The 51st New York Film Festival is upon us, bringing some of the world’s best film’s to New York from September 27 – October 13. And with that, the lineup for its annual NYFF Live panels has just been released. These talks are FREE and open to the public.
(Full schedule and more information after the jump.)
On August 24, 2009, LimitéMagazine.com originally posted my exclusive interview with Aaron Guzikowski, screenwriter of the upcoming film Prisoners, starring Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal. At the time, the film was due for a release in late 2009, but after some delays, it will finally hit the big screen this September 20, following screenings at the Telluride and Toronto International Film Festivals. In the meantime, Guzikowski’s first produced screenplay, Contraband, made waves at theatres last year with Mark Wahlberg’s and Kate Beckinsale’s names above the title.
This Throwback Thursday, I’m reposting this interview in the wake of Prisoners‘ September release.
(originally posted August 24, 2009)
In New York and LA, you couldn’t spit without hitting someone who’s writing a screenplay. Out of the thousands who try, only a handful might actually sell their scripts, and even fewer will have them produced. So what’s Aaron Guzikowski’s secret?
Continue reading [Throwback Thursday] Q&A: Aaron Guzikowski, Screenwriter of PRISONERS
(Re-posted from LimitéMagazine.com)
This Women’s History Month, we’ve spotlighted just some of the contributions to film made by some of the industry’s most interesting and powerful female voices. The first part of the “Film’s Female Powerhouses” series covered some of “The Hollywood Hitmakers,” including such heavyweights as Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight, 2009) and Nancy Meyers (It’s Complicated, 2009). The second part turned attention to “The Indie Darlings,” celebrating the contributions of such directors as Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker, 2008) and Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation, 2003) to the independent film scene. In this third—and final—installment, we look at “The International Cineastes,” just some of the contemporaries of famed international female directors as French-born Alice Guy (regarded as the first female filmmaker) and Italian Lina Wertmüller (the first woman nominated for a Best Director Oscar).
Among the 16 women we’ve covered throughout the duration of this series, their films have netted a combined 55 Academy Award nominations and 13 wins, among countless other nominations and wins. More important than awards are the points of view these and so many other female filmmakers bring to the situations and characters that grace our movie and TV screens. It just goes to show us all, “sisters are doin’ it for themselves.”
Continue reading Film’s Female Powerhouses — Part 3: The International Cineastes
(Re-posted from LimitéMagazine.com)
Last week, we kicked off our three-part series honoring female filmmakers with some of Hollywood’s biggest hitmakers. This week, we continue our Women’s History Month tribute with some of independent cinema’s brightest stars.
Be sure to join us Friday, March 29 for the final part of our series, “The International Cineastes.”
by Morgan Goldin
History was made in 2010 when Kathryn Bigelow won the Best Director Oscar for The Hurt Locker (2008), becoming the first woman to win this honor. For most of her career, Bigelow has worked in the arena of “masculine movies” and crafted some of the most impeccable action spectacles to hit the big screen. Despite some of her bigger action films, it was her success with breakout, low-budget film The Hurt Locker that places her on this list.
Her talent for crafting taut and lean imagery could be traced to her art school beginnings. She got her start in painting, and later studied film theory and criticism. “The Set-Up” (1978) was a 20-minute avant-garde deconstruction of cinematic violence that was Bigelow’s first short film. This piece lays down the themes that Bigelow returns to throughout her career. The aestheticization of violence is a mode in which Bigelow heavily operates. This style can be traced back to her first feature, The Loveless (1981), a biker-movie that showcased her taste for visual flourishes. Near Dark (1987), her sophomore film, is a neo-horror classic that successfully merges two distinct genres, the western and the vampire movie. A later success is Point Break (1991), about an FBI agent who goes undercover with a group of adrenaline junkie surfers who rob banks in ex-president masks.
Her most celebrated picture, The Hurt Locker, earned its accolades and rightly won Best Picture. An Iraqi war film that strips away the political subtext and focuses on the day-to-day struggles of a bomb diffuser, the film employs handheld camera work that expertly complements the fractured mental and physical states of its soldier protagonists. Her follow-up, Zero Dark Thirty (2012), is no less thrilling and chronicles the days leading up to the locating and killing of Osama bin Laden.
Kathryn Bigelow proves you don’t need a man’s touch when working on action films. Her muscular oeuvre speaks for itself. Future textbooks and scholars will recognize her as a female director succeeding in a typically male province.
Continue reading Film’s Female Powerhouses — Part 2: The Indie Darlings
(Re-posted from LimitéMagazine.com)
March is Women’s History Month, so it’s only fitting that we turn our attention to some of the most notable female filmmakers working today. A rarity among the ranks of Hollywood filmmakers, women represent only 7% of the field (according to the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University). Though there’s still much room to grow, women have come a long way since the days of Alice Guy (b. 1873), the French pioneer who’s considered the first female director. With Guy paving the proverbial way, women like Julie Taymor, Phyllida Lloyd, Sarah Polley, Brenda Chapman, Dee Rees, and Lena Dunham have come up through the ranks, imprinting their unique stamps on some of the most interesting films today. In 2010, Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) became the first woman to win the Oscar for Best Director, and in 2011, two of the 10 Best Picture-nominated films were helmed by women (Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids Are All Right and Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone). But the road is still long.
