Category: Artist Spotlight

There is a theme that dominates the longstanding trend of actors opting for a stint behind the camera. More often than not, these are stories fueled by personal experience that no other filmmaker could, or even should attempt to tell. Most recently, Jim Rash and Nat Faxon, the co-directing team behind this year’s nostalgic summer comedy The Way, Way Back, reiterate that refrain.

ESCAPE FIRE premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and made its official theatrical release this past October. Matthew Heineman and Susan Froemke’s new documentary couldn’t have come soon enough. As millions of Americans descended into a media fray wrought with glaring sensationalism and compulsive hyperbole surrounding last fall’s presidential election, the directing duo offered an unparalleled, unflinching, and—quite frankly—unflattering look at one of the most pressing contemporary American issues: our broken healthcare system.

Never has a washed-up Scottish musician appeared more at home in the farm country peripheries of Los Angeles than in California Solo. That’s where Lachlan MacAldonich (Robert Carlyle), the damaged central character of director Marshall Lewy’s second feature, is content to waste away his days in an alcohol-fueled slumber.Facing deportation after a drunk driving arrest, MacAldonich attempts a late-life alchemy in order to preserve his American citizenship, and perhaps repair some broken relationships along the way.

Sometimes the most effective documentaries are those that appear to be misclassified. Stories that, absent of a screenplay, seem decidedly fanciful and improbable. So goes Malik Bendjelloul’s Searching for Sugar Man, a brilliant film that courses with the suspense of a mystery thriller and only further entices with its veracity.

There is an inclination to briskly dismiss films that loiter along the periphery of our interests. After all, many of today’s entertainment services cater to our highly-specific preferences—Oh, you like “Quirky, opposites-attract rom-coms with Noir aesthetics”? Netflix has 50 films queued up for you. It’s a supply and demand formula that favors linearity—a disservice to both audiences and filmmakers.

We’re rolling out a new blog series offering a behind-the-scenes peek at little-known factoids, anecdotes, and morsels of trivia gathered from the film sets of upcoming releases. In our first edition, we meddle in the making of Lynn Shelton’s Your Sister’s Sister, a stirring love story infused with charm and humor, complemented by largely improvised performances from Mark Duplass, Emily Blunt, and Rosemaire DeWitt. Your Sister’s Sister screened in the Spotlight category at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and opens in theaters Friday, June 15.