Focus on Terrence Malick: Badlands
Warning: This essay contains spoilers In Badlands’ epilogue, when all the killing is over and our protagonists have finally been caught, one of the police officers asks him, “You like people?” Kit responds, “They’re okay.” This answer strikes the officer as a bit odd, so he follows it up with, “Then why’d you do it?” Kit’s first response is simple: “I don’t know.” This dialogue sets down the stakes for the film and what it’s trying to implicitly answer: Why did these two seemingly normal people go on a cross-country killing spree, and what is it that makes theirs so... read more
Catching up with Liz Garbus, director of Bobby Fischer Against the World
Liz Garbus is one of the most pre-eminent documentary filmmakers of the day. Her best-known film may be the prison documentary The Farm: Angola, USA, which won the Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award. But more recently she collaborated with Rory Kennedy on Street Fight, which was also Oscar-nominated, and she produced the Emmy-winning Ghosts of Abu Ghraib. Her new picture is a fascinating work about a fascinating man. Bobby Fischer Against the World just kicked off HBO’s Documentary Films Summer Series, which will feature a second Garbus offering in July. She joined us to talk... read more
Catching Up With... Selena Gomez
When it comes to a film like Monte Carlo, most Paste readers who are interested at all want to know two things — will my kids like it, and will I hate it? Fortunately, in this case, the answers are yes and no, respectively. For kids, it’s a fun fantasyland tale of a small town girl who gets to live the life of an heiress for a few days. For adults, it’s mildly entertaining, with some beautiful scenery (Paris, Monte Carlo) and some nice nods to classic romances of the past (the celluloid image of Grace Kelly even makes a... read more
Catching Up With Beginners Director Mike Mills
The Beginners director spoke to Paste about Ewan McGregor’s insistent representation of himself, about his concerns in honestly depicting the gay community of his father, and about the power of a little dog who almost steals the film. read more
See Two Exclusive Stills from The Tree of Life
There are few movies this year that have us as excited as Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, opening May 27. Part of that excitement stems from the images and clips that have surfaced in the lead up to the ambitious film starring Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and Jessica Chastain. The final two images to be released appear below, only at Paste.... read more
Paste Co-Sponsors Mark Ruffalo's Sympathy for Delicious LA Premiere
We’ve been telling you about Sympathy since Sundance 2010, and now we’re proud to be a part of introducing it to the public. Paste recently co-sponsored the Los Angeles premiere of Mark Ruffalo’s directorial debut, Sympathy for Delicious, as well as the Distillery 209 Sympathy for Delicious Afterparty at Mondrian Skybar in West Hollywood. In attendance were Ruffalo, writer/star Christopher Thornton, co-star Orlando Bloom, Ileana Douglas, Carrie Preston, Katie Aselton, Scott Teems, Natalia Livingston, multiple representatives from distributor Maya Entertainment, and many other notables. Other sponsors of note included Gasoline Films and Rutz Cellars.... read more
Sean "Diddy" Combs and Carson Daly Help Out a Paste Favorite
You might already know that one of our favorite films currently making the festival circuit is Evan Blodell’s stunning Bellflower (not the same as the Firefly fan film of the same name). It had to have been exciting for Evan when Carson Daly saw and loved his film and wanted to interview him. But when Daly’s old friend Sean “Diddy” Combs dropped by, the scene changed from exciting to bizarre. Take a look at the video below, keep an eye out for Bellflower at a festival near you (it’s at the Nashville Film Festival on Saturday April 16th), and keep... read more
Four Can't-Miss Films at SXSW
The second half of the South by Southwest Festival is generally focused on the music side of things. But Paste Film Editor Michael Dunaway points out four films that you really shouldn’t miss. Coincidentally enough, they’re all from first-time feature directors. Your ears need a break anyway, so go see a great film!... read more
SXSW Film: Otis Under Sky
Against a backdrop of some of Austin’s most picturesque landscapes, the two characters (played by spoken word poet/expert Twitterer Anis Mojgani and Neo-Futurist cast member Roberta Colindrez) forge an intimate friendship in writer/director/producer Anlo Sepulveda’s first feature-length film, Otis Under Sky. read more
Catching Up With... Paul Stone on The Prince of Elizabeth Street and The Boombox Project
