Archive for the ‘Interview’ Category

  • Live Q&A with Angelina Jolie

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    In recent years, Angelina Jolie has seemingly spanned the gamut of acting roles. Besides the ass-kicking globe trotter that she’s probably best known for, she also shown real acting chops in films such as A Mighty Heart, The Good Shepherd and The Changeling with the occasional sexual thriller thrown in for good measure. But now it seems she’s taken to writing and directing as well – even earning herself a Golden Globe for the picture in the best foreign language category (up against heavy hitters, A Separation, The Skin I Live In and Zhang Yimou’s The Flowers of War).

    So if it pleases the court, we’d like to present a live webcast of a Q&A with Ms. Jolie in support of her film. And we’ve got a spot right in the third row for you. Stop back on THURSDAY, JANUARY 12th at 8pm eastern time to watch…

    …and participate! Leave a question in the comments section for Angelina Jolie. We’ll pick one at semi-random and offer it up for the Q&A. That writer of that question will also receive a complimentary poster from the film (like the one pictured above). So think about what you might want to ask Lara Croft and send it her way via the comment section below.

     

     

  • Flyway Pubcast #5 – Xan Aranda Talks About Andrew Bird Documentary

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    Today’s Pubcast is brought to you by Andrew, Matt, Flyway regular Xan Aranda (of the Chicago Short Film Brigade) and Summit Beer Brewing Company. Though Xan has typically been involved with programming the shorts for Flyway Film Fetival in the past, this year she’s here pretty much just for the fun of it. Of course this isn’t to say she doesn’t have stuff to talk about.

    Her documentary, Fever Year, featuring musican/songwriter Andrew Bird is on the way. Andrew James meanwhile is busy with his 12 year-old scotch (thanks Peri!) so I defer to my girlfriend Emma to ask the tough questions before Gamble goes back to his gushing. Welcome to the drunken shenanigans that is Flyway 2011!

     

    Meanwhile, check out the trailer for FEVER YEAR under the seats…
     

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  • Flyway Pubacast #3 – Gary King!

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    Our good buddy GARY KING is back at Flyway once again! While he doesn’t have a film this year (he had two last year so he’s trying to maintain modesty), he’s always down for a cine-conversation. James Gillham from Where the Long Tail Ends wanted to talk to the director a little bit about horror films in general, given the time of year. I couldn’t help but interrupt and give my own thoughts as well.

    From there we talk a little bit about Gary’s upcoming film How Do You Write a Joe Schermann Song and when we can expect a screening. Mostly it’s all laughs and fun here as we takl about The Exorcist, [rec] and other paranormal and religious horrifications (welcome to Flyway Film Festival!).

     

    You can follow Gary and his films here:
    Film Page
    Twitter
    Facebook
    IMDb

    AND check out the trailer for How do You Write a Joe Schermann Song under the seats…

     

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  • Flyway Pubcast #2 – “Adventures in Plymptoons” Director Alexia Anastasio

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    Early on in the evening Matt Gamble and I had the distinct pleasure of sitting down with writer/director Alexia Anastasio to talk about her new documentary, Adventures in Plymptoons. One of my favorite films from Flyway 2011, this documentary explores the vivid and whacky mind of renowned animator, Bill Plympton. You may not recognize the name, but you probably know his work.

    Despite being mostly a talking heads documentary, it was clearly made with fun and admiration in mind. Sure all of the speakers are here to show their admiration for Bill, but they’re also here for laughs… and it shows! With bits and scraps of Bill’s work intertwined among all of the interviews and old-school footage, the movie is exactly what Bill Plympton would want it to be: a frickin’ ball!

     

    You can follow Alexia and the film here:
    Film Page
    Twitter
    Facebook

    … or check out the trailer under the seats!…

     

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  • Flyway Pubcast #1 – Programmer/Director Rick Vaicius

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    So we’ll start this series of interviews and diascussions with the most apropos of places: founder/director/programmer Rick Vaicius [vay-shus]. The interview actually took place in the middle of the evening but as you’ll see throughout this series, that’s due partly out of simplicity and obviousness, but also possible drunkenness on the part of the interviewers (myself and Matt Gamble) and therefore we’re a little bit chronologically impaired.

    This is my third year at The Flyway Film Festival and it just keeps on getting better. Here’s Rick to explain why…

     

  • Kurt Talks Midnight Madness for The Substream

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    It’s been one hell of a week in Toronto, Ontario but one thing that will keep the demons at bay is most certainly the electricity of the audience at a Midnight Madness screening. Our own Kurt Halfyard grabs the mic this particular evening before a screening of Lovely, Molly (director Eduardo Sánchez, The Blair Witch Project) to get the man on the street memories of The Blair Witch craze of the late nineties. Then a quick flash forward to get reactions about the new movie, Lovely, Molly.

    Take a look…

     

     

    A couple of Other Episodes featuring Kurt and the Mamo Matts are tucked under the seat.
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  • ‘No ball left unbusted’: An actual interview with Harrison Ford.

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    Harrison Ford has built up the reputation in the past few years that he has evolved into nothing more than a cranky old man churning out lame movie after lame movie. And while the latter part is certainly true, I’ve been convinced that he’s still the cool, laid-back guy that he always was and that he’s just been hamming it up for the interviewers, because he has the star power that he doesn’t have to humor the interviewers and he doesn’t much mind the image that was being formed of him (see his last few Conan appearances for perfect examples of his later-life oddness).

