Posted on July 31, 2013 at 8:00 am
Laika, the stop-motion animation studio behind two of my favorite films of the past ten years, “ParaNorman” and “Coraline,” has released the teaser trailer for its 2014 release, “The Box Trolls,” and it looks amazing. Nice nod to non-traditional families as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NqKFVOB_6o
Posted on July 30, 2013 at 3:59 pm
Are you worried about what the NSA knows about you? Then this is ten times scarier.
Posted on July 29, 2013 at 8:00 am
This documentary is a portrait of the generation of the mid-century Jewish comics that includes Jerry Lewis, Sid Caesar, Jackie Mason, Mort Sahl, and Jerry Stiller, who appear telling jokes and telling their stories. And it is the story of the culture that produced them, starting in upstate New York’s Catskill Mountains, aka the Borscht Belt (think “Dirty Dancing”), where Jewish immigrants transformed lush farmland into the 20th century’s largest resort complex. Those Catskill hotels and bungalow colonies provided the setting for a remarkable group of young Jewish-American comedians to hone their craft and become worldwide legends.
Posted on July 26, 2013 at 8:49 am
Here’s a lovely scene from one of this year’s best independent films, “The Spectacular Now,” starring Shailene Woodley and Miles Teller (who will also both appear in the upcoming “Divergent”).
Director James Ponsoldt says:
This is one of my favorite scenes in the entire movie. I always knew I wanted to film in it one long, continuous, unedited take, walking and talking with Aimee and Sutter, feeling like we — the audience — are part of a natural conversation that ebbs and flows from goofy and awkward to serious to emotional to flirtatious and nervous to…a first kiss. I wanted the scene to feel as natural as life. Of course, it meant that the burden was on Shailene and Miles to nail the scene (in a long take, everything has to come together perfectly — or else the shot is useless) — and our camera operator had to back-pedal for 5 minutes on a muddy, slippery path.
What Shailene and Miles ultimately did in this scene is so casual and unguarded and spontaneous that some people think the scene was improvised. It wasn’t. Shailene and Miles are just that great as actors — so present, so connected to their roles, and so willing to embrace whatever happens in the moment (bumping into a tree branch or swatting a pesky mosquito, hearing rumbling storm clouds, etc.).
To put it simply, here’s why this scene is one of my favorites: it actually feels like two people falling for each other.
I’ve seen this scene over a thousand times and I still get chills when Miles and Shailene kiss. I’m so, so inspired by their beautiful work.
Posted on July 25, 2013 at 12:37 pm
I attended the press conference for “Gravity” at Comic-Con and can tell you it looks like one of the most extraordinary films of the year. Take a look at the new trailer:
