NYFF: "Hopper/Welles"

by Jason Adams

Picture it: the year is 1970 and the director Orson Welles has just recently begun filming his experimental film The Other Side of the Wind, the production of which would ultimately outlast the director himself (Welles died in '85) and many of the people he put in front of his camera. (Wind was finally released by Netflix in 2018 after nearly 50 years of tinkering.) One such person Welles filmed was actor-turned-director Dennis Hopper, who was fresh off his counter-culture sensation Easy Rider. Strange bedfellows, these two, but they sat down for over two hours of filmed and oft-antagonistic conversation, and now producer Filip Jan Rymsza and editor Bob Murawski, who finally got Wind across the finish line, have gifted us with Hopper/Welles, the fly-on-the-wall footage of that moment screening at NYFF. It's something!

Full disclosure: I went in to Hopper/Welles expecting to find Welles a bit of a boor and Hopper a pip. Fuller disclosure: I came out with quite the opposite...

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NYFF Doc Corner: Frederick Wiseman's 'City Hall'

By Glenn Dunks

The idea of ‘seeing ourselves’ on screen relates most often to race and sexuality, which is fair enough. Rarely is it spoken about in terms of occupation. But one of the my most unexpected experiences this past week was watching Frederick Wiseman’s latest institutional observatory documentary City Hall and seeing my other non-film life as a public servant on screen for four and a half hours.

The world of stakeholder meetings and budget discussions, community functions and office dynamics is more often than not the world of comedy (Working Dog’s Utopia being the best, if you ask me). But here Wiseman captures the daily grind and ticking realities of what goes into making a city—in this case Boston—keep moving with steely realism and refinement...

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Doc Corner: 'The Way I See It'

By Glenn Dunks

If 2020 has taught us anything, it is that the grand ideal of America is a lie. It may then seem like the right time for a film such as The Way I See It, which appeals to the country’s more idealised image of itself through the (figurative and literal) lens of the man who was there to witness first hand one of its most historic moments. And yet watching Dawn Porter’s film is a bit like watching a fantasy film. All the money in the world may be able to create the most realistic dragons and wizardry, but it’s a total lie. This film is a fallacy of American idealism invented in the daylight among the most vile and hateful bigotry. Do I sound pessimistic? Well, I am.

If Porter’s film, as subtle as a sledgehammer, attempts to immortalize this myth of democratic optimism and goodness then she needn’t have bothered...

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New Fest Lineup!

by Nathaniel R

 Paul Bettany is "Uncle Frank" in a road trip film from Alan Ball
New York City's leading queer film festival is now in its 32nd year. And this year you don't even need to be in NYC to attend since they've gone virtual...

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"Nomadland" wins TIFF's People's Choice

by Nathaniel R

This year's TIFF has wrapped. Normally we cover it extensively, as you know, but they cut out a big swath of press this year including us... *cries*. Hopefully we'll return next year and if not we'll have to find a new favourite festival to obsess over. Herewith the winners and some Oscar stats, and if we've already discussed the movies, there's a link...

AUDIENCE PRIZES

People's Choice: Nomadland dir. Chloé Zhao.
(First runner up: One Night in Miami... dir. Regina King; Second runner up: Beans dir. Tracey Deer.)
People's Choice, Documentary: Inconvenient Indian dir. Michelle Latimer. 
People’s Choice, Midnight Madness: Shadow in the Cloud dir.  Roseanne Liang. 

That's right ALL of the audience prizes this year went to female filmmakers! Even the runners up were directed by women. The People's Choice Award is major bragging rights since it often signals kind Oscar fates down the road. Basically it would be a shock if Nomadland misses the Best Picture nomination at this point afterwinning TIFF and Venice though One Night in Miami has less convincing stats on its side. The stats go like so... 

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