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As the format continues to gain traction, here’s our regularly-updated list of upcoming 4K Ultra HD disc releases in the UK.

Sitting alongside our list of upcoming DVD and Blu-ray releases (that you can find here), we’re also keeping a calendar for those who support the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray disc format. As we learn of new UK releases, we’ll add them to this list.

We have started adding shopping links too. We’d be obliged if you clicked on them, as it really helps us in our quest to make the Film Stories project of magazines, website and podcast profitable. We’re a 100% independent publisher, and we quite like drinking coffee. It’d be lovely to afford some more.

Without further ado, here are the titles we know about…

Out now

17th March: Yojimbo & Sanjuro double set

17th March: Thirst

17th March: Harlequin

17th March: The Penguin...

Todd Solondz celebrated the 20th anniversary of his Venice premiere “Palindromes” at Metrograph in New York City on Sunday, April 6 with a 4K restoration screening, accompanied by a Q&a with actors Tyler Maynard and Shayna Levine, costume designer Vicki Farrell, and moderated by producer Mike S. Ryan. His disturbing comedy follows 13-year-old Aviva who is desperate to become a mother. Upon becoming pregnant, her mother, played by Ellen Barkin, forces her to get an abortion, which ultimately ends up sterilizing the teen girl. The aftermath follows Aviva being portrayed by eight different actresses.

“Anyone who tries to make a movie, it never turns out the way you anticipate, but you’re lucky [that] it turns out better,” Solondz told the audience. “It was really hard, 18-hour days; the climax was our last day, which was a 27-hour day that we did. Now, I don’t recommend this to anyone. I...

With Todd Solondz’s Palindromes currently rereleased by Monument Releasing in a new 4K restoration on the occasion of its 20th anniversary, we are reposting Matthew Ross’s interview with Solondz from our Spring, 2005 print edition. The film opens today at New York’s Metrograph Theater before traveling to Philadelphia, Atlanta and Los Angeles in the weeks ahead. It was nine years ago that Todd Solondz took home the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance for his second feature, Welcome to the Dollhouse. One of the seminal indies of the late 1990s, the film earned more than $4 million at the box office […]

The post “Even Stalin on his Deathbed Thought He Was a Good Person”: Todd Solondz on Palindromes first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

With Todd Solondz’s Palindromes currently rereleased by Monument Releasing in a new 4K restoration on the occasion of its 20th anniversary, we are reposting Matthew Ross’s interview with Solondz from our Spring, 2005 print edition. The film opens today at New York’s Metrograph Theater before traveling to Philadelphia, Atlanta and Los Angeles in the weeks ahead. It was nine years ago that Todd Solondz took home the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance for his second feature, Welcome to the Dollhouse. One of the seminal indies of the late 1990s, the film earned more than $4 million at the box office […]

The post “Even Stalin on his Deathbed Thought He Was a Good Person”: Todd Solondz on Palindromes first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Few filmmakers feel their characters as much as Todd Solondz, who creates eccentric, relatable film characters who nonetheless suffer the gamut of what life has to offer — loneliness, betrayal... rape, suicide... pedophilia. Yes, things often get more upsetting and increasingly taboo for the characters in Todd Solondz's films, especially the iconic Dawn Wiener, first introduced in the great indie film Welcome to the Dollhouse. By the time we catch up with the Wieners in Solondz's often-overlooked 2004 masterpiece Palindromes, Dawn Wiener has killed herself, and we are attending her funeral alongside the film's 13-year-old lead character Aviva, who is portrayed by eight different people throughout the movie as she runs away from home and tries to become a mother.

Unlike the universal acclaim of his films Welcome to the Dollhouse and the controversial Happiness, Palindromes received a mixed reception from audiences and critics at the time (many of whom have come...

Filmmaker Todd Solondz and some of his fans don't see his films the way that most people do — as cruel, hopeless, or even immoral. People see a potentially controversial film like Happiness and might miss the way Solondz meticulously explores taboos, loneliness, and the universal human need for connection. Solondz truly cares about his characters, and has a very personal connection to his films. From his perspective, the films aren't polarizing. Speaking to MovieWeb for the 20th anniversary of his great film Palindromes, Solondz explained:

"I can't say why, but, like all of my movies, there's a level of divisiveness in the response to the film. And I suppose I have a weak moral fiber, because if someone likes the movie, I might feel good, I feel happy, and if they don't, I feel sad and disappointed. I don't look for this divisiveness, I don't seek out contention and so forth.

You know an actor wants to get a movie made when they use interviews to announce financing opportunities. That's what Elizabeth Olsen did for Todd Solondz's film Love Child a few months ago when she spoke with Vulture. She said at the time, "If anyone’s writing about this interview, if you guys want to make a big, bold notice that says, 'Todd Solondz needs money to make a movie,' that would be great!" Rachel Weisz and Colin Farrell were previously attached to Love Child back in 2021, but without financing, they couldn't commit. Currently, Olsen and Charles Melton are attached to star, and hopefully Solondz gets the funding he needs. The great auteur (of Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness fame), who is celebrating the 20th anniversary of his film Palindromes, spoke to MovieWeb about Olsen and their potential film.

"One tries to remain and hold onto a level of optimism,...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Roxy Cinema

Martin Scorsese has programmed Living, Breathing New York, which continues with a 35mm print of Bringing Out the Dead on Friday and Saturday; The Quiet Man plays on 35mm Saturday and Sunday; David Lynch shorts and Lost Highway screen.

Anthology Film Archives

A new restoration of João César Monteiro’s Snow White plays on Saturday; a Rosemary Hochschild retrospective screens.

