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Interviews
Best Actress Nominee Jennifer Lawrence Heats Up Winter's Bone
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Interviews
- Published on Friday, 25 February 2011 03:31
- Written by Brad Balfour
![Jennifer Lawrence [Photo by Brad Balfour]](/images/stories/2011/02/jenn-lawrence.png "Jennifer Lawrence [Photo by Brad Balfour]")
Thanks to her 2011 Oscar nomination for Best Actress as Ree Dolly in Winter's Bone, relative newcomer Jennifer Lawrence has now become one of Hollywood's latest darlings. Of course, there are the perks of such attention: fancy gowns, cool parties, cute guys and lots of media attention -- including great interviewers who pop hopefully clever questions. But what a burden. There's that downside of such accolades -- the sophomore slump -- what's up with that?
Telling Ree's tale, the film details a dirt-poor, Ozarks-based, meth-plagued community in which 17-year-old Ree holds together her siblings -- no thanks to a drug-dealing absent father and mentally-ill mother. When she's told they risk losing their house since her missing dad had put it up for collateral to get bail after a drug bust, she searches for him amongst a dangerous crew of dealers, including her addled uncle Teardrop (Oscar nominee John Hawkes), who thinks his brother has been killed.
Mighty Movie Podcast: Ben Lyons on Oscar 2011
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Interviews
- Published on Wednesday, 23 February 2011 22:38
- Written by Daniel Persons
So the people over at Yellow Tail wines were in touch with me again with an offer to talk with critic Ben Lyons. He's doing some Oscar-related stuff over at their movie/wine pairings website ReserveYourNight.com, and it sounded like a good opportunity to get his take on some of the pressing issues dealing with the coming Academy Award festivities, including how the Oscars' "10, Count 'Em, 10" nominees strategy is faring in its second year, whether Toy Story 3 is a great Pixar film, or the greatest Pixar film, and whether Harvey Weinstein will have fully earned his right to do the Happy Dance this Sunday.
Click on the player to hear the interview.
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For those of you who wanted to actually see the generational divide in living, breathing action, check out the video capture at mightymoviepodcast.com.
Vik Muniz's Garbage-Art Transforms A Waste Land Into A Nominee & Award Winner
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Interviews
- Published on Wednesday, 23 February 2011 19:42
- Written by Brad Balfour
![Vik Muniz and Lucy Walker [Photo by Brad Balfour]](/images/stories/2011/02/muniz-walker.jpg "Vik Muniz and Lucy Walker [Photo by Brad Balfour]")
Brazilian conceptualist Vik Muniz has been making remarkable photo-constructs and garnering accolades within the fine art world for years including such places as New York's Guggenheim Museum. But recently the artist has landed squarely in the public eye so that he is making an impact far beyond the sometime peculiar and opaque world of exhibition art.
First there was the release of Waste Land, a film made by director Lucy Walker that documented Muniz making art through photo/sculptures of the poor recyclers from Jardim Gramacho, the world's largest landfill on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro; he collaborates with the brilliant catadores to make images that combine portraits with recyclable materials.
Then there was its nomination for the Best Feature Documentary Oscar.
Chronicling Black Panthers, Award-Winning Director Knows Where Night Catches Us
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Interviews
- Published on Tuesday, 22 February 2011 17:55
- Written by Brad Balfour
![Tanya Hamilton [Photo by Brad Balfour]](/images/stories/2011/02/tanya-hamilton.jpg "Tanya Hamilton [Photo by Brad Balfour]")
It's Black History Month. And before that, in between January blizzards, the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's inauguration had its moment (after all, he was the president who ushered in civil rights legislation), as did Martin Luther King Day. These events flagged the struggle to eliminate segregation of and discrimination against African-Americans.
And now first-time feature filmmaker Tanya Hamilton brings up another chapter of African-American strife -- a darkly controversial one concerning the remnants of a Black Panther cell based in Philadelphia in the mid '70s.
A fine film, Night Catches Us made it to Sundance in 2010, where it won the Grand Jury Prize for a Drama, continued on to 2010's New Directors/New Films, and has had both a theatrical run and soon a DVD release.
