kathryn bigelow Tagged Articles at Cinematical

IFP's Gotham Independent Film Awards kicks off the awards season in November each year with an impressive list of nominees, and this year's list is no different. While it includes big names like the Coens for A Serious Man and buzzy films like The Hurt Locker and Big Fan, it also gives deserving nods to smaller films like Amreeka, a wonderful film about a mother and son from the West Bank who move the Illinois. The awards also include tributes to the careers of Natalie Portman, Stanley Tucci, and The Hurt Locker's director Kathryn Bigelow, as well as producers Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, who both worked on A Serious Man, The Soloist, State of Play, and a slew of other projects.

Previous Gotham winners include Frozen River, Trouble the Water, Into the Wild, Sicko, and Half Nelson, just to name a few. Check out Cinematical's preview coverage of the awards here.

The full list of nominees is after the jump.

Last week, Peter Bart of Variety wrote "Unlikely Rivals on the Oscar Circuit," outlining how Jane Campion and Kathryn Bigelow were a part of the Oscar race with Bright Star and The Hurt Locker. But rather than simply outlining their accomplishments and discussing their talents, Bart gave the piece this weird, "at odds" theme, kicking it off with their looks. It's apparently strange that the "cerebral, somewhat severe, leans toward post-hippie attire" Campion could helm an all-out romance* while Bigelow -- the "tall, model thin" director with a "gracious manner" -- could bring us The Hurt Locker. As if looks are inextricably tied to theme. As if Wes Craven has to look like Freddy Krueger, or James Cameron has to be a beefy Terminator.

To be fair, kind words are given to both filmmakers; it's just fueled by this strange desire to make things at odds. Its execution doesn't relay a sense of distaste in Campion's and Bigelow's accomplishments, but rather an inability to discuss them without noticing a woman's physicality, without struggling to make connections between their looks and interests. It continues right down to the final line -- "Keats vs. Iraq: Now that's downright weird." -- as if Campion's Piano didn't already face off against the likes of Schindler's List and The Fugitive, as if Juno never faced off against No Country for Old Men, and so on and so forth.

As if women are some sort of alien species that cannot be understood without their physical presence -- they must be judged by it, defined by it.

*Let alone the ridiculousness that Campion has to be characterized as the "severe" woman to Bigelow's cuteness.

How would you go about programming a weeklong retrospective of Kathryn Bigelow double features? We could put the vampire movie with the futuristic sci-fi movie, and then maybe the skydiving/bankrobber movie with the biker movie. Let's see... then we could put the war movie with the submarine movie, but then the time-switching murder story would have to go with the lady cop movie. Hmm. Let me start over...

Or rather, let me just take a minute to gush about one of my favorite directors, who just now seems to be getting the praise she has long deserved for her current movie The Hurt Locker. She began her career by attending the San Francisco Art Institute and studying painting, which slowly segued into film. Her bold, painterly images can be seen to this day, throughout all her work. She has taken a tough, genre approach to filmmaking, following in the footsteps of such ultra-masculine directors as Howard Hawks, Samuel Fuller and Don Siegel. But to her, she's not really doing anything unusual; she's just making the kinds of films she wants to make.

Unfortunately, few of her movies have ever shown any kind of financial success, so she's not exactly in good standing with the studio heads. She's strikingly beautiful in person, and also whip-smart, a combination that, in meetings, could work both for and against her. On the plus side, some of her films have generated passionate cult followings, including Near Dark, Strange Days and especially Point Break, which has a fervent fan club worthy of Rocky Horror.

Could The Hurt Locker be Kathryn Bigelow's big break into the upper echelon of desired action directors? In his review from TIFF last year, James Rocchi said: "Bigelow's a terrific action director, but the industry doesn't offer her the chance to demonstrate that as often as you might like; it could be sexism or just the bad juju that sticks to some directors that explains that, but either way Bigelow blows both those off the screen along with everything else in a blast of Dolby splendor and big-screen spectacle." Now Variety reports that we can start preparing for the next bout of thrills.

