Girl Talk is a weekly look at women in film — past, present and future.
Susan Seidelman had just completed her first feature when the Cannes Film Festival came calling. In 1982, Seidelman wasn’t yet 30; she was only a few years out of film school and had only a single feature under her belt. But that didn’t matter to the world’s most well-regarded festival. They wanted Seidelman’s “Smithereens,” and the ensuing reception for the film — a punk-infused dark comedy about the bohemian underworld of New York City featuring a not entirely likable lead character — didn’t just change Seidelman’s life; it changed the way American independent cinema was received around the world.
“Smithereens,” shot guerilla-style around the city with a cast and crew made up of many of the filmmaker’s Nyu classmates, marked a sea change for Cannes: It was the first American independent feature had...
Susan Seidelman had just completed her first feature when the Cannes Film Festival came calling. In 1982, Seidelman wasn’t yet 30; she was only a few years out of film school and had only a single feature under her belt. But that didn’t matter to the world’s most well-regarded festival. They wanted Seidelman’s “Smithereens,” and the ensuing reception for the film — a punk-infused dark comedy about the bohemian underworld of New York City featuring a not entirely likable lead character — didn’t just change Seidelman’s life; it changed the way American independent cinema was received around the world.
“Smithereens,” shot guerilla-style around the city with a cast and crew made up of many of the filmmaker’s Nyu classmates, marked a sea change for Cannes: It was the first American independent feature had...
- 7/28/2016
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
Midge Sanford and Sarah Pillsbury by Guest Blogger Peter Belsito I have known Midge Sanford and Sarah Pillsbury for many years. They are straight forward, down to earth, generous and serious. And they have great taste. I thought it would be useful to get their input on our changing movie biz environment and, of course, they had lots to say. Midge Sanford hails from New York City. She went to high school in Mamaroneck, New York and then to Sarah Lawrence College, majoring in psychology. She married, had two children and lived in Manhattan until moving to California with her…...
- 4/27/2011
- Sydney's Buzz
(Filmmaker Susan Seidelman, above.)
by Jon Zelazny
In the early 80’s NYC cultural lull between Patti Smith’s retirement and Jay McInerney’s breakout, Nyu film school graduate Susan Seidelman did the scrappy shoestring indie film thing, resulting in her acclaimed feature debut Smithereens (1982).
Best known for her hit sophomore effort, Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), Seidelman continues to direct movies and TV shows featuring female protagonists… including the pilot for “Sex and the City” and her Oscar nominated short film The Dutch Master (1994), about a shy dental technician who ventures “into” a museum painting for flights of erotic fantasy.
Susan Seidelman: My husband Jonathan Brett—who co-wrote and produced The Dutch Master—and I had committed to living in Paris for a year because I was set to direct a feature for Polygram, a company that unfortunately went bankrupt. So we were kind of in a funk over there, and...
by Jon Zelazny
In the early 80’s NYC cultural lull between Patti Smith’s retirement and Jay McInerney’s breakout, Nyu film school graduate Susan Seidelman did the scrappy shoestring indie film thing, resulting in her acclaimed feature debut Smithereens (1982).
Best known for her hit sophomore effort, Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), Seidelman continues to direct movies and TV shows featuring female protagonists… including the pilot for “Sex and the City” and her Oscar nominated short film The Dutch Master (1994), about a shy dental technician who ventures “into” a museum painting for flights of erotic fantasy.
Susan Seidelman: My husband Jonathan Brett—who co-wrote and produced The Dutch Master—and I had committed to living in Paris for a year because I was set to direct a feature for Polygram, a company that unfortunately went bankrupt. So we were kind of in a funk over there, and...
- 11/23/2009
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
Opens: Friday, June 13 (Magnolia Pictures).
Writer-director Carlos Brooks delves into a netherworld of fetishisms and handicap worship in his daring first feature, "Quid Pro Quo". The trouble is the movie isn't daring enough. Brooks tiptoes into territory Luis Bunuel would have frolicked in, but he does so without the master surrealist's desire to outrage and confound his viewers.
