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6 items from 2013

11 June 2013 8:00 AM, PDT | ioncinema | See recent ioncinema news »

Produced fifty-six years ago, Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries remains a venerable warhorse in the hallowed halls of Arthouse. But unlike this reviewer, who shares a similar vintage, the film shows no loss of vitality or any sign of imminent creakiness. Despite its strengths, Wild Strawberries often gets a bit lost within the contrasty folds of Bergman’s legendary filmography. Sight and Sound’s vaunted list of The Greatest Films of All Time pegs Wild Strawberries at sixty-three; not exactly a diss but way far behind Persona. The film doesn’t even appear on Roger Ebert’s lengthy List of Great Movies, although the late critic partially compensated by including Bergman’s equally underrated Winter Light.

The inherent silliness of film ranking aside, Wild Strawberries is a stunning cinematic experience. Filled with mystical beauty and chewy philosophical constructs in a tidy, perfectly tailored ninety-two minute package, the film is a »

- David Anderson

4 June 2013 7:00 PM, PDT | Alt Film Guide | See recent Alt Film Guide news »

Kristen Stewart News: Camp X-Ray and Sils Maria movie projects Kristen Stewart is back with no less than two projects to be filmed this summer, according to Deadline.com. The website asserts that Stewart "has committed" — that should mean signed contracts — to star in newcomer writer-director Peter Sattler’s political drama Camp X-Ray and in director Olivier Assayas’ psychological drama Sils Maria, co-starring Juliette Binoche and Chloë Grace Moretz. (Photo: Kristen Stewart.) Kristen Stewart takes the road to Guantanamo Camp X-Ray will have Kristen Stewart as a young woman who, as per the Deadline synopsis, escapes from her small town by joining the military. But instead of being sent to Iraq "as she hoped" (is she insane?), the soldier ends up in Guantanamo, the American concentration camp that remains open despite myriad promises about its imminent closure. At Guantanamo, the young soldier "is met with hatred and abuse from the Muslim men in her charge. »

- Andre Soares

9 May 2013 9:00 PM, PDT | Village Voice | See recent Village Voice news »

The director Ingmar Bergman shot his masterpieces Persona and Through a Glass Darkly and several other films in and around his house on Fårö, an island off the coast of Sweden. In Irish director Lenny Abrahamson's moody What Richard Did, a family beach house on the coast of Dublin strongly evokes Bergman's beloved home, one of many elements that makes the film feel like a Bergman homage without earning the clunky label "Bergmanesque." Based on Kevin Power's novel Bad Day in Blackrock, the film follows Dublin teenager Richard (Jack Reynor, giving a performance worth savoring before he stars in Transformers 4) as his soul unravels after he does something very bad in a moment of pas »

15 April 2013 7:23 AM, PDT | Obsessed with Film | See recent Obsessed with Film news »

Screenwriting isn’t quite as hard as novel writing or literary writing of any kind, but it is still a difficult thing. Forming a character and its words is a most disagreeable endeavour – imagine what Tolstoy went through – but there are some people who have gone a long way in making screenwriting as important as the film itself – almost. The script is as we know a blueprint for what could be a great thing. There are thousands of screenwriters but only a few who have gone on to utter greatness but in my mind there is only one who has never failed, and he ranks at number 1 on this list. That person’s films are so enjoyable that even the bad ones are fun to watch.

Considering a small list like this means considering an awful lot of people and making it a small list – 5 points – makes it that much »

- Quinn Steers

31 January 2013 9:22 AM, PST | Thompson on Hollywood | See recent Thompson on Hollywood news »

Jessica Chastain is set to star in the title role of "Miss Julie" in Liv Ullmann's film adaptation of August Strindberg's classic play about a young upper-class woman who finds herself attracted to a senior servant. Colin Farrell and Samantha Morton are attached to co-star. Chastain has already had a big start to 2013: she's Oscar-nominated for her role in Kathryn Bigelow's controversial "Zero Dark Thirty" and recently commanded the two top box office spots with that film and horror title "Mama." She is also currently on Broadway in "The Heiress." In the pipeline for Farrell are FilmDistrict's "Dead Man Down," Warner Bros.' "A Winter's Tale" and Disney's "Saving Mr. Banks." Ullmann, best known as Ingmar Bergman's muse in films such as "Persona," "Cries and Whispers" and mini-series "Scenes From a Marriage," has directed before, albeit »

- Beth Hanna

19 January 2013 6:31 PM, PST | EW - Inside Movies | See recent EW.com - Inside Movies news »

“Qu’est-ce que c’est ‘cougar’?”

French director Anne Fontaine wasn’t familiar with the English term for mature women who prefer much younger men — nor was she aware of the Saturday Night Live sketch, “Motherlover” –  but with Two Mothers, she’s melting the snow at the Sundance Film Festival with a love story — “Not a sex story,” she says — about two Australian best friends who fall hard for each other’s teenage sons and form an unconventional quartet.

Close neighbors in an idyllic beach paradise, Lil (Naomi Watts) and Roz (Robin Wright) have been best pals since they were girls. »

- Jeff Labrecque

6 items from 2013