Paul Stone is having a moment. His most recent endeavor, The Boombox Project, premiered last month at the Grammy Museum during Grammy week inside the tape deck of a huge boombox. Possibly his most provocative film, The Prince of Elizabeth Street, is finally available online. And his new creative social networking site www.dropculture.com just launched this week. Paste caught up with the filmmaker and entrepreneur for a conversation about all three projects.... read more
2011 Oscar Live Blog
Paste editor-in-chief Josh Jackson and film editor Michael Dunaway live-blogged the Academy Awards from the comfort of their respective living rooms. They looked at how far off base our Oscar picks were and shared our favorite Oscar-related tweets.... read more
Should-Be Oscar Interview: Scott Seeke on Get Low
Paste’s choice for the Best Original Screenplay of 2010 isn’t even nominated for an Academy Award. The script was originally penned by Atlanta’s Scott Seeke and his friend Chris Provenzano based on a story that Seeke’s wife’s grandfather told him on the porch one night. Ten years and several Hollywood legends later, Get Low made its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, was immediately bought by Sony Pictures, and has moved audiences everywhere. This week it’s finally out on DVD and Blu-Ray. Paste sat down recently with Scott to talk about the film’s origins, themes, and reception.... read more
Predicting the Oscars: An Oscar Blogger Breaks It Down For You
“Think of Rocky winning in 1976 over All the President’s Men, Network, and Taxi Driver,” Oscar blogger Adam Lucyk says about the race for Best Picture. “Think of How Green Was My Valley winning over Citizen Kane in 1941. Think of Gigi winning over Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1958. All examples of why I’m hoping The Social Network pulls it out, but still can’t quite predict it.”... read more
Salute Your Shorts: 2011 Oscar-nominated Documentaries
For the first time ever, this year the films nominated for the Academy Awards’ short documentary prize are publicly available. It’s not a surprise that the category’s long been so neglected, since both short films and documentaries have always been fairly ghettoized. There’s also perhaps a bigger issue with the category’s restraints here than with live action and animated shorts. While those shorts are in fact made for festivals, most of the best documentaries made in any given year are produced in order to be sold to television, and television shows are disqualified from the category.... read more
Oscar Preview - Who Will Win, Who Should Win, Who Really Should Win (Part Two)
Today we look at Best Picture, Best Director and the Best Actor/Actress categories in our annual Who Will Win/ Who Should Win/ Who Really Should Win story. read more
Salute Your Shorts: 2011 Oscar-nominated Animated Films
Most years the animated shorts category is both the audience’s preference and the only one of the categories that seems to really bring in great films. It’s hard to explain this disparity, except perhaps that because so many animated shorts are comedies they tend to lack the pretension of live-action and documentary shorts. They’re also frequently more stylistically ambitious than the other categories, which are frequently more conservative examples of their genres. I wouldn’t call the nominees examples of avant-garde cinema by any means, but they’re definitely a lot closer than what you’ll see pretty much anywhere else at the... read more
Oscar Preview - Who Will Win, Who Should Win, Who Really Should Win (Part One)
Each day this week, Paste is bringing you Oscar week coverage. Today we're proud to present Part One of our annual Who Will Win/ Who Should Win/ Who Really Should Win article. read more
Salute Your Shorts: 2011 Oscar-nominated Live Action films
For the sixth year, Shorts International is releasing the Oscar-nominated short films into theaters, but for the first time, this includes documentary shorts in addition to animated and live-action. Here's our take on this year's contenders. read more
Paste's Best of Sundance 2011
After a week and a half in Park City and two more weeks watching screener DVDs, we are proud to present our own favorites from Sundance 2011. Where applicable, we’ve also listed the Festval’s own award and what that jury said about it.... read more
Interview: Alister Grierson Talks Sanctum
Alister Grierson’s new film Sanctum is occasioning no small amount of attention and speculation, probably because of a) executive producer James Cameron and b) his proprietary Cameron/Pace Fusion 3-D camera systems that were used to film it. Regardless of the film’s merits as a great story (and there are loud voices on both sides of that debate), few dispute that the images are spectacular. Shortly after Grierson touched ground in L.A. recently, and just before beginning his first round of stateside press conferences about Sanctum, he took a few minutes to chat on the phone with Paste.... read more
