OFCS members don’t just write film reviews. Here are several articles you might find interesting.
Best of Lists
The top 10 Seth Rogen performances
Interviews
Jason Mewes (Jay and Silent Bob Get Old)
Rolf de Heer (The King is Dead!)
White collar hooligan blues
- Excerpt: I didn’t have an audition for the part, Nick says cheerfully. “I was working on this other film, Strippers Versus Werewolves, with Simon Phillips, and I only had a small part in that but we really hit it off. Then I was on holiday in Crete and he called me up and said he had me in mind for the lead in this film. I said ‘When does it start shooting?’ and he said ‘Next week.'”
Festivals
38 Witnesses – Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts’ 17th Annual French Film Festival
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
Comic-Con Highlights
- Excerpt: The Girls Gone Genre panel is one of my favorites, with panelists: Marti Noxon (Buffy, Angel), Jane Espenson (Battlestar Galactica, Torchwood), Karyn Kusama (Jennifer’s Body), Deborah Ann Woll (True Blood), Angela Robinson (True Blood) and Gale Anne Hurd (The Walking Dead, The Terminator). As Noxon showed us one element of her work-life balance by cuddling her daughter while her son sat behind the panel, the women talked about “the metaphysical lens of genre” that provides a context “to say something about the real world through heightened reality.” It’s “a safe space to be transgressive.” Hurd talked about working for Roger Corman, who “made genre films long before they were A tentpoles. Ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances make the characters relatable.” Noxon said the worst of gender stereotyping for both genders is to reduce us to just one thing.” And she said she “did not become a writer until I was willing to tell on myself in a way that was humiliating. The devil is in the details. You don’t get there until you learn to write in your own voice. The breakthrough was when I stopped trying to sell and just wrote the truth.” Actress Woll said she is committed to not being too skinny so she can be a role model. Her character in “True Blood” is “stronger the more she opens up to the world. She can be sexy and naïve, sweet and violent, not cynical, compassionate.” And the whole panel laughed about the usual studio “notes” about any female character when they ask to tone her down: “Wouldn’t she be more likable if…..???”
Comic-Con: Firefly’s 10th Reunion
- Excerpt: Nathan Fillion, who has tucked references to “Firefly” in his new television series, “Castle,” says it was “Firefly that “taught me how to act. Joss would say, ‘That’s a great idea! Or…’ But he made it more simple, more human. He told me, ‘It’s a skill not to make people around you feel stupid.’” As in all Whedon productions, the show had exceptionally strong and interesting women characters. ”Men who are comfortable with powerful women are more powerful men,” Whedon told us. When asked about the devotion of the fans, especially members of the military, Whedon said it was because the show was about characters who understand “war, suffering greatly, bonding in the trenches, isolation, camaraderie. It is very unironic look at things that make soldiers passionate. Mal is Machiavellian but would sacrifice himself for the others. We were trying to communicate the human condition of unity during aloneness.”
Comic-Con: Twilight Breaking Dawn, Part 2
- Excerpt: It was the first last press conference when the cast of “Twilight” got together to talk to the fans and the press about the last episode and the journey that brought them to this moment. Following their appearance at the enormous Hall H, with fans who had been camping out for days, the actors and author Stephanie Meyer met with the press. Kristen Stewart told us about the transformation of her character, Bella, who has some major changes in store after she becomes both a vampire and a mother in the last moments of “Breaking Dawn, Part 1.” She said her reaction to her new persona was, “I’m a sportscar; let’s break her in. Even the way she walks into a room is different.” As for filming the sex scene compared to the tender, if energetic honeymoon scene in the last one: ”We’re not even humans any more. We tried and it was rated R, [so had to be toned down]. He was trying not to get his white paint on me and I was trying not to get my brown paint on him.”
Facing Mirrors
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee Coffee and more Coffee
The Orator
Amber Wilkinson @ Eye For Film
- Excerpt: lthough the slow-burn plot requires some patience initially, the stories gradually come together in a way that never feels contrived or forced, while the quiet emotions of Saili and his family crescendo to form and intense emotional heat.
Vito
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee Coffee and more Coffee
Oscar Coverage
Oscar Preview: Weekend of Jul. 20-22, 2012
Wesley Lovell @ Cinema Viewfinder
Other Articles
Criterion Summer
Tony Dayoub @ Cinema Viewfinder
Dr. Strangelove
Cole Smithey @ ColeSmithey.com
- Excerpt: “Dr. Strangelove” pokes fun at the idea of “mutually assured annihilation” and the dubious concept of “nuclear deterrents.”
Partout, du nouveau
Mathieu Li-Goyette @ Panorama-cinéma [French]
Tanna Frederick Is Back!
Betty Jo Tucker @ Movie Addict Headquarters
- Excerpt: Tanna Frederick discusses her upcoming films: “Just 45 Minutes from Broadway,” “The M Word,” and “The Farm.”
