Racking Focus: How Far Are We From Second-Screening the Movies?
We all know that TV is often viewed with a second screen out at the same time. Are movies next?
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Ricky Van Veen and the Future of Niche Content (Part 2)
Many people talk about trying to find a new paradigm for digital distribution. Ricky Van Veen is doing it. Part two of our interview with the CollegeHumor co-creator about what he learned distributing 'Coffee Town.'
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Ricky Van Veen and the Future of Niche Content (Part 1)
Many people talk about trying to find a new paradigm for digital distribution. Ricky Van Veen is doing it. Part one of our two-part interview with the CollegeHumor co-creator about what he learned distributing 'Coffee Town.'
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Interview: Director Matthew Porterfield on 'I Used to Be Darker'
Matthew Porterfield's microbudget indie "I Used to Be Darker" is getting great reviews. We talked to the director about his film's unique style.
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Interview: 'Parkland' Director Peter Landesman Brings a Journalist's Eye to Filmmaking
We talked to the investigative journalist-turned-director about stripping away the mythology of JFK's assassination, and how reporting from war zones prepared him for a movie set.
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Racking Focus: How Will 'Breaking Bad' Change Cinema?
No one will deny that Breaking Bad will be a culturally relevant show for a long time to come. How will its distinct mode of storytelling affect cinema?
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Racking Focus: Indies Have Found an Unsaturated New Niche
There are hundreds of indie films made and distributed every year. But one kind of film has been performing particularly well lately. Will filmmakers follow the obvious demand for intelligent films for adults?
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Racking Focus: What Filmmakers Can Learn From Steve McQueen's Career
Many independent filmmakers are under the illusion that you "start commercial," then become more artistic as time goes on. They couldn't be further from the truth.
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Lake Bell Explores the Voice-Over Subculture in Her Directorial Debut, 'In a World...'
"A friend of mine told me, you know your obsession with girls who talk like sexy babies? You have to put that into your script." Lake Bell sets her directorial debut in the strange world of voice-over acting, and reinvents a few Hollywood genres along the way.
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Racking Focus: What Happens When Everyone Uses the Same Camera?
With high-resolution cameras becoming increasingly cheaper, the moment when Hollywood and micro-budget films use the same camera is fast approaching. What happens then?
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Trusting Your Gut: James Ponsoldt on 'The Spectacular Now'
James Ponsoldt's 'The Spectacular Now' injects a refreshing dose of authenticity into a high school romance. In this interview, Ponsoldt talks about the bigger role actors have in the overall story, as well as how he weeds out pretension.
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Racking Focus: Alex Ross Perry & The Counterintuitive Logic of Success
"Dance with the one you came with" is good advice not just for dances, but for art as well. Here are two examples from this week.
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Interview: Paul Schrader on 'The Canyons' and Dying Film Culture
"The two hour format is under siege." We talked to the legendary director about the changing definition of film, Vimeo, 'Mad Men,' and the myth of the communal filmgoing experience.
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Racking Focus: Playing the Long Game With Shorts
Many people are saying that micro-budget features are the new shorts. They're wrong.
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Interview: Nicholas Winding Refn On Personal Genre Cinema
Nicholas Winding Refn’s films are far more personal than the typical genre film – in fact, they may not be genre films at all.
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Interview: Andrew Bujalski's Leap Off The Cliff With 'Computer Chess'
After making three micro-budget independent films that changed American cinema, Andrew Bujalski has made a fourth micro-budget independent film. But 'Computer Chess' is something entirely different.
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Racking Focus: The Dissolve Is a Sign That Film Criticism's Fade Out May Be Postponed
The unremarked-upon connection between filmmaking and film criticism deserves some consideration.
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Racking Focus: The Way, Way Back Points the Way, Way Forward
As Hollywood increasingly emphasizes blockbuster releases, more and more of the studios' slates may become filled with independent fare that straddles the border between artistic and commercial.
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Racking Focus: Self-Distribution and the Niche-ifying of Content
Shane Carruth's 'Upstream Color' is a great example of a director who made exactly the type of film he wanted through shrewd distribution and marketing choices. In this landscape, is a tiny niche all a filmmaker needs?
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Racking Focus: What Filmmakers Can Learn From Watchmakers on Kickstarter
Can a filmmaker cut out enough middlemen to sell movie tickets exclusively to backers?
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Racking Focus: Why the 'Implosion' of Film Might Be the Best Thing to Happen to Film
Everyone's freaking out after Steven Spielberg and George Lucas announced that the filmmaking biz is is facing an "implosion." But what if that's a good thing? Here's who might benefit from the latest entertainment industry collapse and how.
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Vertigo, Chris Marker, Side By Side and the Illusion of Cinema
How did “Vertigo”—the newly-minted Greatest Film of All Time (as per Sight & Sound)—and the late Chris Marker blur the lines that separate reality from illusion?
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Constructed Naturalism from Cannes
The Dardenne Brothers' patented stylistic formula gives The Kid With a Bike an emotional and psychological intelligence rarely found in contemporary cinema.
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The Long Journey to Albania
After 2004’s smash indie hit Maria Full of Grace, Joshua Marston spent seven years making his next film, The Forgiveness of Blood.
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Normality and the Imitation Thereof
Markus Schleinzer’s directorial debut Michael pushes the boundaries of character study. Now playing at Film Forum.
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