Film Forum

A René Clair retrospective has begun; Luis Buñuel’s Él continues screening in a 4K restoration alongside Play It As It Lays and Godard’s A Woman Is a Woman; Modern Times screens on Sunday.

IFC Center

Hideaki Anno’s Love & Pop plays in a new restoration; Stop Making Sense, Mulholland Dr., Lost Highway, Best in Show, Palindromes, and Pink Flamingos show late.

Bam

Heiny Srour’s Leila and the Wolves continues.

Nitehawk Cinema

Paper Moon...

Indie filmmaker Todd Solondz has for over four decades batted off ratings battles, jeers and boos at film festivals, and censorship controversies for his unflinching and scaldingly funny deadpan dioramas of American suburban life.

He’s found comedy in the darkest places and the most messed-up people, whether a father of three (Dylan Baker) who’s also a pedophile in “Happiness,” a middle-school social outcast (Heather Matarazzo) in “Welcome to the Dollhouse,” or a Hispanic housekeeper who poisons her employers with carbon monoxide in “Storytelling.” His 1998 “Happiness” shocked Cannes with its bleak sexuality and cringe characters, compelling even the Sundance Film Festival to refuse to screen it.

The pressure was on after the cult classic — recently burnished in 4K by the Criterion Collection — for Solondz to follow its winning formula. After the follow-up “Storytelling,” he brought to Venice “Palindromes,” a disturbing comedy about a 13-year-old girl desperate to have a baby.

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Roxy Cinema

Martin Scorsese has programmed Living, Breathing New York, which starts with Shadows and a 35mm print of Heaven Knows What on Sunday; The Rubber Gun (watch our exclusive trailer debut) plays Saturday with a Stephen Lack Q&a; Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, and Wild at Heart screen.

Anthology Film Archives

Robina Rose’s Nightshift (watch our exclusive trailer debut) begins playing in a new restoration; Matías Piñeiro-curated series offers Antonioni, Hollis Frampton, and Straub-Huillet.

Film Forum

Luis Buñuel’s Él begins screening in a 4K restoration; Lou Ye’s Suzhou River and Spring Fever screen; Play It As It Lays and Godard’s A Woman Is a Woman continue; Space Jam screens on Sunday.

IFC Center

Hideaki Anno’s Love & Pop plays in a new restoration; eXistenZ, Mulholland Dr., Paprika, Best in Show, Palindromes, and Pink Flamingos show late.

Visit Films, an independent film sales company is making considerable headway in the global film market. Under Ryan Kampe’s direction, the company has obtained distribution deals for various films, demonstrating the growing international interest in independent filmmaking.

Recent sales have highlighted some outstanding titles. Among them is “Good One,” a gripping backpacker drama by India Donaldson. This film has achieved traction in several key regions, with distributors including Pt Falcon in Indonesia, Big Tree in India, and Gulf Film in the Middle East. Must See Magic has also acquired it in the Cis, Madman Entertainment in Australia and New Zealand, and Starcat in Japan. Conic has also secured rights in the United Kingdom and Ireland after recent acquisitions in France and the Benelux.

Another noteworthy title is “Ghostlight,” a drama developed by Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thomson that premiered at Sundance. This film has received international notice, with Vendetta...

Exclusive: Monument Releasing and Visit Films have teamed with The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York to produce a 4K restoration of Todd Solondz’s 2004 feature Palindromes.

The 4K restoration has been organized to celebrate the film’s 20th anniversary. The restored version — produced in conjunction with MoMA — will be released digitally on the 20th of May 2025.

The film will also be available for theatrical bookings before the digital release date via Monument Releasing in North America. Visit Films will represent Palindromes for international sales. Radiance will handle the UK release, Filmin will release digitally in Spain, and Nonstop Entertainment will distribute the film in Scandinavia.

Palindromes stars Jennifer Jason Leigh (The Hateful Eight), Matthew Faber (Welcome to the Dollhouse), Valerie Shusterov, Hannah Freiman (Frontrunners), Emani Sledge, and Bill Buell (Welcome to the Dollhouse).

Solondz’s fifth feature, the film follows thirteen-year-old Aviva Victor who longs for a...

The Criterion Collection plays hero once again with their recent 4K Uhd release of Todd Solondz’s 1998 sophomore feature, Happiness. The film had long languished on a pitiful non-anamorphic window-boxed DVD from Lionsgate and fans have been clamoring for an updated version for many, many years. The grand dame of boutique home video has finally come to the rescue, following their Blu-ray release of Solondz’s Life During Wartime, Happiness marks the filmmaker’s second release with the label, and hopefully not the last as his follow ups – the equally confronting Storytelling and the outré masterpiece Palindromes – also deserve reevaluation. Happiness is a story of small town disfunction, not unlike David Lynch’s white picket fence nightmare, Blue Velvet, but Solondz replaces the hard-boiled narrative structure...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Visit Films has announced a torrent of recent deals on its slate led by a further key territory sale on Cannes Directors’ Fortnight entry Good One.

India Donaldson’s feature debut starring newcomer Lily Collias as a 17-year-old who goes on an awkward backpacking trip with her father and his best friend has gone to Cherry Pickers for Benelux after a previously reported deal with New Story for France.

Multiple territories remain in active negotiation after Cannes, and Metrograph Pictures holds North American rights.

SXSW documentary Mogwai: If The Stars Had A Sound about the cult post-rock band has been...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Film at Lincoln Center

Claire Denis’ masterful first feature Chocolat has been restored in 4K and begins a run.

Anthology Film Archives

“Working Girl(s)” highlights the working woman, spanning Lizzie Borden’s Born in Flames to Mike Nichols’ Working Girl, while a series curated by Borden gets underway.

