Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy in Richard Linklater's Before Midnight

Sundance Film Festival 2013 Predictions

Although the Sundance Film Festival won't take place for another two months, you can expect to hear the first selections for the 2013 festival within the next couple of weeks. In anticipation of this announcement,  IONCinema has made a few guesses as to what might be included. This past year, as with many other years, some of the most talked-about films of the year such as Beasts of the Southern Wild and recently released The Comedy made their debuts at the legendary indie-centric festival in Park City, Utah. Among their predictions are Ain't Them Bodies Saints, David Lowery's directorial debut starring Casey Affleck, and Richard Linklater's much-anticipated Before Midnight. 

Sharon Lockhart at The Jewish Museum

The Jewish Museum recently unveiled an exhibit from the mind of Los Angeles-based artist Sharon Lockhart, who blends her own photography and films with the work of Israeli dance composer and textile artist Noa Eshkol. The centerpiece of the exhibit is Five Dances and Nine Wall Carpets by Noa Eshkol, which is described as a “large-scale film installation that features a selection of Eshkol’s dances, performed with nine of her textile works.” The Film Society of Lincoln Center will partner with The Jewish Museum in January for the 22nd annual Jewish Film Festival. 


Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master

Steadicam in the Films of Paul Thomas Anderson

The British Film Institute's website has a treat for all film fans: a fascinating video essay on the use of mobile camerawork throughout Paul Thomas Anderson's films. In closely analyzing Anderson's work, Kevin B. Lee unlocks patterns and stylistic evolutions over the course of his career. Beginning with Hard Eight, Lee evidences Anderson's growing distance from the flashy, self-reflexive style of his earlier work to his much more restrained films of recent years. A must-read/see!

The Eye of the Tiger

Along with its use of 3D cinematography, NYFF50 Opening Night Selection Life of Pi pushed the boundaries of cinema with its use of computer-generated imagery, or CGI. In a recently published article, Mekado Murphy of The New York Times dug into the overwhelmingly complex process of digitally creating a tiger that would be in almost every scene of Ang Lee's stunning new film.  Hundreds of artists were assigned to work on the tiger, with specific groups meant to take on certain layers of the tiger. As Murphy writes, they “started with the skeleton, which they used to control basic movements… then added muscle, skin and fur.” The article is accompanied by a slideshow tracking the tiger's digital creation.