The question the movie poses is this: Why would an able-bodied person want to be handicapped? What compels a person to wish to be disabled? And damn if Brooks doesn't come up with an answer, or at least an answer insofar as his heroine is concerned. But wouldn't the mystery of this compulsion -- this eroticized worship of wheelchairs, braces, canes and a pair of "magic shoes" -- make a much more fascinating and daring movie than this ultimately conventional tale that demystifies the heroine's fixation?
The story is told by Isaac Knott, a New York Public Radio reporter. Played by Nick Stahl, Isaac is a kind of Ira Glass raconteur. He has been in a wheelchair since age 8, when his parents died in the car crash that crippled him. But the story is really about the mysterious Fiona, who approaches the reporter indirectly to do a story about people who want to paralyze or damage their bodies. She herself is a "wannabe," who insists she is a paralyzed person trapped inside an abled person's body.
Fiona is played by Vera Farmiga, who is quite simply one of the most fascinating, charismatic actresses working in American cinema today. You can't take your eyes off her. Her Fiona is strong and weak, erotic and enigmatic, provocative and pathetic. She can make the most baffling pronouncements sound completely reasonable -- until you realize what she has just said. She needs to be "special," and her fetishistic worship of wheelchairs and braces has a quality of transcendental spirituality.
Then Brooks spoils all this mysterious perversity by allowing a twist ending to explain away Fiona's erotic compulsions. Throw in a bad mother, and you have an ending that is more Freudian than Bunuelian.
The film is beautifully shot in earthen, rustic tones, and the compositions serve to eroticize the two main characters in uncanny ways. This is a startling and promising debut film by Brooks. You just wish he would trust his bent for the surreal more than he does.
Production: HDNet Films. Cast: Nick Stahl Vera Farmiga, Aimee Mullins. Screenwriter-Director: Carlos Brooks. Producers: Sarah Pillsbury, Midge Sanford. Executive Producers: Jason Kliot, Joana Vicente, Todd Wagner, Mark Cuban. Rated R, 82 minutes.
Writer-director Carlos Brooks delves into a netherworld of fetishisms and handicap worship in his daring first feature, "Quid Pro Quo". The trouble is the movie isn't daring enough. Brooks tiptoes into territory Luis Bunuel would have frolicked in, but he does so without the master surrealist's desire to outrage and confound his viewers.
The question the movie poses is this: Why would an able-bodied person want to be handicapped? What compels a person to wish to be disabled? And damn if Brooks doesn't come up with an answer, or at least an answer insofar as his heroine is concerned. But wouldn't the mystery of this compulsion -- this eroticized worship of wheelchairs, braces, canes and a pair of "magic shoes" -- make a much more fascinating and daring movie than this ultimately conventional tale that demystifies the heroine's fixation?
The story is told by Isaac Knott, a New York Public Radio reporter. Played by Nick Stahl, Isaac is a kind of Ira Glass raconteur. He has been in a wheelchair since age 8, when his parents died in the car crash that crippled him. But the story is really about the mysterious Fiona, who approaches the reporter indirectly to do a story about people who want to paralyze or damage their bodies. She herself is a "wannabe," who insists she is a paralyzed person trapped inside an abled person's body.
Fiona is played by Vera Farmiga, who is quite simply one of the most fascinating, charismatic actresses working in American cinema today. You can't take your eyes off her. Her Fiona is strong and weak, erotic and enigmatic, provocative and pathetic. She can make the most baffling pronouncements sound completely reasonable -- until you realize what she has just said. She needs to be "special," and her fetishistic worship of wheelchairs and braces has a quality of transcendental spirituality.
Then Brooks spoils all this mysterious perversity by allowing a twist ending to explain away Fiona's erotic compulsions. Throw in a bad mother, and you have an ending that is more Freudian than Bunuelian.