    In a conversational style reminiscent to Jon Favreau’s old Dinner for Five, the director of Cowboys & Aliens, who just seems like one of the genuinely nicest guys in Hollywood, interviews Ford and it was really nice to see Ford have his guard down. I haven’t seen him give an interview where he has looked so relaxed since his Air Force One days, it seems. After the jump, you can check out the interview (broken up into numerous clips), where they talk about everything from the costuming on set, to the choice to not make the movie in 3D, to The Empire Strikes Back director Irvin Kershner.

    Apparently, Favreau will be doing the same type of interview with stars Daniel Craig and Sam Rockwell, so be sure to stay tuned for those.

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  • Darren Aronofsky creates universes.

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    For one reason or another, no one around here has been talking about Darren Aronofsky’s surprising (yet, bizarrely obvious) decision to direct The Wolverine, the sequel… er… not sequel… er… the whatever it is movie that stars Hugh Jackman as the eventual X-Men team-member named Logan (aka Wolverine).

    Mustache and scarf intact, Aronofsky – the director behind critical darlings such as The Wrestler, The Fountain, Requiem for a Dream, and the upcoming Black Swan – describes why he made the decision to direct this film and how The Wolverine is a stand-alone story that apparently has nothing to do with “that universe,” meaning the universe of the X-Men movie trilogy and Wolverine’s origin prequel. As he puts it in this recent interview:

    “Every time I start a film, everyone’s like, ‘What the hell is he doing?’ So hopefully once again, I’ll surprise everyone. … Every single film I’ve done so far, I’ve been the only person in the room who wants to make the movie and I kind of am excited about doing a film where actually everyone wants to make it – just to see what the experience is like and see if I can do what I do in that world. It’s not like I’m going to change my process. I’m going to be working with the same team and… really trying to do something very, very different and see what happens.”

    Well, the man certainly has me curious. It will be interesting to see where he takes the movie and the character. His comments that there will not be much “blowing shit up” are promising, as we all know what happened with Gavin Hood’s laughably bad, over-the-top prequel.

    What are your thoughts? Is the man wasting his time and talents or is he onto something?

  • Harrison Ford Overload!!!

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    I guess Harrison Ford has a new movie out or something. It may or may not be named after an Oasis album – and Rotten Tomatoes says that it is one of his highest critically rated movie in ages!

    Morning Glory: 56%
    Extraordinary Measures: 27%
    Crossing Over: 17%
    Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: 77%
    Firewall: 19%
    Hollywood Homicide: 30%
    K-19 The Widowmaker: 61%
    What Lies Beneath: 45%
    Random Hearts: 15%
    Six Days, Seven Nights: 37%
    The Devil’s Own: 29%

    Compare that to his string of critical darling after critical darling in the 80s and into the mid-90s that lead up to this dramatic shift in quality (in order of release): The Empire Strikes Back (97%), Raiders of the Lost Ark (94%), Blade Runner (92%), Return of the Jedi (78%), Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom (85%), Witness (94%), The Mosquito Coast (75%), Frantic (77%), Working Girl (83%), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (89%), Presumed Innocent (94%), Regarding Henry (48%), Patriot Games (75%), The Fugitive (94%), Clear and Present Danger (78%), Sabrina (61%), and Air Force One (78%).

    I’m still perplexed by the whole thing. Maybe when Air Force One succeeded both financially and with the critics he thought that every mindless and silly movie that came his way would be received as such. Of course, if that was his thought, he was dead wrong.

    After the jump, I’m compiled many of the recent appearances of Harrison on talk shows and interviews, where he is noticeably less grumpy than he has been in the past ten years during these types of ordeals (of which he has made note of in the past, he is not very fond of, being the extremely private person that he is). Enjoy – and feel free to talk about anything Harrison Ford related, be it his most recent film, one of these interviews, or how awesome he was in The Mosquito Coast.

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  • Flyway Film Fest Dispatch #8: Xan Aranda

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    Director of shorts for the Flyway Film Festival is veteran programmer, Xan Aranda, founder and director of the Chicago Short Film Brigade and writer/producer of other feature films. Xan spoke with us last year with her in competition film, Milking the Rhino. This year she’s here to help promote Prisoner of Her Past and give us an exquisite breadth of great short films in the many genres that they encompass.

    Once again at the closing night P&I party, Xan talked with Matt and Andrew about the nature of short films, some of the favorites at this year’s fest and other festival goings on with her Short Film Brigade and the sheer number of them she sees each year. We also talk about the Jay Cheel retrospective she plans to screen after learning about Poutine from Gerry.

     

     

    LINKS:
    Chicago Short Film Brigade
    Xan Aranda.com
    Mormons Make Movies

     

  • Flyway Film Fest Dispatch #7: Jed Schlegelmilch and Damon Holland

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    Final night at the Flyway Film Festival and during the drink-a-thon that is the closing night gala party, we managed to finally catch our very busy friend and now film maker, Jed Schliegelmilch, for a quick sit down to discuss his new film, Absence/Presence. This extremely personal documentary follows Jed on a quest of sorts to explore a little bit more about what happened Halloween night ten years ago when his brother very unexpectedly committed suicide. Details at the time were sketchy and even a little bit of mystery to the evening. Jed road trips to Wisconsin to visit friends and officials involved with the case in order to finally come to grips with his own feelings surrounding the entire situation. Needless to say the audience took the film as the punch in the gut that it is and was visibly moved as the closing credits rolled.

    As we sat down in the very noisy Breakwater Gallery and Wine Bar, Jed and his director of photography, Damon Holland, talk about their feelings on putting the film together, how Cloud Cult got involved and agreed to do the soundtrack and what it’s like to be a rookie film maker at their very first festival and what plans they have for the film in the future.

     

     

    LINKS:
    Official site
    Twitter
    SAVE.org

     

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