Thursday, September 24, 2015
Thursday, September 24
At Burlington’s Main Street Landing Film House, Burlington Film Society and the Vermont International Film Foundation presents one of the year’s most acclaimed and talked-about documentaries. The Wolfpack, which tells the story of a group of homeschooled, home-bound brothers who were essentially raised by the movies they watched, has been stunning audiences and critics all over the world.
Tags: film , cinema , movie , on screen , the wolfpack , vtiff , burlington film society , q: the winged serpent , cinema casualities , artsriot , howe library , avant garde , experimental , hg skis , ski , film , Image , Video , Web Only
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Ripples of War from Michael Fisher on Vimeo.
Local filmmaker Michael Fisher, who taught the Institute with Kristen Watson, shared with us the class' final project: an eight-minute film called "Ripples of War," directed by Molly Gary. It stars Cal McCandless as "The General," Mae Mae Morrical as "Lt. Sue Nami" and Claire Delaney as "Sgt. Drippy."
Defeated in battle after fueling up on over-sugared cupcakes, the young soldiers try to use time travel to reverse their fortunes. It doesn't go well, despite all the epic tracking shots and slow-mo deaths set to soaring choral music. Think The Thin Red Line meets Looper, with a healthy dose of the sillies.
BCA offers the Filmmaking Institute in partnership with Vermont Community Access Media. And the camp has been getting some notice. Last year's short film, "F.B.I. (Federal Bagel Investigation)," made by campers with Fisher and Watson, won a national Alliance for Community Media (ACM) Hometown Media Award. You can watch that cinematic crime caper here.
Tags: burlington city arts , film , movie , ripples of war , michael fisher , kristen watson , vermont community access media , Image , Video , Web Only
Friday, September 4, 2015
The movie stars heavy hitters — Julia Stiles, Ray Liotta and, last but not least, Sir Anthony Hopkins. The director is Daniel Alfredson, known for helming the Swedish films based on the two sequels to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
Tags: film , movie , book , words , novel , Castle Freeman , Anthony Hopkins , Go With Me , Daniel Alfredson , Julia Stiles , Vermont , Image , Web Only
Friday, June 5, 2015
Jurassic World, the long-delayed third sequel to the 1993 film Jurassic Park, will have an unusual premiere in Burlington two days before its national release. The film, directed by Burlingtonian Colin Trevorrow, is the main attraction of a fundraising event for the Vermont International Film Foundation. Though the bread and butter of VTIFF is screening “small,” independent and foreign films that do not receive widespread theatrical release, the local connection to this $150 million summer blockbuster was a perfect opportunity to raise money for and awareness of the organization.
After directing just one mid-budget independent film, 2012’s Safety Not Guaranteed, Trevorrow was tapped by none other than Steven Spielberg and his producing team to join the ranks of Big Hollywood Players. Though his first feature contains no dinosaurs, and his second feature would appear to contain little in the way of “quirky” romance, Trevorrow says that the two films are more alike than they might appear. This week, Vermonters will have the chance to decide for themselves.
Tags: film , movie , jurassic world , jurassic park , colin trevorrow , vtiff , vermont international film foundation , fundraiser , burlington , majestic theater , dinosaur , Image , Video , Web Only
Thursday, April 30, 2015
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Wednesday, April 29, 2015
CORRECTION ON GIRLHOOD DATE, SEE BELOW.
April 29 — May 3
The new film by Vermont filmmaker Jay Craven enters statewide previews this week, with showings in Brattleboro, Montpelier, Burlington and St. Johnsbury on four days starting today, April 29. The official premiere of the film, which stars Jacqueline Bisset, will take place in late June, but residents across the Green Mountain State can get an advance look.Based on the Guy de Maupassant novel Pierre et Jean, the literally translated Peter and John is set in late-19th-century Nantucket, and concerns a difficult patch in the relationship between the two titular brothers. That description may raise questions, given that Craven, a Vermont resident and instructor at Marlboro College, is known for making films with, about and for Vermonters. Nantucket is decidedly not located in Vermont; indeed, the film was funded in part by the Massachusetts Film Incentive Program.
Vermont has no such incentive program for filmmakers, a shortcoming to which Craven has drawn much attention over the years. Yet what filmmakers do is make films, even if they don’t receive any economic support from their home states. In the case of Peter and John, a filmmaker strongly identified with Vermont has effectively taken his business elsewhere. The situation raises the very question of what the phrase “Vermont film” means, exactly.
Regardless, Vermont viewers have the chance to see Peter and John this week. The film’s schedule is below. All shows begin at 7 p.m., with Craven and others speaking before each screening at 5:30. Check with theaters for ticket prices.
Tags: film , movies , on screen , jay craven , peter and john , girlhood , filmmaking tax incentives , vermont , Image , Video , Web Only
Tuesday, April 7, 2015
As the Burlington Free Press and other local outlets reported yesterday, a sting operation by South Burlington police resulted in the arrest of one Michael E. Fisher. The 36-year-old Fisher, of Burlington, was nabbed at South Burlington’s Dorset Park and has been charged with the felony of luring an underage girl to have sex with him. According to the Free Press, Fisher’s criminal record includes multiple convictions for sexual offenses; if convicted on the new charge, he faces a minimum sentence of 10 years and a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Fisher’s tale is a sordid one, just the kind of thing that makes for compelling films. Just ask 36-year-old South Burlington filmmaker Michael B. Fisher, who more than once referred to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1956 mistaken-identity classic The Wrong Man in discussing what he called “a thorn in my side for years now.”