The film is beautifully shot in earthen, rustic tones, and the compositions serve to eroticize the two main characters in uncanny ways. This is a startling and promising debut film by Brooks. You just wish he would trust his bent for the surreal more than he does.
Production: HDNet Films. Cast: Nick Stahl Vera Farmiga, Aimee Mullins. Screenwriter-Director: Carlos Brooks. Producers: Sarah Pillsbury, Midge Sanford. Executive Producers: Jason Kliot, Joana Vicente, Todd Wagner, Mark Cuban. Rated R, 82 minutes.
- 6/12/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Harry Knapp will direct Greenpoint Media's family drama Cherrys with Eartha Kitt, Lynn Whitfield and Jurnee Smollett set to star. Louis Gossett Jr., Anne Deavere Smith, Earle Hyman and Tracie Thoms are expected to join them, the company said. Cherrys, which is in preproduction for a late-August start, is described as a multigenerational story revolving around the coming of age and coming out of a black teenager (Smollett) and the family secrets she discovers in the process. Effie Brown and Holly Schepisi are producing the project with Knapp from a screenplay by Deborah Goodwin. Midge Sanford and Sarah Pillsbury are executive producing. Greenpoint Media is financing.
- 6/25/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Frequent fliers might understand the title ''Love Field, '' but the general public will be misled by this romantic moniker, especially when coupled with the star billing of Michelle Pfeiffer.
In this case, the title refers to the Dallas airport where John F. Kennedy landed prior to his assassination. Viewers expecting a passionate romp may be initially disgruntled, but ultimately charmed, by this backroads psychological journey where a young wife finally learns to trust herself.
''Love Field'' is essentially what Harry Cohn used to call a ''bus picture, '' a colorful odyssey where a man and a woman fussed and fought and eventually came to love each other. Prospects look rosiest on a limited run, however, before ''Love Field'' naturally lands at its most hospitable venue, rental city.
Not gussied up with a convertible T-bird, bourbon or gunplay, this woman-on-the-road odyssey is a sweet and scratchy portrait of a young wife, Lurene (Pfeiffer), whose marriage is as boring as an ironing board. Pretty Lurene married, basically, the boy next door (Brian Kerwin) and has been bored out of her mind ever since.
He's a nice guy, opens his own Budweisers and everything, but he'd eat creamed corn every day if she'd serve it to him. And she's getting sick and tired of her monotonous Campbell's soup life.
Not real smart, Lurene doesn't have other outlets. She doesn't get ''ordinary life.'' So, she takes to fixating on Jackie Kennedy, assumes her one-piece style and little pillbox hat and, in her most hungry yearnings, regards her armchair frontiersman as JFK. When the president is shot, she knows she must be at Jackie's side, go to the funeral.
Over her husband's perplexed objections, Lurene flies the coop. She hops on a bus, where even by the standards of public transportation, Lurene has the makings of a seat companion from hell. She chatters incessantly to a skeptical black man, Paul Dennis Haysbert), and his withdrawn young daughter (Stephanie McFadden), babbling her entire life.
But Paul, too, is running from his past, trying to establish a new life. The two forge a desperate bond, although he notes there's a difference between ''being bored and being black.''
Like most journeys, this sojourn has its slow spots, but screenwriter Don Roos has crafted a solid character-driven saga. Director Jonathan Kaplan's eye is ever receptive to off-roads color, allowing the story to bounce and bump along in its charmingly offbeat way.
Pfeiffer is superb as the bouffant-topped Lurene, marvelously capturing her nervous dissatisfaction and energies, while Haysbert is well-cast as the stoic, dignified Paul.
Technical contributions are smartly fleshed, in particular Mark Freeborn's trans-Americana production design and Peter Mitchell's period-packed costumes.
