, and before you can shout "Holy Nouvelle Vague, Batman!" they're running away on a dreamy days-long adventure together, having found their perfect co-conspirator. Their parents don't take this well, but their on-the-lam offspring haven't actually gone further than the roof of the boy's house, where they sunbathe with the radio on, divest themselves of their virginity, curl up to movies in a tent, and sneak food and booze from downstairs when everyone's out. The lad's father is... MORE »
Starting up "The Stagg Party."
By Alison Willmore on 10/14/2008
Filed under: WatchyEpisodes one and two of the new web series from mumblecore's own Joe Swanberg are now up on the main site of IFC.com: "The Stagg Party" is a documentary series about Ellen Stagg, a Brooklyn-based photographer whose commercial career is sometimes at odds with her passion for shooting high-end erotica. (Stagg also has a small role in Swanberg's "Nights and Weekends," which opened on Friday.) Needless to say, this one is NSFW. Stagg on the series, from The Huffington Post: "The only problem that reared its head when I was shooting is that sometimes Joe would be in my shot... MORE »
NYFF 2008: "Happy-Go-Lucky."
By Alison Willmore on 10/14/2008
Filed under: Festivals, ReviewsYou're not supposed to take to Poppy right off the bat. She rides through London in her wildly colored outfit over the opening credits grinning so cheerily that at any moment a chorus of animated forest creatures threatens to leap out and provide backup as she burst into song. She pops into a bookstore and tries to chat up the utterly resistant cashier as she browses. She is, to put it lightly, irritating as all hell. When she rounds the corner to leave, her bike is gone, and she just sighs "We didn't even get a chance to say goodbye,"... MORE »
NYFF 2008: "Ashes of Time Redux."
By Alison Willmore on 10/09/2008
Filed under: Festivals, ReviewsWhen Wong Kar-wai's lone attempt at a martial arts film, "Ashes of Time," first came out in 1994, it was considered by most to be awfully pretty and mystifyingly elliptical. "Redux" finds it restored, re-edited, seven minutes shorter, with feverishly heightened colors and dramatic new music from Yo-Yo Ma. Having never seen the original version, I can't speak to whether it's also been clarified, but here's what I got: The Blind Swordsman (who's more in the process of losing his vision) loves his wife Peach Blossom, but left her because she has a thing for Huang Yaoshi, a warrior who's... MORE »
NYFF 2008: "The Wrestler."
By Alison Willmore on 10/08/2008
Filed under: Festivals, ReviewsMickey Rourke is one magnificent wreck. "The Wrestler" holds off from giving you the full-frontal of his face for a while, as if he were the monster in a low-budget horror flick. When it does finally creep around, you see misplaced tautness, semi-mobile features, starlet lips, an overall impression of carved putty. One of the film's visual jokes is that Rourke's character, faded pro wrestler Randy "The Ram" Robinson, is a shambling but still formidable hunk of meat, but he's aging in the style of a South Beach matron. It's not just the too often overhauled mug -- we follow... MORE »
The week on IFC.com: Mickey Rourke, soundtracks and post-Iraq road movies.
By Alison Willmore on 10/03/2008
Filed under: In the worksThis blog should be back to its regular self next week or so. In the meantime, a round-up of what's been happening on the rest of IFC.com: + Review: "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist" - Matt Singer wonder why, for a movie that supposedly revolves around music, no one in this teen rom-com seems to like it all that much. + Video: "The Wrestler" at the New York Film Festival - Mickey Rourke, Darren Aronofsky and Marisa Tomei face the press to share stories about the making of this tale of a faded pro wrestler. + Video: "Che" at the... MORE »
NYFF 2008: "The Class."
By Alison Willmore on 10/02/2008
Filed under: Festivals, Reviews"The Class," Laurent Cantet's very fine film about an academic year in a life of a teacher and his students at an inner city Parisian middle school, gets its structure and its strength from limitations. The camera doesn't wander outside of the walls of the school; it seldom leaves the classroom, the only meaningful place of intersection between the worlds of François Marin, imperfect instructor, and his boisterously mixed bag of multicultural pupils. When a student departs for the day, or summer, or forever, he or she might as well be oceans away, news of homelife trickling back in through... MORE »
NYFF 2008: "Bullet in the Head."
By Alison Willmore on 10/01/2008
Filed under: Festivals, ReviewsI hope someone out there is proclaiming Jaime Rosales' "Bullet in the Head" a masterpiece of experimental filmmaking that forces you to reconsider narrative's place and importance in film and such and such. There is something likable about its daring, and it's exactly the kind of film that needs a vocal contrarian champion to stubbornly insist it's the best thing ever. But that person is not me. "Bullet in the Head" is an 85-minute film shot in stalker-cam via long range lens. There's no audible dialogue save a moment when the characters yell loud enough to reach even the theoretical... MORE »
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