McElwee was a pioneer in the now-ubiquitous personal documentary. Each of his films chronicles a chapter in his life. This evening we were treated to two rarely seen early shorts, Charleen and Backyard, that solidified his style for his (truly essential) first feature, Sherman’s March: A Meditation on the Possibility of Romantic Love In the South During an Era of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation (1986) and his subsequent (really fantastic) body of work.
02-02-10: Ross McElwee at the Stranger Than Fiction documentary series @ the IFC Center
“Filmmaking is a miracle of collaboration,” said James McAvoy in his thick Scottish brogue. “As many people as are in this room can have a moment of complicity. That energy can fuel you.”
Sunday evening at The New York Times Arts and Leisure Weekend, the charismatic actor spoke to an audience of about 350 women and 28 men. Perhaps it was his role as lusty Robbie Turner in Atonement that brought out women of all ages in numbers. McAvoy is also known for his work in The Last King of Scotland and Wanted. The Last Station, in which he plays Leo Tolstoy’s young disciple, opens this Friday.
McAvoy cited Back to the Future as an early favorite film. It’s not hard to see his similarity with Michael J. Fox in those years, with his boyish good looks, vivid blue eyes, and playful sense of humor.
01-10-10: James McAvoy interviewed by New York Times’s Melena Ryzik aka The Carpetbagger
Photos by Matthew Arnold (c) 2010
“If you’re not an activist, you’re an inactivist,” asserted The Cove director Louie Psihoyos in the Japanese dolphin-killing exposé. The Greek-American director is a National Geographic photographer. We hope to hear his film nominated for an Academy Award on Feb. 2.
01-09-10: Producer Fisher Stevens and director Louie Psihoyos of The Cove at Tribeca Cinemas
The discipline of limiting one’s top ten films in such a fertile decade is the challenge that makes it interesting. For the indieWIRE & Industry Top Tens of the Decade I kept going over my list that started with about 50 films and cut and cut and cut ruthlessly. I’m happy with my final list, yet when I see who was left off—and it really comes down to filmmakers more than individual films in this case—I’m kind of horrified. I mean, what? No Gus van Sant? No David Lynch? No Sally Potter? No Alexander Payne? No Wes Anderson? Here is the list, really a snapshot of my opinion during the time I wrote it:
1. The Son by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
2. The Beat That My Heart Skipped by Jacques Audiard
3. Pan’s Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro
My interview/feature with Guillermo del Toro on Pan’s Labyrinth
4. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days by Cristian Mungiu
5. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Michel Gondry
My interview/feature with Michel Gondry on Be Kind Rewind
6. The Intruder by Claire Denis
7. Tropical Malady by Apichatpong Weerasethakul
8. Moolaadé by Ousmane Sembene
9. Bright Star and In the Cut by Jane Campion (Love— chaste and carnal, from the female perspective. Boys, watch and take notes.)
10. The Lives of Others by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
My interview/feature on Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck on The Lives of Others
Others key filmmakers from the decade for me were: Werner Herzog, Doris Dörrie, Laurent Cantet, Arnaud Desplechin, Costa Gavras, Agnès Varda, Danny Boyle, Ken Loach, Michael Winterbottom, Stephen Frears, Lucrecia Martel, Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Atom Egoyan, Mira Nair, Tim Burton, John Sayles, Chris Smith, Tom McCarthy, Michael Almereyda, Jonathan Nossiter, Spike Jonze, Sophia Coppola, Joe Berlinger, Michael Moore, Errol Morris…..
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