Sundance 608 Surcharge
I just returned from spending eight days at the two major art exhibitions: the Venice Biennale and Documenta in Germany. While I was away, Isthmus, the alternative weekly paper, did an article about the surcharge at the recently opened Sundance 608 multiplex here in Madison, indicating that it continues to be a major problem with […]
Charles Burnett: To Sleep With Anger
In thinking about a topic for “The Ambitious Failure Blog-a-thon" on William Speruzzi’s [This Savage Art], I felt somewhat at a loss because I prefer to write about films I really like rather than films that I consider aesthetic failures. As a result, I’ve decided to interpret “ambitious failure" to include a really terrific film that […]
Todd Rohal: The Guatemalan Handshake
In one of their podcasts for Four Eyed Monsters, entitled “Losers," Susan Buice and Arin Crumley list the many reasons they consider themselves to be losers. One is that their film didn’t get into Sundance, but rather Slamdance, thus making them losers because they were unable to come away with a distribution deal. The result […]
Mumblecore and Four Eyed Monsters
In terms of Andrew Bujalski, the subject of my last post, one significant change that has occurred in the meantime has been the fact that his work has become associated with a number of other regionally-based young indie filmmakers, now generally referred to by the term “mumblecore." There’s a diagram that charts the various connections of […]
Mutual Appreciation + Old Joy
Last September, Scott Tobias on the A.V. Club Blog pleaded for audiences to support the theatrical runs of Andrew Bujalski’s Mutual Appreciation (2005) and Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy (2006). He wrote: “If you care at all about American independent films, you’re required to see these movies." Tobias concluded his post: “So vote with your dollars, […]
Gus Van Sant and American Indies at Cannes
On some level, I’m happy that a Romanian film won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. After all, Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days was on every critic’s list of prizewinner favorites. Looking at the composition of the jury, I actually thought that it would be hard for an American […]
Postscript: Waitress
Steve Ramos reports in indieWIRE this morning that Adrienne Shelly's Waitress expanded to 510 theaters and took in an additional $4 million at the box office last week, bringing the four-week total to $6.5 million. It will expand to 605 theaters tomorrow. “We are at a loss to compare another film that plays so broadly […]
DVD Commentary and Special Features
William Speruzzi at [This Savage Art] asked folks to cite examples of the best commentary or special features on a DVD. I confess that I almost never rewatch the film with the director's commentary, and only occasionally bother to watch the special features, including interviews with the director or actors. Why? Because they are usually […]