Paris Theater

After Hours screens on Sunday with a Griffin Dunne Q&a to follow.

Film Forum

The Sorrow and the Pity begins a run; Lou Ye’s Suzhou River continues showing in a 4K restoration while Song of the Sea plays this Sunday.

Roxy Cinema

The Todd Solondz retro continues with 35mm showings of Palindromes and Life During Wartime, while Wiener-Dog also shows; a puppet program plays on 16mm this Sunday.

Museum of the Moving Image

Miyazaki’s Ponyo plays Saturday and Sunday; Argento’s Deep Red plays Saturday.

IFC Center

House,...

Today marks the 60th birthday of one of the finest and most underrated actors working: the great Jennifer Jason Leigh. Aside from a brief dalliance with the mainstream in the early 90s, her 40+ year career has been spent largely in independent cinema, from her beginnings elevating schlock like Eyes of a Stranger to her most recent role in Lena Dunham’s Sundance 2022 entry, Sharp Stick.

Leigh has never shown any interest in airing any part of her life offscreen in public. This is likely one of the reasons she has gone under the radar throughout her career. She has amassed huge respect in the industry, but her lack of interest in trophy chasing has meant she has just one Oscar nomination to her name and her pursuit of privacy and choice of roles that she’s never been a huge star. I get the feeling that’s exactly how she wants it.

London New Wave and 1091 Pictures have announced that their heist thriller Blonde. Purple will be heading to Digital Download from 30th November. Directed by Marcus Flemmings, the film stars Julian Moore-Cook, Ellie Bindman, Adam J Bernard and Jennifer Lee Moon. An out of his depth criminal is stuck in a bank …

The post Blonde. Purple’ – Coming to Digital 30 November appeared first on Horror News | Hnn.

Five of TV’s top composers will reveal the secrets behind their musical success when they join Gold Derby’s special “Meet the Btl Experts” Q&a event with key 2020 Emmy contenders this month. Each scribe will participate in two video discussions to be published soon: one-on-one with our senior editor Joyce Eng and a group chat with Joyce and all of the composers together.

SEEalmost 300 interviews with 2020 Emmy contenders

This “Meet the Btl Experts” panel welcomes the following 2020 Emmy contenders:

Carter Burwell represents Netflix for “Space Force”

Burwell won a Primetime Emmy for his work on “Mildred Pierce.” He is a 2-time Oscar nominee for “Carol” and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” Other projects have included “The Twilight Saga,” “True Grit,” “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and “Fargo.”

Siddhartha Khosla represents 20th Century Fox and NBCUniversal for “This Is Us”

Khosla was nominated at last year’s Emmys for...

Armory Films and Motor Content is working with Scout Comics, Cgc Certified Guaranty Company and Comic Impressions for their new Script2Comic contest which will give the winner the chance to see their screenplay, teleplay, short story, or comic script come to life as a comic book series or graphic novel. On top of that, it will be optioned for development into a film or television series and produced by Armory Films and Motor Content.

“Most screenplays are read by a handful of people, then put on a shelf and never seen again. Comics can be discovered and enjoyed by an audience for years, decades and even centuries to come,” said Don Handfield from Motor Content, which recently saw its first comic series The Rift adapted into an episode of Steven Spielberg’s AppleTV+’s reboot of Amazing Stories. “There is no...

"Do you know a love story told backwards always has a happy ending?" An official trailer has debuted for an intriguing British drama titled Palindrome, the second feature film from filmmaker Marcus Flemmings (Six Rounds). Palindrome is the story of young black man Fred as he struggles to find freedom in modern Britain. Mirroring this is another story about a female artist in modern England who is contemplating the true meaning of art. Struggling British queer artist, Anna, is then witness to a tragic event and consequently becomes a revered artist. But should she stop at the height of success or just end it there...? The film stars Tábata Cerezo, Sarah Swain, Hester Ruoff, Shauna Ridgard, and Daniel Jordan. This looks like a very ambitious and strange experimental thriller, with crime & art & love & London all mixed into one film. Here's the first official trailer (+ posters) for Marcus Flemmings' Palindrome, direct...

Actor Matthew Faber, best known for his memorable roles in '90s cult classic movies like Welcome to the Dollhouse and Natural Born Killers, has reportedly passed away. According to Faber's brother Mark, the actor's family hadn't heard from him for days, so they contacted the landlord of his Van Nuys, California apartment to gain access to the home. Inside, Faber was found deceased, and though no cause of death has been immediately made apparent, his passing "appears to be natural." He was 47 years old.

In a statement provided to TMZ, Mark speaks about the kind of person Faber was in life, making his passing all the more tragic. "A beautiful man. Incredibly talented. Wise beyond his years, quick-witted. Abundantly aware. He could really pay attention more than most. He had such incredible focus and ability to sustain concentration -- brilliant man, very aware, very smart," Mark says in the statement.

Cunningham director Alla Kovgan on Merce Cunningham, Robert Rauschenberg and John Cage: 'In a way they are timeless' Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze In the second half of my conversation with Alla Kovgan on Cunningham (read the first half here), we discussed her appreciation for the significant role Derrick Tseng played in getting the film made, Director of Choreography Jennifer Goggans and Supervising Director of Choreography Robert Swinston and Notes on Choreography, storyboarding for locations in New York and shooting in Germany with Mko Malkhasyan.

Also: The timelessness of the collaborations by Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage and Merce Cunningham and the transcendence of time that Karl Ove Knausgård in My Struggle assigns to works of art as compared to science.

Merce Cunningham, Carolyn Brown, Viola Farber, Cynthia Stone, Marilyn Wood, and Remy Charlip in Summerspace Photo: Robert Rutledge Cunningham has a flawless score by Hauschka aka Volker Bertelmann (BAFTA and Oscar-nominated...

