Oscar-winning sound engineer and filmmaker Ron Judkins earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from Southern Methodist University in Dallas. He then began his motion picture career as a sound recordist and editor for public television. In January of 1998 Ron began production on his feature directorial debut, The Hi-Line. The project premiered in the Dramatic Competition at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. It won the “Audience Award” at the Austin Film Festival, the “Best Feature” Award at both the Louisville Film and Video Festival and the Heartland Film Festival, and the “Best Actress” and “Best Cinematography” awards at the Santa Monica Film Festival. His latest film, Finding Neighbors, written and directed by the two time Academy Award winner,…
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[USA Film Fest Interview]…’Fading Gigolo’ Writer/Director/Star John Turturro
The Dallas-based USA Film Festival (which runs 4/22-4/27) kicked off on Thursday, April 22nd. Prior to the opening night ceremonies, John Turturro brought his new film Fading Gigolo to Dallas to open the festival. His latest is narrative is about a NY native who when faced with losing his job enters into the world’s oldest profession, and ends up finding something he didn’t know he was looking for. Fading Gigolo is an oddball film but one that deep down has a heart and a message about the simplest of life’s pursuits – love, relationships and a sense of belonging. Written, directed and starring John Turturro, the film is Turturro’s fifth…
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Second Wave of Film Programming Announced for Fantastic Fest 2013
Fantastic Fest is one of the most fun film festivals you will ever attend. Full stop. Sure it’s not as high profile or sophisticated as say Cannes or Sundance but it’s something extra special. If you like zombies, crazy robot violence, irreverent foreign films, serial killing aliens or absurd animation then you are most certainly a fan of genre films and Fantastic Fest is calling your name. If you’ve been there, you know what to expect. If not, read through of our coverage and experiences from last year, then get off your ass, head down to Austin, Texas next month (September 19-26 at the Alamo Drafthouse Lakeline) and prepare to have your world…
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Interview…’PostHuman’ Directors Cole Drumb and Jen Luk
Editor’s Note: This interview took place at the 2012 Fantastic Fest in Austin, TX. It has been republished to coincide with the 2013 San Diego Comic Con where directors Cole Drumb and Jen Luk will be screening PostHuman. Action anime isn’t something that American animation studios make all that often. Inspired by Akira and a slew of other seminal sci-fi titles, Jen Luk and Cole Drumb set out to create a modern rendition of what Heavy Metal was back in the 80’s. The duo has crammed so much awesome content into a 6 minute short that once you see PostHuman you will want to see so much more, trust us.…
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[OCFF Interview]…’Drinking Buddies’ Director Joe Swanberg
Arguably his best film to date, prolific, independent filmmaker, Joe Swanberg, says he worked harder on Drinking Buddies than on any other film. Swanberg says it’s a movie he made with “a deep desire to connect with an audience, and that hasn’t been true of a lot of my movies.” “I’ve had a couple of big changes in the past couple of years in terms of how I make movies and what I want to put out into the world,” says Swanberg. Whose friend and fellow filmmaker, Madeleine Olnek, influenced some of these changes after sharing her philosophy on filmmakers and comedy. “She said to have the ability to make comedies and not…
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[OCFF Interview]….’Ain’t Them Bodies Saints’ Director David Lowery
This past weekend Dallas welcomed the 2nd Annual Oak Cliff Film Festival to the neighborhood, and with it, a special double feature event with local filmmaker David Lowery in attendance. Lowery introduced director Robert Altman’s Repertory film, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, followed by a “secret screening” that turned out to be Lowery’s latest feature film, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints. Go, See, Talk caught up with Lowery in the Press room and quickly chatted about the local film community, his experiences growing up attending film festivals, and his involvement in them now. Lowery, who grew up in Dallas and attended festivals like the USA Film Festival and the Dallas Video Fest when they were…
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[OCFF Interview]…'Medora' Directors Andrew Cohn & Davy Rothbart
This past weekend at the 2nd Annual Oak Cliff Film Festival, Andrew Cohn and Davy Rothbart’s documentary feature, Medora, about a small town in Indiana, won the Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature. The film, which premiered earlier this year at the South By Southwest Film Festival in Austin, follows the lives of the boys who make up the Medora Hornets, the local high school’s basketball team, as they attempt to end their three-year losing streak. The team serves as a symbol to the community, and their hope and determination parallels with that of the town itself, as it fights to stay alive. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Check out the Medora trailer from the film’s…
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[IFFBoston Review]…Some Girl(s)
If you’re only cursorily familiar with the work of Neil LaBute, you may find Some Girl(s) a bit surprising. Of course, he can only claim credit for Some Girl(s) on the page; here it’s Daisy Von Scherler Mayer, not LaBute, serving as the production’s architect, working off of his screenplay and adapting his stage play for the camera. But Some Girl(s) thoroughly feels like a LaBute film, and cuts through middling fare like Lakeview Terrace and Nurse Betty, not to mention utter fiascoes like The Wicker Man, taking us all the way back to 1997’s In the Company of Men, 1998’s Your Friends & Neighbors, and 2003’s The Shape of…
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[IFFBoston Review]…Willow Creek
Shakes the Clown, Sleeping Dogs Lie, World’s Greatest Dad, God Bless America…Willow Creek. One of these things is not like the other, but that’s what makes Bobcat Goldthwait an exciting filmmaker: he’s capable of stepping out of his comfort zone (which, ironically enough, encompasses uncomfortable pursuits and ideas) and trying his hand at something that’s totally atypical of his filmography. Why make a found footage picture about two people searching for the truth about Bigfoot? Why not? If the results of Bobcat’s foray into the gimmicky horror sub-genre don’t mesh with his other work, they still make for a great midnight movie and represent an interesting evolution in his directorial career. Of course,…
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[IFFBoston Review]…Much Ado About Nothing
There are two distinct halves to Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing: one is a modern rendition of what’s arguably Shakespeare’s wittiest comedy, and the other is, well, a Joss Whedon film. Diehard fans of the Avengers director and all-around geek god will naturally flock to it, and for them, the joy of the project may well come down to the endless delight they experience at every single appearance made by members of Whedon’s regular stable of performers- Clark Gregg, Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof, Nathan Fillion, Fran Kranz, Sean Maher, and others still. It’s fanboy nirvana- Fred and Wesley verbally spar while Mal Reynolds and Agent Coulson yuck it up…