Beginning today, Limité launches its three-part series on female filmmakers, paying tribute to just some of the women representing three categories of filmmakers: “The Hollywood Hitmakers,” “The Indie Darlings,” and “The International Cineastes.” This week, we focus on those women who have made their mark in big studio releases. Join us next Friday for Part 2.
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This series is dedicated to the memory of trailblazer Nora Ephron, beloved writer-director of such romantic comedy classics as Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and You’ve Got Mail (1998), and writer of When Harry Met Sally… (1989). Her valuable contributions to the genre—and to filmmaking, as a whole—are no doubt felt in the works of so many female directors working today.
Continue reading Film’s Female Powerhouses — Part 1: The Hollywood Hitmakers
(Re-posted from LimitéMagazine.com)
Dear Academy,
You get thanked an awful lot by Oscar winners, but you don’t always make the smartest choices (#justsayin). Allow us to help you along a bit so you don’t make another embarrassing blunder (Affleck, anyone?) come February 24th. Here’s who we say should win in some of the key races.
Your friends,
Dan Quitério
Limité Film Editor
Stephanie Dawson
Senior Film Contributor
(Re-posted from LimitéMagazine.com)
As we continue to seek and capture the essence of modern world culture, Limité is excited to announce its fifth-annual “Faces to Watch” list. This feature focuses on select up-and-coming personalities in various facets of culture and lifestyle, such as film, fashion, culinary, and music. We’ve chosen 12 individuals for this year’s list. They were selected based on their potential to make a significant impact in their disciplines—in short, these are the names we’ll be talking about tomorrow.
by Curtis John
Since starring in a series of big-budget movies and independent darlings over the past six years, British actress Gemma Arterton, fresh off of Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, has not only become a favorite of film directors, but of audiences as well. Hansel & Gretel is her third film to open in the number one spot in the US box office—Quantum of Solace (2008) and Clash of the Titans (2010) being the others. In her current box office hit, Arterton plays a grown-up version of the fairy tale heroine Gretel, who with her brother Hansel (Jeremy Renner) become bounty hunters who eliminate witches worldwide, 15 years following their terrifying ordeal at the hands of a witch in a gingerbread house (but you already know thatstory). Celebrated for their travails but bored with the work, the duo is hired to save a small town’s children, who are being abducted by witches. During their investigation, the siblings discover dark secrets about their strange pasts.
This past Thursday, nominations for the 85th annual Academy Awards were announced. In a new twist, the ceremony’s host, Seth MacFarlane, joined Emma Stone on stage at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theatre in LA to read the nominations. It’s rare for the ceremony’s host to present the nominations, as that position is usually filled by the Academy’s President, but clearly, AMPAS had something new and original in mind. It paid off. The comedic banter between the two worked well, as their chemistry felt natural and fresh. It also helped to paint the Academy in a younger, more vibrant light. Could this be a shadow of things to come when the golden statuettes are distributed on February 24?
One thing the Oscars definitely has going for itself this year is that many of 2012’s nominated films are movies that the general public have actually seen. The Oscar telecast is likely to see a bump in ratings after several years in decline. On to my analysis …
Continue reading Analysis: The 85th Annual Oscar Nominations
(Re-posted from LimitéMagazine.com)
I recently sat down with Portuguese filmmaker Miguel Gomes in Manhattan’s Film Forum, where his new feature Tabu will be screening as of December 26th. The film’s story begins in Lisbon where we meet Aurora, an elderly woman with a seemingly uninteresting life. Following her death, Aurora’s neighbor and maid join to find an old man with a connection to Aurora’s past. As the man begins to tell his and Aurora’s story, we are transported to a former Portuguese colony in Africa, where we witness their youthful, eccentric lives play out.
Tabu is told in two distinct parts: the first half set in Lisbon in the present day and the second set in Africa decades earlier. Both benefit from the classic mode of filmmaking that Gomes employed. His use of black-and-white imagery and a 4:3 aspect ratio hearken back to a cinema of old, honoring a long-forgotten art while emphasizing the film’s theme of lost youth.
This year, the film has screened at the New York Film Festival, Sydney Film Festival, Las Palmas Film Festival (Spain), and won two awards at the prestigious Berlin International Film Festival.
(Re-posted from LimitéMagazine.com)
For our third year, Limité presents our annual, two-part “Young Hollywood” feature. Mixing a combination of established and up-and-coming filmmakers under the age of 40 (Part 1) and actors under the age of 30 (Part 2), we seek to highlight some of Hollywood’s freshest talent.
In Part 1, we focus on the filmmakers. This list includes both male and female talents who are creating exciting works that, at times, push the boundaries of traditional Hollywood. This year’s class includes one-third of a female writing collective known as the “Fempire,” as well as the director behind one of 2012′s biggest little films: the festival darling and Oscar favorite, Beasts of the Southern Wild.
Check out Part 2: The Actors here.
Continue reading 2012 Young Hollywood — Part 1: The Filmmakers
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