Suffice it to say that collaboration is an important of any kind of filmmaking. But for his entry in the SUBWAY Fresh Artists™ Filmmaker Series, “Frat House Musical,” producer Gregory Williamson discovered not only how essential a part of the process that it is, but how much it can actually strengthen the end result. Williamson…
Corporate sponsorship can be a tricky thing to take on for a struggling artist; there’s always a quandary whether the opportunities some one will have because of it are worth the credibility that it might cost him or her. But Sarah Streicher came up with a terrifically inventive way to, pun intended, incorporate that idea…
It isn’t altogether often that corporate promotions and genuinely creative ideas come together harmoniously, but Alice Mathias found a happy medium with “Do Whatever.” Capitalizing on the variety of options Subway Restaurants offers customers when they’re assembling their sandwiches, she and her collaborators created a series for the company’s Fresh Artists™ Filmmaker Series about a…
By the time I graduated from college in 1997, I had become fully obsessed with the 1970s. Certainly film was the primary conduit for my interest, but the music and fashion of that decade began to play an increasingly important part in all aspects of my life. Released in October of ’97, “Boogie Nights” became…
By his own admission, Patrice O’Neal was something of a professional bridge-burner, but he was also an incredibly talented comedian who had a lot of friends. Unfortunately, it’s only since his death in November of 2011 that O’Neal has begun to find the kind of recognition that he deserved, but which through accident or design…
With a title like “Jeff and Ravi Fail History,” it’s easy to assume that cowriter and director R.J. Daniel Hanna made a web-friendly version of “Harold & Kumar,” some serialized tome in which two slackers muscle through borderline failure powered by hipster wit and a succession of fast food entrees. But Subway Restaurants made a…
Today marks the opening day of “Project X,” producer Todd Phillips’ ode to adolescent male wish fulfillment, and it’s interesting thus far how the film has divided critics: some celebrate it boundless, puerile hedonism, while others wonder aloud if their generation was ever quite as stupid or irresponsible as the one depicted on screen. Unsurprisingly,…
Although there will always be something primal and urgent about action movies that connects with their fans on a visceral level, the authenticity their execution has varied wildly throughout the years. Some are highly stylized, exaggerated adventures as exhilarating as they are detached from any tangible reality, and others exude a chilling believability that makes…
After an awards season that foretold a lot of sure things and few surprises, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored “The Artist” with Best Picture and four other Oscars at the organization’s 84th annual ceremony. Michel Havanvicius’ tribute to the films of the silent era was the first silent film in 83…
Francois Truffaut once famously said that all war movies are pro-war, because they make the action look exciting. But long before “Saving Private Ryan” and “The Thin Red Line” and even “Paths of Glory,” Lewis Milestone made “All Quiet on the Western Front,” an emphatic antiwar tome that then and perhaps now still ranks among…
Looking at even the trailer for Oren Moverman’s “Rampart,” it’s hard to believe there was a time when Woody Harrelson was not looked at as primarily a dramatic actor. Certainly, in the last ten or fifteen years he has cultivated an undeniable pedigree as an intense, thoughtful, and entertaining performer to watch. But coming off…
The Sundance Film Festival is a bonanza for cinephiles because it offers them a unique and early opportunity to experience movies yet to be released and filmmakers yet to be discovered. But just as much, it’s an opportunity for film fans to reconnect with the artists who inspired them to love the medium in the…
Just six short years after shepherding the last installment of the “Star Wars” series into theaters, “Revenge of the Sith,” George Lucas returned to the big screen last week with the release of “Red Tails.” Lucas didn’t direct the film himself – that honor went to Anthony Hemingway – but its story was one that…
During the oddball January clash between straggling awards-season fare and low-heat studio releases hoping to die a quiet death, it’s really a “whoever wins, we lose” kind of situation: few of the real critical knockouts take until the new year to find audiences, and the studio dregs often demand that their audience be literally knocked…