Several years ago, when he had just completed shooting a film whose cast included a 14-year-old girl, filmmaker Fisher first learned of the criminal who shares his name. The coincidences of name, age and residence were so strong that, he said, an attorney friend offered to represent him to stave off any future complications. Michael B. Fisher was successful in his request that the Free Press print a clarification to a story it had printed about Michael E. Fisher. “I carried that clipping around with me for a little while,” said the director.
Tags: film , crime , michael fisher , arrest , mistaken identity , Image , Web Only
Monday, March 23, 2015
Ethan Allen Cinema went out with both a bang and a whimper. Though the building was unceremoniously razed by a wrecking ball in a matter of hours last Friday, the theater sat dark and vacant for nearly a decade. For years, only a popcorn machine, visible through the front window, reminded passersby of its past purpose.
Tags: movies , movie house , discount movie tickets , cheap seats , merrill jarvis III , burlington , Image , Web Only
Thursday, March 12, 2015
As Seven Days’ Eva Sollberger documented in a May 2014 installment of “Stuck in Vermont” (below), the dancer and the filmmaker have struck up a fruitful artistic collaboration. Phillips has performed on the shows “So You Think You Can Dance” and “America’s Got Talent”; Fisher, a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, has made a name for himself with his stylish, evocative short films.
Tags: dance , film , movie , music video , Michael Fisher , E-Knock , Ernest Phillips , pizza putt , footloose , stuck in vermont , arcade hero , Image , Video , Web Only
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Tuesday, March 10
French director François Ozon has, over the last two decades, proven to be one of the most creative and intelligent forces in international cinema. He first came to my attention about 15 years ago with his homage to Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Water Drops on Burning Rocks. I became an ardent admirer a few years later, when I saw 8 Women and Swimming Pool, both of which I adore. (8 Women, in particular, is pure, wicked fun from start to finish.)Though I’d lost touch with Ozon’s work in recent years, I did catch his 2012 film In the House, which I admire a great deal. It’s a slow-burning kind of film that starts out as an apparently routine domestic drama, but soon unravels into something stranger and cleverer.
In the House is well worth a look, and it’s playing this week for free at Castleton State College, as part of the school’s weekly 2015 film festival.
The movie plays at the Herrick Auditorium at 6:30 p.m. Free.
Saturday, March 14
At another of Vermont’s fine institutions of higher learning, cinephiles can catch the award-winning Belgian film Omar (2013), a long story set amid the endless war between Israel and Palestine. The title character is a Palestinian baker who thinks nothing of scaling the wall into Israel to meet up with his girlfriend. But when he semi-unwittingly becomes an informant, his already muddy allegiances become all the more unclear.Omar plays at Middlebury College’s Dana Auditorium at 3 and 8 p.m. Free.
Also, Burlington’s ArtsRiot hosts what might be the week’s most intriguing screening. Pirates of Tebenkof is a documentary about salmon fishing in Alaska; that unusual word in its title refers to the Tebenkof Bay Wilderness, a 66,000-acre federal preserve in southern Alaska.
The film follows a group of fishermen who build a commercial fishing boat that they pilot out to Alaska to take part in an enormous salmon harvest. Two members of the crew will be present at the screening to fill in any details that the film itself could not cover.
True to ArtsRiot’s multidisciplinary mission, the screening of Pirates of Tebenkof will include a concert, as well. A performance by three musical acts — local singer-songwriter Maryse Smith, experimentally minded Burlington soundscapist SnakeFoot and Michael Nau of the Nashville-based band Cotton Jones — is included with the price of admission to the film.
Pirates of Tebenkof screens at 6:30 p.m. $10-$12. Concert starts after the film.
Tuesday, March 17
Avid filmgoers will want to return once again to Castleton State to see A Screaming Man, a 2010 film about one man who struggles to find an articulate response to the civil war that rages in his home country of Chad. A Screaming Man won the Jury Prize at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival — no mean feat. It’s unlikely to ever again receive a screening in Vermont, so carpe diem.A Screaming Man plays at 6:30 p.m. at Herrick Auditorium.
Wednesday, March 18
Burlington’s Fletcher Free Library will show the documentary Women in Space as part of an ongoing collaboration with Vermont PBS’ Community Cinema program.Women in Space is part of the video series “Makers,” dedicated to exploring women’s issues. Narrated by Jodie Foster, this one traffics in literal exploration — space exploration, that is — and the women who have taken part in that otherworldly experience.
The screening will be followed by a conversation with local science educators, including Burlington High School physics teacher Lisa Sitek and Suzanne Weishaar, the science coach at Burlington’s Sustainability Academy.
Women in Space screens at 6:30 p.m.
Also tonight, Vermonters can see one of 2013’s most thought-provoking films: the Penn-and-Teller-produced Tim’s Vermeer. As with so much of that duo’s work, the film investigates the nature of forgery and trickery in the art world.
In the film, inventor Tim Jenison expresses the theory that the great painter Johannes Vermeer used optical devices to create his masterpieces. So Jenison does what anyone would do: He obsessively invents devices with which he attempts to duplicate Vermeer’s technique. The result is a fascinating journey through the subject of artistic authenticity and fakery, as only Penn and Teller can present it.
Tim’s Vermeer screens as part of the Frog Hollow winter film series at Feldman’s Bagels in Burlington at 7 p.m. Free. Discussion to follow.
Tags: film , movie , on screen , in the house , castleton state college , castleton , françois ozon , omar , middlebury college , artsriot , pirates of tebenkof , alaska , salmon , maryse smith , snakefoot , cotton jones , a screaming man , women in space , fletcher free library , penn and teller , tim's vermeer , Image , Video , Web Only