She's reteaming with Paramount and writer Mark Boal for a new action-adventure project called Triple Frontier. A "high-stakes ensemble project," the film will be set in the border zone between Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil, where the Igazu and Parana rivers come together and make for a hard-to-keep-an-eye-on mecca for organized crime. That might not be a lot to go on, but it sure hints to a myriad of possibilities.

But much more than the plot is what this will mean for Bigelow's career, and whether this feature will get more distribution love. Although lavished with praise, Box Office Mojo says that the film's widest release was on only 535 screens, where she raked in almost $9 million domestically. Do you think this film could turn the tide to super-action-director-stardom? Or will Bigelow remain a beloved, but not front-and-center, director?

Bomb squad. War zone. Malfunctioning robot. In the opening sequence of The Hurt Locker, director Kathryn Bigelow expertly sets a tone of anxious, sweat-soaked drama. The film has been playing in New York and Los Angeles, expands to selected cities this Friday, and then goes wide on July 24. You can watch the first eight minutes online at Hulu (or after the jump).

And if that doesn't grab you, I don't know what will. I saw The Hurt Locker at SXSW, and that opening sequence pinned me to my seat. Guy Pearce leads a bomb squad that includes Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty. They're already suited up in protective gear as the scene begins, wisecracking and otherwise demonstrating an easy camaraderie. A small wheeled robot has a minor mechanical malfunction, requiring Pearce to walk into harm's way to fix it. The team's wary conversational bravado continues, even as they shift into high alert on the mostly empty street. Civilian bystanders could be friendly -- or they could be waiting to trigger the bomb.

Jeremy Renner, who turns up a little later in the picture, stars as a new member of the squad. He's a confident expert, but his reckless methods cause the others to question whether his devil-may-care attitude is needlesssly endangering their own lives. Ralph Fiennes, David Morse, and Evangeline Lilly also appear in small roles. I fully agree with James Rocchi, who wrote in his review: "You'll want to see it at a theater near you, in fact, on the largest possible screen with the best possible sound." Don't miss it.

(By James Rocchi - reprinted from the Toronto International Film Festival, 9/10/08)

The Hurt Locker sees director Kathryn Bigelow craft a big, booming tale of tension based on journalist Mark Boal's experiences and interviews with bomb disposal experts in the streets of Iraq. Toronto didn't just see The Hurt Locker earn raves from many critics; it also saw the film get picked up by Summit Entertainment for distribution. Cinematical spoke with Bigelow and Boal in Toronto about breaking the audience's unconscious link between an actor's salary and a character's destiny, whether or not their film is really apolitical, the fun and excitement of blowing things up on-set, how making the movie yourself is the best way to be sure you make the movie you want to and much more.Cinematical's podcast content is now available through iTunes; you can subscribe at this link. Also, you can listen directly here at Cinematical by clicking below:



As ever, you can download the entire podcast right here -- and those of you with RSS Podcast readers can find all of Cinematical's podcast content at this link.

I was a 10-year-old girl when I first stumbled across a book about a vampire rock star, but from that moment on, I have always had a thing for the plasma-challenged. I've gone on to read everything from Penny Dreadfuls to Poppy Z. Brite, and to this day I will always watch a vampire movie, no matter how bad -- and there are no shortage of those. But there are some good ones, too, and one of my favorites is Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark. I have plenty of reasons for respecting Bigelow's work (whose new -- and excellent -- film The Hurt Locker opens on June 26th), because let's face it -- there aren't very many female directors, especially female 'action' directors -- and thanks to her vampire-Western hybrid, I'm willing to give her a bit of slack for her lesser flicks. So to anyone out there who thinks girls can only do 'hearts and flowers' on the big screen, just watch the scene after the jump and tell me if you still feel the same way.

But back to vampires: ever since Dracula first stepped off the Demeter and into London society, vampires have usually been frock-coated aristocratic types, but not these guys. Bigelow's vamps are more Hell's Angels than love-starved dandies, and unlike a certain vampire who shall go unnamed, have no qualms about being the bad guy. I do like to think of myself as a connoisseur of all things 'vamp', and I have to say, this scene is a doozey. In less than 10 minutes this group manages to clean out an entire redneck bar, and it ain't pretty. But then again, that's why I love it. In the end I prefer my vampires to be a little more bloodthirsty and a little less sensitive, don't you?