This first feature of Kirsten Tan premiered in Sundance ‘17 World Cinema Dramatic Competition. Its provenance is Singapore but it takes place in Thailand. It continued onward to the Hivos Tiger Competition at Iffr (R’dam).

The thrill of interviewing here in Sundance is that you see a film; you have an impression and while it is still fresh you meet the filmmakers without having much time for any research or reflection. And then you get to see them again as “old friends” when you meet again in Rotterdam.

As Kirsten, her producer Weijie Lai and I sat down at the Sundance Co-op on Main Street here in Park City, I really had little idea of where the interview would take us, somewhat analogously to her film in which an architect, disenchanted with life in general, being put aside as “old” in his own highly successful architectural firm and in a stale relationship with his wife,...

Stephen K. Bannon’s ascension from Breitbart News executive to President-elect Donald Trump’s chief White House strategist and senior counselor shocked the world, in no small part because the alt-right figure has no background in government management. However, it’s not the first time Bannon has attempted to lead an industry outside of his professional experience. Bannon’s new role may be an ideal platform for propagandistic ambitions, but his career in independent film — first in distribution, then production — casts doubt on how much he believes in any of it.

Ten years ago, Bannon oversaw the distribution of independent films released by Wellspring Media, a company that supported a wide range of international cinema as well as gay-themed and other “transgressive” titles. Movies acquired and released under his tenure include the experimental Lgbt documentary “Tarnation” and “Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry,” a pro-Kerry documentary that opened during the 2004 election.

In 2007, Hope Dickson Leach landed in the pages of Filmmaker Magazine as part of our annual 25 New Faces list. Her darkly comic brother-sister relationship drama, The Dawn Chorus — about siblings who recreate the plane crash that killed their parents — had been tearing up the festival circuit, and the Columbia Film School grad was developing a feature about a teenage girl who blames Princess Diana for her parents’ divorce. Dickson Leach had been working as an assistant for Todd Solondz on his film Palindromes, and her work was occasionally thought of as having the same satiric stripe. […]...

Todd Solondz has been exploring his animal side. Granted, the films that first placed him at the forefront of independent American auteur cinema – Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995), Happiness (1998), Storytelling (2001), and Palindromes (2004) – were well-acquainted with the bestial side of human behavior, offering unflinching and sometimes repulsive examinations of bullying, pedophilia, abortion activism, racial fetishization and the adhesive properties of semen. Since 2009’s Life During Wartime, a theoretical sequel to Happiness, Solondz has toned down the bad-boy transgressions of his first few films, allowing his humanist sympathies to rise to the surface. Building on the structural aspects […]...

Read More: Watch: The Best Part About Suicide is 'The Going Away Party' Indiewire has partnered with NoBudge, a site dedicated to showcasing innovative low budget filmmaking, to present some of the most exciting new work in independent film. Each month actor/filmmaker Kentucker Audley will select a highlight from the NoBudge film library and premiere it right here on Indiewire. Check out this month's short, "I Remember Nothing," above, and be sure to watch more great films at www.NoBudge.com. Zia Anger’s short film, which appeared last year at Locarno, New Directors/New Films and AFI Fest, uses conceptual daring and an uncommon wit to paint a kaleidoscopic portrait of a young woman in trouble. In a move that calls back to Luis Bunuel’s "That Obscure Object of Desire," and Todd Solondz’s "Palindromes," Anger enlists a series of five women to don the auburn wig and softball jersey of Joan,...

Ahead of his conversation at tomorrow’s Screen Forward conference, Mike S. Ryan fielded five questions about his career and recent Filmmaker piece “TV is Not the New Film.” A producer on such films as Meek’s Cutoff, The Comedy and Palindromes, Ryan explains how transmedia represents an loss of faith in the filmic medium, why True Detective is an exception to the rule of the TV writer as auteur, and what he looks for in a script. Filmmaker: In your “TV is Not the New Film” piece, you mention that the move to transmedia shows a “[loss] of faith in the medium,” while many others seem to argue that transmedia is […]...

Ahead of his conversation at tomorrow’s Screen Forward conference, Mike S. Ryan fielded five questions about his career and recent Filmmaker piece “TV is Not the New Film.” A producer on such films as Meek’s Cutoff, The Comedy and Palindromes, Ryan explains how transmedia represents an loss of faith in the filmic medium, why True Detective is an exception to the rule of the TV writer as auteur, and what he looks for in a script. Filmmaker: In your “TV is Not the New Film” piece, you mention that the move to transmedia shows a “[loss] of faith in the medium,” while many others seem to argue that transmedia is […]...

Indie filmmaker Todd Solondz loves to play within his own cinematic universe ala Kevin Smith and Quentin Tarantino. 2009’s “Life During Wartime” is a quasi sequel to 1998’s “Happiness” and 2004's "Palindromes" begins at the funeral for Dawn Wiener, the protagonist from his debut feature “Welcome to the Dollhouse.” Well, Solondz is either ignoring his own cannon or just changing history with “Wiener-Dog,” his upcoming Annapurna Pictures comedy. The movie stars Greta Gerwig as the aforementioned Dawn Wiener grown up and the comedy tells several stories featuring people who find their life inspired or changed by one particular dachshund, who seems to be spreading comfort and joy Principal photography has begun on “Wiener-Dog,” and Annapurna has revealed its cast which includes the previously in-talks Julie Delpy, plus Kieran Culkin, Danny DeVito, Brie Larson, Ellen Burstyn, Zosia Mamet and writer/actor Tracy Letts. Megan Ellison is producing through her Annapurna...

