FILM + VIDEO
Will They Win?
Movie studios don't make family films any more -- unless they have dead moms, dumb kids, and doofus dads. Uber-talented writer/director Catherine Clinch has decided to take matters into her own hands, and spread her hands to yours, to address the situation.
Catherine has launched an indiegogo campaign to fund Winners, a feature film about an abu More...
‘Before Midnight’ Continues 18 Years of Conflict and Romance
by Sophia Stein
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Before Midnight, the collaboration between director Richard Linklater, and co-writers and actors Ethan Hawke, and Julie Delpy represents a significant cinematic achievement. Three artists at the height of their craft deliver a sequel that surpasses all that has preceded it.
In th More...
Laugh at the Dead
"That looks kind of old-timey. It is a period piece?" Lyndsi LaRose asks her co-stars in the trailer for this short movie.
"No," they say. "It's a comedy about dead people."
Inspired by writer/director Jacob Pinger's offbeat creative temperament as well as his experiences being a cameraman for popular TV shows, Spirit Town is a comedy about a More...
George Lucas’s First Narrative Film
Long before Star Wars, when George Lucas was a student at USC, he made this short entitled Freiheit (Freedom). It was 1966, and Lucas was 22 years old. In this film you can see touches of inspiration -- vibrant editing plus a mixture of live-action and stills -- and you'll also spot classmate Randal Kleiser, who later went on to direct Grease, amon More...
The Growing Pains of ‘Frances Ha’
by Sophia Stein
Frances Ha concerns the metaphoric end of the affair between best-friends Frances (Greta Gerwig) and Sophie (Mickey Sumner), and growing pains as the young adults carve their way in the world at large. Poignant, painful, and by turns hilarious, the film is the result of an auspicious creative partnership between Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach.
F More...
How Creative People Respond to Money in Politics
There are the political ads made by political professionals. They cost a ton of money. They make you feel slimy just by watching them. Then there are the videos made by creative people who have an axe to grind. Take this short video in support of Los Angeles's Proposition C, which seeks to reverse "corporate personhood" and limit the effect of m More...A Mother’s Influence, in Art and Song
As a loyal Cultural Weekly reader, you'll remember Weba Garretson's album Such Is Love, which we featured as a Kickstarter of the Week. (Did you know that more than 75% of the crowdfund projects we share with you achieve full funding? You readers are the best!)
Weba has just released this video love letter to her mother, who was a profound influ More...
Pay a Visit to ‘Night Vet’
Every once in a while, a talented group of creative people get together on an idea that's fun and touching -- and could spin off to a potential web series.
Introducing Night Vet. It's a short film about a woman who brings her dog to an all-night animal hospital never realizing that it is she who will be healed. The creative team (writer/directo More...
Leadership from a Low Angle
by Adam Leipzig
We know the image. The tall man on the horse, holding that symbol of power, a gun. He’s John Wayne. Don’t mess with him, he’s a leader.
At least that’s the way it works in movies. Leadership in the real world is a bit different. We don’t carry rifles and we don’t ride horses. Most of us aren’t big and tall. It’s no trick to lea More...
Ukeleles Play Ennio Morricone’s ‘The Good, The Bad and the Ugly’
It's always great to get a different perspective... or, in this case, to listen to a different orchestration.
Great film composer Ennio Morricone, 84 years old and still going strong (he contributed to the score for Django Unchained), gets a unique salute in this video as the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain plays the theme from his classic sc More...
