Two Weeks From Now…
2017: 52 Films by Women Challenge
I just came across the 52 Films by Women challenge today. Since I keep close track of my movie viewing, let’s see how I did in 2017 having no initiative that these were going to be counted.
The Edge of Seventeen (dir. Kelly Fremon Craig)
Sleepwalk (dir. Sara Driver)
Standing Tall (dir. Emmanuelle Bercot)
Certain Women (dir. Kelly Reichardt) (Watched it twice)
Always Shine (dir. Sophia Takal)
Évolution (dir. Lucile Hadžihalilović)
Meshes of the Afternoon (dir. Maya Deren and Alexandr Hackenschmied)
All This Panic (dir. Jenny Gage)
Viktoria (dir. Maya Vitkova)
Karl Marx City (dir. Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker)
Cameraperson (dir. Kirsten Johnson)
Mansfield Park (dir. Jane Austen)
Toni Erdmann (dir. Maren Ade) (2nd time)
David Lynch: The Art Life (dir. Jon Nguyen, Olivia Neergaard-Holm, and Rick Barnes)
Raw (dir. Julia Ducournau) (Watched it twice)
CONTINUE READING ►
SOCKET (2016) Is Going to Cinema New York City!
The film festival Cinema New York City has officially selected my new short film Socket (2016)!
My producer Matt Seeley (Hamster Wheel) and I are thrilled to be included in the film festival’s lineup.
So what’s Socket about?
A doctor punishes a photographer for ridiculing her amateurish attempts at his profession.
You can read more about it HERE.
SOCKET (2016) Goes to the Rio Grind Film Festival!
The good people at the Rio Theatre have selected my new short film Socket (2016) to screen at The Rio Grind Film Festival. All twenty-three minutes of it! This marks its world premiere in theatres, and a Vancouver one at that.
What they said:
Join us at the Rio Theatre for what may be the absolute best Short Film Screening event in the history of Vancouver, ever. It’s the Rio Grind Film Festival’s 2016 lineup, and it is good.
In fact, it’s so good that we’re presenting it over the course of two days! This year, we were fortunate to receive submissions from 12 countries, and were overwhelmed with the quality and variety of stories told by emerging filmmakers from around the world.
Movie Review: MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE (2011)
Away From Herself...
Martha has been gone for a very long time. The one who took her place was a much more gullible and subservient young woman named Marcy May. It cannot be denied that she was very happy in her dazed, obedient bliss. To obtain this, she had to stretch her mind wide open for Patrick – her teacher, leader, and lover. This fifty-year-old man renamed her. “Marcy May” sounds more rustic and appropriate for her to stay in the Catskill Mountains, an unspoiled plantation that Patrick rules. It is the promise of this open land that awed the first settlers of America. Martha seeks this promise, lives the dream, and eventually wakes up trapped inside of a nightmare.
The movie begins as Martha (Elizabeth Olsen) escapes the cult one day. The fragments of her original identity are scattered and lost in the recesses of her molded mind. Upon further reflection of writer-director Sean Durkin’s insidious character study Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011), it is a miracle that she even remembers the phone number that belongs to her older sister, Lucy (Sarah Paulson). Martha takes refuge in a small town that she could not place on a map. A visual tell that grounds us geographically is an American flag drooping in the cold, which is seen out of focus behind Martha as she makes that pay phone call.
After a three-hour drive, Martha settles in a large vacation home that belongs to Lucy and her well-to-do husband, Ted (Hugh Dancy). Instead of a member of the family, she feels like a visitor. Some families don’t know how to go beyond the polite obligation of having to take in one of their own. Martha suffers greatly from existential angst as well as guilt, depression, confusion, and bottles up a deep rage she cannot direct. Lucy is torn between concern and irritation. After all, Martha is so irresponsible to have gone off the map for two years without calling. Surely, she must have had a ball while shirking off college along with her future opportunities.