Ioncinema.com’s Ioncinephile of the Month feature focuses on an emerging filmmaker from the world of cinema. Prior to the film’s TriBeCa Film Festival world premiere debut, we’ve had the pleasure to profile Lance Edmands on a couple of occasions, namely, our In the Pipeline spotlight. Matching the frigid, desolate Maine backdrop with a communal sense of sorrow, Bluebird features an outstanding group performance with Amy Morton leading a cast comprised of Louisa Krause, Emily Meade, Margo Martindale, Adam Driver and John Slattery (the Karlovy Vary Film Festival honored the four women). Usually, we get more into the mechanics of the film, but we took the opportunity to discuss technology and distribution – both changed tremendously during the film’s journey. Here’s this month (February/March) profile on Lance, and as always, make sure to click on over to his Top Ten Films of All Time list...

Dawn Wiener is dead, long live Dawn Wiener! Todd Solondz‘s second feature film, Welcome to the Dollhouse, is hailed as the filmmaker’s big breakthrough — a bold, gross, weird and uncomfortably honest look at one awkward tween’s coming-of-age in nineties New Jersey. The film starred Heather Matarazzo as Dawn “Wiener Dog” Wiener, an outcast desperate to fit in with her bone-headed peers, her terrible family and a classmate who repeatedly attempts to rape her. As is Solondz’s signature, the film is admirable and unique, even if you feel like you need a shower after watching it. The Hollywood Reporter now reports that Solondz is “sort of” working a sequel to the 1995 Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning feature film, as the filmmaker is currently casting for Wiener-Dog, billed as “an ensemble indie that is tied together thematically by a dachshund.” Moreover, “the script tells several stories featuring people who find their life inspired or changed by...

Todd Solondz has always built his characters into an interconnected world. "Welcome To The Dollhouse" was the film that served as our introduction to his misanthropic take on the world, and it also introduced us to the character who remains my favorite out of all of his, Dawn Weiner. Played by Heather Matarazzo, Dawn Weiner was a beautiful outsider, a blissfully dorky little girl whose struggle to figure out how to fit in the 7th grade was both funny and painful, and Solondz wrote her with a remarkable amount of empathy. I would argue that Solondz has not been able to always strike that same balance and many of his films feel more mean, like he's an angry god raining on his own personal Jobs just for the hell of it. In both "Palindromes" and "Life During Wartime," characters from "Dollhouse" made a reappearance, but the character we would most...

The first day of the Havana Film Festival I was at the Hotel Nacional, registering for the festival, seeing familiar faces from Cuba and the Caribbean and old friends from the USA: Oleg Vidov and his wife Joan Borsten were there as Oleg who had starred in 3 Soviet films made in Cuba was an honored guest. Havana regulars were there: Marlene Dermer, director of Laliff and Laurie Anne Schag, VP of International Documentary Association. Laurie Anne not only gives tours of Cuba with her colleague Geo Darder, but this year she also screened her film at the festival, the documentary Oshun’s 11 about a tour of the Yoruba Orisha religion in Cuba.

Harlan Jacobson of Talk Cinema and Sarah Miller brought in tours as well and we went together to the Acapulco theater to see the Puerto Rican romantic heist movie Hope, Despair (La Espera Desespera) by writer/ director Coraly Santaliz Perez (♀) . Im Global’s Bonnie Voland the VP of Marketing was there with with Stuart Ford and his friend. Bonnie gave a great presentation on marketing which I will report on in these pages soon. Im Global and Mundial, their their new joint venture with Gael Garcia Bernal, showed The Butler and Bolivar: The Liberator. This new Mundial title was oddly programmed at the same time as the Venezuelan version of the exact same story, Bolivar, el hombre de las dificultades by Luis Alberto Lamata, a Venezuelan-Cuban-Spanish co-production. I wonder if both cinemas were packed or if one was more popular than the other. Publicity and marketing at this festival is a strange and unknown process, though I know Caroline Libresco-produced and Grace Lee-directed American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs brought in audience after a radio interview with Caroline and Grace had aired.

Ruby Rich was also here giving a very interesting presentation on Queer Cinema whose historical roots (Todd Haynes, Derek Jarman) were mostly unknown to the young Cuban audience. She is an old hand in Havana, having attended the festival in the heady days of the 1970s. The theme of homosexuality was prevalent in many of the films this year. A government Institute of Human Sexuality has been established under the leadership of the daughter of Raul Castro, and Cuba has apologized for its past treatment of homosexuality. This reversal has opened the doors of freedom. Filmmaker Enrique Pineda Barnet, the writer of Soy Cuba, the great Russian-Cuban epic, used to have to work underground with his personal homosexual films (After his fame was established with La Bella del Alhambra he was “allowed” to work underground). He is now able to be officially accepted with his works like Verde, Verde which showed in the Festival. Venezuelan Miguel Ferrari’s Azul y no tan rosa was feted for his treatment of this little-discussed issues in his home country.

Enrique Pineda Barnet’s meditation on what it means to be gay in Havana (Verde, Verde) marks his first film in years to be accepted into the official festival.

The U.S. invitees who give workshops here and at the international film school Eictv makes me wonder who is making the connections and how. Last year Hawk Koch and Annette Benning were here and created a support mechanism of AMPAS with the festival. This year, aside from Oleg Vidov Bonnie Voland and Ruby Rich, other American invitees giving workshops included Robert Kraft (Avatar, Titanic, Moulin Rouge) on film music was obviously brought in by the Academy. Mike S. Ryan, an independent filmmaker from New York was the big surprise as we never knew his role as producer of such films as Todd Solondz’s Palindromes and Life During Wartime, Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy and Ira Sach’s Forty Shades of Blue, Hal Hartley’s Fay Grim and many more including Liberty Kid, the winner of HBO’s Latino Film Festival 2007 and Bela Tarr’s final film, The Turin Horse. His newly finished film is Last Weekend starring Patricia Clarkson and Zachary Booth. This Independent Spirit “Producer of the Year” winner was here working with filmmakers at Eictv, the international film school and also did a presentation in the festival conference series.

