People like to rag on the Golden Globes, nominations for which were announced this morning, as irrelevant, pandering, pointless, lacking integrity and so on. But they’re looking at them the wrong way. The Golden Globes always struck me as being about the desire to get everyone to come to your party. Five nominations for best…
God only knows how the unasked-for big screen adaptation of “Yogi Bear,” out this Friday, will end, but one guesses it won’t be as an homage to Andrew Dominik’s 2007 film about the last days of another character on the run from the law. I suspect this parody, created by Edmund Earle, has a bit…
Across the country, film critic associations are weighing in with their votes on the best films and filmmaking of the year, and at the moment, “The Social Network” rules. On the East Coast, the New York Film Critics’ Circle have yet to offer their choices, but their web-based counterparts the New York Film Critics Online…
Last week, the Michelle Williams/Ryan Gosling indie romance “Blue Valentine” received an R rating, having appealed the MPAA after initially being slapped with an NC-17. It’s the third film in recent months to receive a controversially harsh rating, along with “The King’s Speech” and “A Film Unfinished,” resurrecting the eternal debate about what our ratings…
Last week, audiences at a Steve Martin talk at the 92nd Street Y were offered a refund after apparent complaints due to the fact that Martin was talking with interviewer Deborah Solomon about the art world and his new novel “An Object of Beauty” instead of, you know, funny stuff. As my colleague Matt Singer…
Fuck Yeah! Ryan Gosling is blog consisting entirely of images of the actor brooding alongside messages attesting to his imagined perfect sensitive boyfriendosity, all starting with “Hey Girl…” — for instance, “Hey Girl, sometimes I get so sad when we can’t watch ‘Golden Girls’ together.” It’s a weirdly hilarious response to Gosling’s slate of soulful,…
The New York Times has a set of 14 videos in which “performers who defined cinema in 2010 capture classic screen types.” That includes James Franco, who flirts with and then kisses himself in the mirror, presumably… capturing classic actorly narcissism? It makes a natural pairing with Kevin Bacon’s new commercial for Logitech, in which…
In the indie world, simultaneous (or near) theatrical/VOD releases have become commonplace, from Magnolia to our sister company IFC Films to Cinetic’s FilmBuff — Magnolia even offers an “Ultra VOD” that allows viewers to see certain titles before they’re in theaters. But how about a Hollywood movie? Lauren A. E. Schuker at the Wall Street…
Below is the trailer for “I Am Number Four,” an upcoming sci-fi film starring indistinguishable pretty boy Alex Pettyfer (who previously played the lead in franchise misfire “Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker”) as a superpowered teen being hunted by what look like the Strangers from “Dark City.” He falls in love with Quinn from “Glee” at…
At Slate, Grady Hendrix writes about how the switch from carbon arc light sources to longer lasting xenon bulbs and the arrival of platters changed the job of a projectionist, and how digital projection will likely end it once and for all. He talks to projectionist of 30 years Joe Rivierzo, who obviously has some…
“I don’t want people who see my films to be scared. I want them to act,” Michael Moore told a post-screening audience last night at an event presented by the Center for Constitutional Rights, Chicken & Egg Pictures and Indies Direct. That’s why, he said, 2009′s “Capitalism: A Love Story” is his last film “until…
This review originally ran as part of our coverage of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. “You Wont Miss Me” is all about Shelly Brown, a girl with the kind of problems plenty of 20-somethings dream of moving to New York for the express purpose of having: substance abuse, reckless hookups in her bedraggled Williamsburg apartment…
“The Fighter,” based on the life of boxer “Irish” Micky Ward, has been a dream project of Mark Wahlberg’s for years. The film comes out this week, and inspired by its release we’ve devoted this week’s IFC News podcast to boxing at the movies, from ’40s films like “The Set-Up” to the evolution of the…
It’s been a funny/bitter morning for film critics, journalists and fans on Twitter — here are some selections from the hashtag#filmcritictricks, which seems to have spiraled from knowing self-mockery into darkness awfully quickly. @mattzollerseitz Chastise readers for not turning out to support the theatrical release of a little film you saw via DVD screener. #filmcritictricks…
“Beats Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest,” a documentary about the hip hop group directed by actor Michael Rapaport, will be making its premiere in competition at Sundance this year. And at least one Tribe member isn’t happy about that — on his Twitter account, Q-Tip has expressed his public displeasure…
Just how true is “Catfish”? The film, directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman and centered on Schulman’s brother Nev and his internet relationship with someone in the Midwest, has raised questions as to how nonfiction it actually is since its Sundance premiere. And now Eriq Gardner at the Hollywood Reporter notes that the filmmakers…
Paul Giamatti wears the role of Barney Panofsky, the prickly, big-hearted hero of “Barney’s Version,” like it’s a tailored suit. He takes obviously pleasure in it, and, watching, so do we — it’s a great fit. Barney is a man with an appreciation for life’s more rarefied and delicate things, though he’s earthbound himself, a…
Alison: That crossed my mind too, and I actually went frame by frame to make sure it wasn’t another case of someone getting a fake ID that looks nothing like them, a la “Carded and Discarded.” No, that’s definitely Rachel on there — I can only assume that Mrs. Lindquist didn’t take a close look…
A month ago, novelist Andrew Klavan wrote a wild-eyed editorial at the LA Times claiming that “Toy Story 3″ was a “rebuke, not perhaps to the Obama White House specifically but to its underlying ideas.” A major foundation of his argument was the point that Sunnyside Daycare Center stood in for a socialist society. At…
Filmmaker John Maringouin, the man behind last year’s epic swimming-of-the-Amazon doc “Big River Man,” shot the surreal video below while in the security line of the Oklahoma City Airport on Tuesday, where a wheelchair-bound blond woman sat in her underwear petting a dog and waiting to be searched by the TSA. The woman, whose name…
Here’s the first Sundance line-up announcement, of the fiction and nonfiction feature competitions, both U.S. and world. A few things of interest, on first scan: Vera Farmiga’s directorial debut “Higher Ground,” in which she also stars; “The Ledge,” which sounds like this year’s try for “Buried”; Iñupiaq Arctic thriller “On the Ice”; “Terri,” the new…
Talking to director Joseph Kosinski, Kyle Buchanan of Vulture turns up an unexpected reference point that suggests 3D is looked at by many as just the latest technological advancement in the ever-changing world of film. The movie starts in 2-D and becomes 3-D once the hero, Sam, finally enters the computer-animated world. Is that your…
This review originally ran as part of our coverage of the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival. Like many a film that has its premiere at Tribeca, “Meskada” is earnest and unremarkable, with a cast stacked high with semi-known actors, like Nick Stahl as small-town detective Noah Cordin, or Rachel Nichols from “Alias” as the sheriff’s deputy…
And she’s willing to load the dice. In “Frankie and Alice,” directed by Geoffrey Sax, she plays a troubled exotic dancer. With multiple personalities! One of which is a racist Southern belle! Also it’s the ’70s! Stellan Skarsgård plays her shrink at the mental institution. The film opens for an Oscar qualifying run in LA…
