Comic-Con 2012!

Posted on July 10, 2012 at 3:00 pm

It’s almost here! The San Diego Comic-Con starts tomorrow night and continues through Sunday afternoon, with thousands of passionate fans and hundreds of events. I always refer to it as the Iowa caucuses of popular culture because this is where the many of the most important and highest visibility movies, games, books, and television shows we will be seeing over the next couple of years make their debuts. This year the stars and filmmakers behind such highly anticipated films as the last “Twilight” chapter, Tarantino’s “Django Unchained,” “Paranorman,” “Pacific Rim,” and “The Dark Knight Rises,” will be there to entice fans with delectable details. Cast members from television shows like “Game of Thrones” and “The Big Bang Theory” will appear on panels to talk about their new seasons and share some behind-the-scenes stories. The acclaimed literary star Margaret Atwood tweeted that she is on her way to Comic-Con. And I will be there to see as much as I can and take lots of pictures of attendees in costume. Even the pseudonymous author of Fifty Shades of Grey, E.L. James, will be there. Stay tuned!

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Silverdocs: Awards

Posted on June 25, 2012 at 5:45 pm

Silverdocs, the Silver Spring, Maryland documentary film festival that concluded this weekend, received 2018 submissions for 114 places on the schedule.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKooIgzaQMg

Awards included: “Only the Young” (best U.S. feature), directed by Jason Tippit and Elizabeth Mims, is about three teenagers in a depressed Southern California suburb.

Planet of Snail,” (best world feature) was directed by Seungiun Yi and is the story on the deaf and blind South Korean poet Young-Chan and his devoted wife

“Kings Point,” (best short film), directed by Sari Gilman, is set in a retirement community in Florida.

“The Waiting Room” (special U.S. feature jury award), was directed by Peter Nicks and casts a spotlight on the real world that is often overlooked in the health care debates.

Special Flight” (world feature jury award) directed by Fernand Melgar, is about unjust treatment of immigrants in Sweden.

Audience awards: “Trash Dance” (feature) and “Sparkle” (short)

I saw four films at Silverdocs and all were superb:

“Photographic Memory,” the latest in the autobiographical series by “Sherman’s March” Ross McElwee, this one a return to the French region of Brittany, where he lived when he was a little older than his son Adrian, whose lack of focus troubles him.

“Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel,” the story of the legendary fashion editor.

“How to Survive a Plague,” with extraordinary archival footage of the activist movement that took on AIDS and changed health care and history.

“The Queen of Versailles,” about a wealthy couple with seven children who build the biggest home in America, complete with baseball field, ten kitchens, and a spa — until the financial crisis brings it to a halt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqDreqlPe98

Interviews with the filmmakers of the last two coming soon — stay tuned.

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Silverdocs Documentary Film Festival Opens Tonight

Posted on June 18, 2012 at 12:28 pm

In just 10 years, the AFI/Discovery Channel’s annual Silverdocs film festival has become not just one of the best places in the world to see documentaries but one of the world’s leading film festivals in any category. This year’s line-up is brilliant. Tonight, the festival opens with the astounding story of the lead singer in a Filipino Journey cover band who ended up touring with his heroes as their lead singer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISqCjjoOrfw

And it closes next Sunday with another musical saga.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxDASw6Ry9c

The schedule also includes a tribute to Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, the documentarians who made the trilogy that led to the freeing of the wrongly convicted “West Memphis Three” and the Metallica movie, “Some Kind of Monster,” films about fashion diva Diana Vreeland, artist Marina Abromovic, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, writer George Plimpton, radio DJ Bob Fass, and Olympic weightlifter Cheryl Haworth as well as the story of the couple behind the largest residence in the US, the legendary hackers known as “Anonymous,” competitors for the Miss India title, and a production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle where the bigger drama was offstage.

Congratulations and best wishes to everyone at Silverdocs and let the films begin!

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Documentary Festivals

Cannes: Where Are the Women?

Posted on May 20, 2012 at 8:00 am

Thanks to Thelma Adams for writing about the way that the prestigious Cannes Film Festival continues to overlook women.

year’s Cannes Film Festival has not a single female-directed film among the 23 in competition.

I love contenders like David Cronenberg, whose “Cosmopolis”— starring Robert Pattinson — has been welcomed into the competition, and who headed the Cannes jury in 1999. I was a champion of his cerebral period drama “A Dangerous Method,” which had a terrific star turn by Keira Knightley. But, really, not a single film by a woman? I’m just gobsmacked.

It is, however, a good year to be a North American male: In addition to Cronenberg, Lee Daniels (“The Paperboy”), Jeff Nichols (“Mud”), and Wes Anderson (“Moonrise Kingdom”) will premiere at what is considered the most prestigious film festival on the planet. The other 51 percent be damned.

Adams points out that other top festivals like Telluride and Tribeca have no trouble finding worthy films directed by women, including the latest from Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow and “Away From Her’s” Sarah Polley.

The Wrap reports that “Before the festival began, an open letter ran in the French newspaper Le Monde. ‘Men are fond of depth in women,’ read one line of the letter, ‘but only in their cleavage.'” More than 1000 people have signed a petition calling for Cannes to include more women filmmakers and many have asked that Cannes include more women — and not just actresses — as judges.

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My Appearance on the “On Demand” Panel at Ebertfest

Posted on May 13, 2012 at 11:12 pm

Here’s the “On Demand” panel from Ebertfest — it was a thrill to be a part of this lively discussion about the pros and cons of watching films outside a movie theater. I especially enjoyed meeting Roger Ebert’s wonderful group of Demanders, the wise and witty folks who review non-theatrical releases for his website.

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