David Cross was off coffee because of a stomach ailment when I talked to him on February 5, 2015 just before his film, HITS, kicked of SFIndieFest. Opting for tea, and overcoming his distaste for the bergamot in his Earl Gray, he was a lively conversationalist as we discussed his maiden effort writing and directing a feature film.… Read More »
Shlomi Elkabetz Records GETT: THE TRIAL OF VIVIANE AMSALEM
GETT, the Hebrew word for a bill of divorce, is the third film in a trilogy made by brother-and-sister filmmakers Shlomi and Ronit Elkabetz. The theme, as Shlomi explained to me on October 6, 2014, is freedom, specifically women’s freedom in the modern world. Inspired by their mother’s life, it’s a contemplation on the nature… Read More »
SONG OF THE SEA is Beautiful Harmony
SONG OF THE SEA reminds us of the power of simplicity in storytelling and in animation. Hand-drawn and steeped in Irish folklore, it is a profoundly moving experience rife with charm, wisdom, and beauty. Told from a child’s perspective, the magical and the mundane coalesce in perfect harmony, revealing the one in the other in… Read More »
Going Beyond BLACK OR WHITE
Mike Binder has a particular genius for showing people brimming with good intentions, but flawed, stumbling through life without the operating instructions that would help them negotiate the bumps along the way. He has the gift of showing humor and pathos as elements that are not so much disparate, as entwined, manifesting at oddest moments… Read More »
Tiffany Ward & Rob Minkoff Bring MR PEABODY & SHERMAN to Glorious Life
You better be careful when you take on a classic. For more than one generation, Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman were must-see television, as were the other denizens of the Jay Ward animation world, which includes Rocky, Bullwinkle, and Dudley Do-Right. Other adaptations for the big screen of Ward’s work have not been successful,… Read More »
Dr. David Kaplan has PARTICLE FEVER (and It’s Contagious)
I was only half joking when I told particle physicist Dr. David Kaplan that listening to him had raised my IQ at least five points. He had just explained in garrulous fashion, and in terms that were both clear and compelling, how the observer effect couldn’t have applied to the search for the Higgs particle… Read More »
Greta Gerwig — The Woman Behind the HA
The first thing Greta Gerwig did upon sitting down for our interview on May 3, 2013 was to be attacked by her chair. Actually, she sat on her hand, which had a disarming charm to it. As the co-writer of FRANCES HA, along with director Noah Baumbach, it was the perfect indication of how close… Read More »
Lacey and Peggy Schwartz Talk Their LITTLE WHITE LIE
Lacey Schwartz wasn’t going to direct the documentary about her life growing up in a Jewish family and discovering that her dark skin wasn’t the result of a Sicilian ancestory, and that the man who had raised her was not her biological father. Every director she approached told her that such a personal story about… Read More »
Rory Kennedy Investigates the LAST DAYS IN VIETNAM
I speak as someone who can remember the fall of Saigon, and the iconic images that graces magazine covers in the days and weeks that followed. Yet, when I saw Rory Kennedy’s LAST DAYS IN VIETNAM, I realized just how much we still don’t know about the events surrounding that crushing blow to American pride.… Read More »
John Lloyd Young, Michael Lomenda and Erich Bergen ARE the JERSEY BOYS
It would, perhaps, be more of a surprise if, in the course of an interview, no one from JERSEY BOYS did an impression of their co-star Christopher Walken. I may have forced the issue just a little by asking John Lloyd Young, Michael Lomenda, and Erich Bergen if being in Walken’s proximity prompted them to… Read More »
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