Im Global’s Stuart Ford and friend with Bonnie Voland at the Hotel Nacional

Oliver Stone, a favorite of Cuba since his HBO films Comandante and Persona Non Grata, brought in a History Channel doc series called The Untold History of the United States, made up basically of interviews with key people in the eras of World War II: Roosevelt, Truman and Wallace [sic],The Bomb, Cold War: Truman, Wallace [sic], Stalin, Churchill and the Bomb, The 1950s: Eisenhower, The Bomb and The Third World.

A fruit vendor on our walk to the Infanta Theater

Laurie Anne Schag secured radio promotion for Caroline Libresco of Sundance Institute and Grace Lee, here as a producer and director to show their new film: American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs. The audience at the Infanta Theater was mainly brought in by the radio show but also included us, the friends, and the Trinidad + Tobago delegation. The Q&A sessions were informed and informative as the Cubans and Americans discussed the notion of Revolution as put forward by Grace Lee Boggs a 90+ year old community organizer who came out of Barnard College in the 40s to Detroit and has never abandoned her Marxist Socialist standards but recognizes that social revolution can only succeed if the people themselves are revolutionized from grassroots action and within the individuals carrying out the action. Without transformation from within, action to change the government is only a rebellion. So what about the Cuban Revolution? The discussions were very enlightening and the audience felt that this film was new and interesting.

I attended the first of four screenings of Caribbean films hosted by ttff (Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival) at the Infanta Theater. My readers know from my blogs of last November how astonished and moved I was by the population makeup of Trinidad + Tobago and of the Caribbean in general. This area of small islands, formerly colonized by Spanish, French, German and Dutch has created a particular island culture society whose film culture is taking the next evolutionary step. Forming a marketplace and a place of cultural exchange among its constituents, ttff’s director Bruce Paddington is working with Cuba’s national film organization, Icaic’s Luis Notario to develop a real film market for Caribbean film. Apropos, Bruce was also showing his documentary on the Revolution in Grenada, called Foreward Ever: The Killing of a Revolution, which was the motto of Maurice Bishop the elected president who was forcefully removed and murdered by the opposition when the U.S. army under the Commander-in-Chief, President Ronald Reagan sent in forces presumably to protect the American medical students attending medical school there in 1983.

Twenty-five Cubans were also killed in the fighting which ensued on this otherwise always peaceful island where now a reconciliation among neighbors is still in process.

The other four screenings of ttff were varied and interesting in their unique Caribbean points of view. The opening film, Poetry is an Island: Derek Walcott was a portrait of the St. Lucia poet and Nobel Prize winner for literature. The short film, Passage, by Kareem Mortimer, a filmmaker I have known for many years from the Bahamas and Trinidad, was astounding in its recall of one of the most degrading aspects of the slave trade, as black Haitians huddled in the tiny hold of a decrepit fishing boat as they were smuggled into Florida from Haiti. Another short, Auntie, from the Barbados by Lisa Harewood told of a current social issue in which “Aunts” take care of young children while their single mothers go abroad to earn money for their care. As the child in this movie reaches her teen years, her mother sends for her which leaves a grieving single woman “Auntie” alone with no thanks and no child to care for in her older years. Other shorts included The Gardener by Jo Henriquez from Aruba and One Good Deed by Juliette McCawley from Trinidad + Tobago.

The window on Caribbean issues was opened wide. The Barbados comedy Payday in which two friends decide to leave their job as security guards and open their own business was made on a shoe string but gave a picture of how the youth are living today with ganga, grinding dancing, sexy encounters told with a sweet mischievous naughtiness. Songs of Redemption, by Miquel Galofre and Amanda Sans, winner of ttff’s Jury Prize and the Audience Award goes inside what had been Kingston Jamaica’s worst prison until the new prison director introduced classes to educate the prisoners, including a music rehabilition program which goes beyond all expectation… Truly redeeming.

Trinidad + Tobago filmmakers Karim Mortimer from Bahamas, Lisa Harewood from Barbaddos, Alex (Egyptian/ Austrian / Bahamanian business partner of Karim, Shakira Bourne

The film program was suspended for a full day in which all cultural and entertainment events throughout Cuba were cancelled to observe a national day of mourning for Nelson Mandela.

It was hard to whittle down my favorite movie posters to a straight top ten this year. There was no absolute stand-out like Chris Ware’s Uncle Boonmee last year, and the majority of film posters continue to be depressingly rote and uninspired, even though the explosion of Diy illustration has started to make inroads into the world of commercial film promotion. As a symptom of my indecision I have tended to group posters together more than usual; laid out like this the year doesn’t look half bad.

1. Wreck-it Ralph (with The Lorax and Life Of Pi)

On its own the Wreck-It Ralph teaser would still have been one of the best posters of the year—a wittily simple 8-bit pixellated key-stroke of genius that compresses a blockbuster 3D extravaganza into a flat, three-color arrangement of squares and tells everyone walking by exactly what they need to know (except...

Chicago – Movie theaters have rarely appeared as depressingly airless as they do in Todd Solondz’s “Dark Horse.” Rather than confront his adult responsibilities, pathological man-child Abe (Jordan Gelber) storms into the nearest multiplex for his daily consumption of media-fed inspirational escapism. He quietly mouths the answers to pre-movie questions projected in the otherwise vacant theater, as his words fall on nonexistent ears.