After the jump: Near Dark fun facts and the Scene We (I) Love...

Some B films are loved because they're just so bad, but some are loved because they're just so good -- a palpable talent resting beneath the haze of badness.

I'm not talking about the guys who spend years honing their technique and then head back to the world of B to make a flashy feature (Grindhouse), but those who are born out of that wonderfully bad wasteland -- the men and women who kickstart their career with blood, chills, and pulp, and then grow into high-buzz filmmakers and talent. Not everyone can start with a critical masterpiece, so what can be better than a little silly fun? It certainly beats a crappy first movie that no one wants to see.

Read on to learn of seven big Hollywood names who kicked off their careers with the wonder of B-movie filmmaking. These directors have talent, awards, and a healthy serving of critical success, but it all came out of began with our beloved B's. Maybe they knew how to start their careers, or maybe Roger Corman simply has the best eye for killer talent. Whatever the case, their first films didn't define their careers, and in fact, set them on their way to success.

While skimming my feeds, I came across a post at THR about a Stanley Kramer celebration called "Films That Changed the World." It immediately got me thinking of world-changing cinema, and how much a film can impact us. But try as I might, I couldn't come up with films that changed my world, and instead, kept going back to the story. See, this new series is celebrating the films connected with the iconic filmmaker that were socially conscious. First up: Yentl.

It wasn't so much the film that kept grabbing me, but a quote by Kramer's daughter, Kat: "The history-making film, the first major studio production ever produced, directed and co-written by its female star, shattered Hollywood's glass ceiling like no other film ever did." I wish I could say that it shattered that glass ceiling. If it did, we wouldn't have such abysmal percentages of women in the industry -- both in it and writing about it. Last year, 25 years after Yentl, women didn't even hit 20% of all directors, producers, writers, and the rest of the big behind-the-scenes roles in the industry. We couldn't even hit 10% of all directors. Not even a quarter. Not even a tenth.

That's not a shattering of the glass ceiling, it's a crack in the glass that few women survive when they try to pull themselves through. It's monumental when a woman directs a big, supernatural romance (Twilight), and sadly not surprising when she's then pulled from it. More specifically, it was monumental for a woman to helm it from the pens of other women, even though the film is geared towards the girls itching for a little dark, vampiric action. Women directing for girls? Shocking!

The only way to stretch that crack, and just possibly create that shattered ceiling Kat Kramer was talking about is to do it again. And again. And again. Sadly, it can't just be with solid, noteworthy work. For every wonderful Protagonist, there needs to be a ceiling shake by Amy Heckerling, or a solid kick by Kathryn Bigelow, or Mary Harron -- blockbusters, hits, action, and horror that prove we're not all clumsy romance fiends and fashion victims. It's a fact that seems to be forgotten much too often.

Cinematical has received these brand new images from The Hurt Locker (one is an exclusive shot, as seen above), which will enjoy its SXSW premiere later tonight. Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker has snagged a ton of buzz ever since its premiere at the Toronto fest back in September, where we reviewed it and interviewed Bigelow. The film, based on journalist Mark Boal's real experiences, tells of "three members of the Army's elite Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) squad [who] battle insurgents and one another as they search for and disarm a wave of roadside bombs on the streets of Baghdad-in order to try and make the city a safer place for Iraqis and Americans alike."

James noted in his Toronto review that The Hurt Locker is "an assured, confident, swaggering piece of moviemaking that manages to not only evoke every war of the 20th century but also, despite the claims by makers and some reviewers that it's an 'apolitical' film, speaks very specifically to the Iraq war" -- later adding, "The Hurt Locker looks and feels like a terrific action film, but there's a piece of art ticking away within it that goes off inside your head and your heart while you're watching." Check out the new images in the gallery below and the full synopsis after the jump. The Hurt Locker hits theaters on June 26.