LOVE FIELD
Orion Pictures
Producers Sarah Pillsbury, Midge Sanford
Director Jonathan Kaplan
Screenwriter/co-producer Don Roos
Executive producers George Goodman, Kate Guinzburg
Director of phtography Ralf Bode
Production designer Mark Freeborn
Editor Jane Kurson
Music Jerry Goldsmith
Associate producer Sulla Hamer
Costume designer Peter Mitchell
Michelle Pfeiffer's costumes Coleen Atwood
Casting Julie Selzer, Sally Dennison
Color/stereo
Cast:
Lurene Hallett ... Michelle Pfeiffer
Paul Cater ... Dennis Haysbert
Jonell ... Stephanie McFadden
Ray Hallett ... Brian Kerwin
Mrs. Enright ... Louise Latham
Mrs. Heisenbuttal ... Peggy Rea
Hazel ... Beth Grant
Running time -- 104 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
In this case, the title refers to the Dallas airport where John F. Kennedy landed prior to his assassination. Viewers expecting a passionate romp may be initially disgruntled, but ultimately charmed, by this backroads psychological journey where a young wife finally learns to trust herself.
''Love Field'' is essentially what Harry Cohn used to call a ''bus picture, '' a colorful odyssey where a man and a woman fussed and fought and eventually came to love each other. Prospects look rosiest on a limited run, however, before ''Love Field'' naturally lands at its most hospitable venue, rental city.
Not gussied up with a convertible T-bird, bourbon or gunplay, this woman-on-the-road odyssey is a sweet and scratchy portrait of a young wife, Lurene (Pfeiffer), whose marriage is as boring as an ironing board. Pretty Lurene married, basically, the boy next door (Brian Kerwin) and has been bored out of her mind ever since.
He's a nice guy, opens his own Budweisers and everything, but he'd eat creamed corn every day if she'd serve it to him. And she's getting sick and tired of her monotonous Campbell's soup life.
Not real smart, Lurene doesn't have other outlets. She doesn't get ''ordinary life.'' So, she takes to fixating on Jackie Kennedy, assumes her one-piece style and little pillbox hat and, in her most hungry yearnings, regards her armchair frontiersman as JFK. When the president is shot, she knows she must be at Jackie's side, go to the funeral.
Over her husband's perplexed objections, Lurene flies the coop. She hops on a bus, where even by the standards of public transportation, Lurene has the makings of a seat companion from hell. She chatters incessantly to a skeptical black man, Paul Dennis Haysbert), and his withdrawn young daughter (Stephanie McFadden), babbling her entire life.
But Paul, too, is running from his past, trying to establish a new life. The two forge a desperate bond, although he notes there's a difference between ''being bored and being black.''
Like most journeys, this sojourn has its slow spots, but screenwriter Don Roos has crafted a solid character-driven saga. Director Jonathan Kaplan's eye is ever receptive to off-roads color, allowing the story to bounce and bump along in its charmingly offbeat way.
Pfeiffer is superb as the bouffant-topped Lurene, marvelously capturing her nervous dissatisfaction and energies, while Haysbert is well-cast as the stoic, dignified Paul.
Technical contributions are smartly fleshed, in particular Mark Freeborn's trans-Americana production design and Peter Mitchell's period-packed costumes.
LOVE FIELD
Orion Pictures
Producers Sarah Pillsbury, Midge Sanford
Director Jonathan Kaplan
Screenwriter/co-producer Don Roos
Executive producers George Goodman, Kate Guinzburg
Director of phtography Ralf Bode
Production designer Mark Freeborn
Editor Jane Kurson
Music Jerry Goldsmith
Associate producer Sulla Hamer
Costume designer Peter Mitchell
Michelle Pfeiffer's costumes Coleen Atwood
Casting Julie Selzer, Sally Dennison
Color/stereo
Cast:
Lurene Hallett ... Michelle Pfeiffer
Paul Cater ... Dennis Haysbert
Jonell ... Stephanie McFadden
Ray Hallett ... Brian Kerwin
Mrs. Enright ... Louise Latham
Mrs. Heisenbuttal ... Peggy Rea
Hazel ... Beth Grant
Running time -- 104 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
- 12/9/1992
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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