For financially strapped young adults forced to live at home well past their teenage years, Solondz’s latest scathing satire may be a horrifying externalization of their worst nightmares. As a cautionary tale, it is both pitilessly bleak and oddly humanistic. Gelber, an actor best known for starring in the Broadway smash, “Avenue Q,” is so inherently likable that he causes the audience to root for his unfortunate character—not to fulfill his undeserved dreams, but to come to his senses.

Blu-ray Rating: 3.5/5.0

For roughly the film’s first two acts,...

"Today is going to be the perfect day" , chimes the soundtrack to Todd Solondz's latest film, Dark Horse. Such upbeat opening scenes are uncharacteristic of Solondz's work, yet Dark Horse's misleadings begin with an energetic wedding party scene complete with revellers sync-dancing. His previous work, Life During Wartime, was a semi-sequel to Happiness; and his earlier film, Palindromes, challenged viewers with multiple actors playing the lead. Dark Horse is certainly more accessible viewing for non-Solondz followers, but its melancholy opening is merely the calm before the storm.

Two thirty-somethings stuck in adolescence meet at a wedding - she's clearly miserable and unimpressed by Abe, and he fails to take the hint when she gives him her work number. Although she lives a three-hour drive away and is clearly apathetic, Abe still attempts to start a relationship with Miranda, and viewers are left to watch the forming of this bizarre bond.

Todd Solondz is the master of suburban angst, but for me his films run hot and cold. When he’s hot, as in the recent Life During Wartime, he has an uncanny ability to find both absurdist comedy and poignant drama in the vicissitudes of everyday characters. When he’s cold, as in Palindromes, he can be positively off-putting. Dark Horse falls somewhere in between, which is frustrating because the movie shows so much promise. New York-based actor Jordan Gelber, who appeared in the original Broadway cast of Avenue Q, seems to be channeling Jackie Gleason (or perhaps Kevin James) as a blustery, overweight 30-something loser who still lives with his parents and blames...

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Just as his films stand out with no comparison, there is no filmmaker like Todd Solondz. His films cover a wide range of topics, often forcing his audience to tackle taboos in ways that many people might find too uncomfortable. This is especially true with the contents of a strong filmography that encapsulates now seven movies, including Happiness (featuring a young and perverse Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Life During Wartime (a quasi-sequel to Happiness). His newest dark comedy, Dark Horse, about a man in his 30s with a severe case of arrested development, stars Jordan Gelber, Mia Farrow, Selma Blair, Christopher Walken, and Justin Bartha.

In person, Solondz is a one-of-a-kind, a very humble artist who is very careful with how he discusses his work. Of the filmmakers I have been lucky enough to interview, the pleasant Solondz remains a special kind of interview, in the best way possible. The last time we talked,...

Director Todd Solondz has always been know for controversial themes in his films such as Life During Wartime (2009), Palindromes (2004) and Storytelling (2001), but in his latest film Dark Horse (2011), starring Jordan Gelber and Selma Blair, he has taken a more heart warming approach. CineVue met up with the Us filmmaker to discuss his latest feature, which premiered at last year's Venice International Film Festival.

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Prometheus’ reign at the top of the Box Office chart finally came to an end this week as it drops down to fourth place with Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter landing the top spot. The Five Year Engagement also did pretty well going in at three, just behind MIB3 in second place.

Stephen Frears’ latest offering fared rather terribly though as despite a pretty widespread release it took only £117,000 in its first week. To put that into perspective, that leaves it trailing behind low-budget horror’s like Chernobyl Diaries and animated abominations likes Top Cat.

There’s not been a large-scale summer blockbuster released for a few weeks now so one of this week’s mid-carders will no doubt be hoping to capitalise. Out of the gaggle of movies out this week, relationship comedy Friends With Kids seems the obvious choice for Box Office success. It’s the directorial debut of Jennifer Westfeldt,...

Chicago – The term “arrested development” could easily be applied not only to every character in a Todd Solondz picture, but every neurotic man-child currently populating the vast majority of Hollywood comedies. What makes Solondz’s films so distinctive is their unrelenting absence of sentiment. He doesn’t provide his characters with implausible happy endings, but he does view them through an empathetic lens.

Solondz’s latest film, “Dark Horse,” observes the potentially repellant character of Abe (Jordan Gelber), a 35-year-old man who is unwilling to put forth the effort to succeed in life. He has an office job, but it was given to him by his exasperated dad (Christopher Walken). He wants to be independent, but still lives with his parents. He asks a sullen woman, Miranda (Selma Blair, reprising her role from Solondz’s “Storytelling”), for her hand in marriage without making any attempt at courting her. He yearns for his dad’s approval,...

We start the Top 7. You finish the Top 10.

This week’s “Question of the Week” on Jeff Bayer’s “Movie B.S.” podcast is inspired by Brave — the first film by Pixar to have a lead female protagonist.

The discussion goes to other firsts, namely movie experiences. What movies do you wish you could watch again for the first time?

Here are my Top 7 movies, which include a whole bunch of significant movies with first-time experiences that will never be matched.

7. Psycho (1960)

Recap: Alfred Hitchcock made it forever unsafe to shower in motels and befriend handsome mama’s boys with this film, starring Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins.

First Viewing Experience: By myself, in the dark, in my basement (Note: This was a very bad idea).

Reason: Many horror movies work best when you don’t really know what’s coming. And even with the pop culture sensation of this movie ruining its famous bits,...

