A glance at the entertainment news cycle should quickly tell you that we’re in the middle of a paradigm shift as far as how movies are consumed; Facebook, soon to be a publicly-traded company, could in the next few years become the main player in online movie streaming. But aren't more people going to the movies? Or less? It's hard to say--the middle-of-the-week at your local cineplex looks like ... more >
INTERVIEWS
Indie Filmmakers: David Spaltro
Directing/producing as extreme sport - don't say we didn't warn you
With today's dried-up loan markets and lack of funding for the arts, financing all of their film's budget through credit-cards, endless bartender shifts and selling internal organs is the norm for independent filmmakers. What you don't hear about often is someone shedding his identity to dodge debt collectors. New York-based David Spaltro suffered through this for two years, ever since wrapping ... more >
An evening with John Landis
The Animal House director tells it like it is
Though John Landis’s name may not be as instantly recognizable as those of George Lucas or Martin Scorsese, his contributions to quintessential American cinema are just as popular and venerable as those of his better-known (or perhaps just better-marketed) colleagues. The director of such classics—a very worn-out term that actually applies here—as “Animal House” (1978), “The Blues ... more >
Pedro Almodóvar
At the New York Film Festival
Pedro Almodóvar's “The Skin I Live In,” which opens Friday, continues the theme of captivity and powerlessness—whether experienced through a coma, a kidnapping or a permanent, paralyzing handicap—that has permeated films like “Talk to Her,” “Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!” and “Live Flesh.” Whether they're deranged or romantic, farcical or tragic, Almodóvar's movies always combine ... more >
Good Neighbors’ Jacob Tierney
From indie track to the big track
Jacob Tierney's film career launched in 1993, at the age of thirteen, when he starred—alongside Joan Allen, Martha Plimpton and a young Jake Gyllenhaal—in the adolescent road trip comedy/drama Josh and S.A.M. For the next ten years, the Quebec-born actor was cast in relatively obscure independent films featuring legendary character actors, such as Neon Bible (produced by his father, Kevin ... more >
The Room’s Greg Sestero
The new cult classic The Room's rising star
On the surface, the 2003 melodrama turned cult masterpiece The Room is just a worst-than-usual soft-core porn film. There’s lots of horribly wooden dialogue (“Should I try the dress on?” “Sure, it’s yours”) and blocking right out of bush-league theater (characters say “Well, I’ve gotta go” to end virtually every scene). The lead actor has Fabio-length hair and comically ... more >
INTERVIEW – “Medianeras” director Gustavo Taretto
Argentine director chronicles big-city living in new film
Ever notice dead walls, those sides of buildings which were forgotten by the architect? Dead walls (their correct name is 'party wall') sometimes have a single tiny window dead their center. It makes you wonder, why did that one person get a window and not anyone else? Those walls, silent enigmas which only the poet could decode, are called “medianeras” in Spanish. New York’s medianeras, ... more >