Todd Solondz walks through the door of a Cafe on 12th Street in Manhattan, looking, apart from his trademark lemon-yellow converse all stars, like a person in disguise. He wears a floppy khaki sun hat and oversized shades. As he walks through the room, he peels off the sunglasses and replaces them with equally large eyeglasses with thick, retro frames. He yanks off the hat to reveal his hair, which is gray and thinning and bordering on mad scientist. He looks, perhaps, like an oddball character in a Todd Solondz film. The waitress recognizes him and greets him warmly, and he does the same. He's a memorable presence. Appearance aside, he sounds a bit like a Jewish grandmother, his voice comically nasal, his words unhurried and elongated by a childhood in New Jersey, an accent that 30 years in New York City has failed to undo.

Known for being an enfante...

“I want to want you,” says the cripplingly depressed Miranda (Selma Blair) to her suitor with excruciating honesty. The coddled, overweight Abe (Jordan Gelber), a compulsive collector who still lives at home with his parents (Mia Farrow and Christopher Walken), will take what he can get. “That’s enough for me,” he breathes. In Todd Solondz’s Dark Horse, the queasy tale of a 35-year-old man-child who decides to add a wife to his possessions, the writer-director’s dialogue is as sharp as ever, each line an arrow poisoned with sincerity.

Known for colorful, stylized, cynical films including Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995), Happiness (1998), Storytelling (2001), Palindromes (2004) and the masterful Life During Wartime (2009), Solondz makes movies populated by anti-heroes and -heroines that include bullies, pedophiles, and housewives. He has the ability to zero in on the insecurities, weaknesses and existential loneliness of a Robert Altman-like stable of characters with merciless X-ray vision.

Brilliant satirist Todd Solondz returns with his latest film, Dark Horse, his first feature since 2009’s Life During Wartime. One of the most prolific and well known directors from the independent film scene, Solondz, who first achieved acclaim for his 1995 sophomore feature, Welcome to the Dollhouse, is best known for his darkly comical and subversive examinations of middle class suburbia. His works are often described and even dismissed as cult items, but Solondz has a knack for focusing on awkward, uncomfortable, and devious truths that many filmmakers tend to avoid. Whether it be his brilliant 1998 film Happiness concerning the dark places from which many of us seek to fulfill our desires or his 2004 Palindromes, where eight different people portray a disturbed 8 year old girl on a journey, Solondz always manages to bring an original, thought provoking tale to life. His latest film, Dark Horse, is a semi-sweet romance between two...

As Todd Solondz explains, Dark Horse is a different kind of take on the Judd Apatow celebration of the Manchild. It’s a bit more aggressive, a lot more realistic, and complex in the way that fans have come to expect from the director of Welcome to the Dollhouse and Palindromes. Set beyond cheerful pop music, the film follows Jordan Gelber, looking a lot like Jeff Garlin, as he attempts to navigate what he views as a cruel, unfair world in the yellow hummer his parents bought for him. He discovers something like love with the depressed Miranda (a differently-named character reprised by Selma Blair from Storytelling), and he struggles (often hilariously) to understand a world shifting around him. Fortunately, Solondz took some time out to discuss his take on later-life childhood, how to respond to fans who laugh at child-rape, and how the indie filmmaking world has changed since the 1990s. Download...

The Believer's 2012 Film Issue is out and you can sample every essay, interview and list that's in it, though only a handful of texts are online in full. Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, for example, talks with Peter Doig, "a figurative painter whose lush dreamscapes at once evoke his medium's past and suggest the feel of photos and films," who also co-runs the StudioFilmClub in Trinidad: "In an airy old rum factory with a digital projector on one wall, a large screen on another, and a homey bar stocked with coconut water and local Stag beer, he hosts free screenings. Each Thursday night, FilmClub's patrons thrill to independent and art-house films ranging from Killer of Sheep and Klute to — on the night of my first visit a couple years ago — Nagisa Oshima's 1976 classic of sensual obsession, In the Realm of the Senses." You can see more of the flyers Doig's painted for the FilmClub here.

Production designer David Doernberg, who brought a sensitive, finely crafted and observant touch to many excellent independent films, died in New York on Friday after a battle with cancer.

Doernberg began his career in the late ’80s/early ’90s working on music videos for bands like Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo and Superchunk. He quickly moved into independent features, working as a propmaster for films by Hal Hartley (Amateur), Daisy von Scherler Mayer (Party Girl) and Eric Schaeffer (If Lucy Fell). Soon after he became a production designer, bookending his career with films by Kelly Reichardt. He designed her 1994 debut film, River of Grass, as well as her 2010 period tale of frontier life on the Oregon Trail, Meek’s Cutoff. Other notable credits include Phil Morrison’s Junebug, Alison Maclean’s Jesus’s Son, Morgan J. Freeman’s Desert Blue, Todd Solondz’s Palindromes and Pete Sollett’s Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist.

Chicago – “Another Happy Day” is essentially the inverse of “Rachel Getting Married.” Instead of an unstable, self-pitying girl wreaking havoc on an otherwise pleasant wedding, we have a sensitive, otherwise pleasant woman driven mad by her unstable, self-pitying family…at a wedding, no less. I’ve seen war enemies with less animosity than this group of miserable basket cases.

Of course, weddings have routinely been a hotbed of family dysfunction typified by Robert Altman’s flawed yet woefully underrated 1978 satire, “A Wedding.” “Happy Day” is closer in spirit to Noah Baumbach’s caustic and somewhat repellant 2007 effort, “Margot at the Wedding,” albeit without the handheld photography. There’s a lot of talent on display that’s worth admiring, but the film is more depressing and drab than it is funny or insightful.

DVD Rating: 2.5/5.0

It’s the directorial debut of Sam Levinson (son of Barry), and it’s clear that...