Dave Carroll and Ryan Scafuro’s Bending Steel is a documentary character portrait of a man who (you guessed it) bends steel with his bare hands. Chris Schoek is a New York native training to become an Oldetime Strongman, the musclebound freaks of nature who wowed crowds at Coney Island for decades in the early 20th century before falling out of fashion. He’s not the biggest guy (he actually looks a little scrawny at first glance) and he’s incredibly uncomfortable in front of crowds, so his quest to revive the Strongman scene at Coney Island is quite the uphill battle. Dark, moving, inspirational and beautifully shot, Bending Steel is one of the best indie docs of the summer.

I spoke with Dave Carroll about his experience making the film and getting to know Chris, who he met serendipitously in his own NY apartment building. Bending Steel is available now on iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Instant and at bendingsteelmovie.com

Tell me about how you met Chris. From what I understand, you guys share the same building.
Yeah. I was doing some laundry and heard a loud, metallic clang and some grunting. My French bulldog, who always accompanies me during laundry time, chased after the sound. I went after her, and Chris was down there. He wasn’t actually doing anything—I didn’t see any acts of bending steel—but he was just hanging out in his storage space, which is showcased in the film. The amount of bent steel warranted a lot of internal questions, which I didn’t ask at the time. But I asked him about two weeks later.

When I saw the title of the movie I had expectations of what it would be like. I was surprised to say the least.
Marketing is a huge part of filmmaking. [laughs] I really enjoy films that take you places you weren’t expecting to go. I think Bending Steel is like that. The film really isn’t about what the title [indicates]. It’s not so much about a strongman going out to Coney Island. It’s a personal story about Chris and everything that goes into that. I don’t necessarily subscribe to the mainstream marketing idea of a title telling audiences exactly what they’re getting into, and that may or may not have hurt us. It’s nice when people are shocked or surprised by what the film actually is. I think there are people out there who like going into a film not knowing much.

The film is a slow burn. It really doesn’t give you much at the beginning, but it just builds and builds layers until the end. I think it makes the payoff that much more worth it. Some people don’t like that. [laughs]

I don’t think the title is misleading in any way. After you watch the movie it takes on a new meaning as a metaphor.
Exactly. The idea of the two-inch bar and what it means is the point. We’ve spoken to a lot of people who’ve associated the bar with all kinds of things in their lives. It’s cool to have something people latch on to.

I think Chris’ journey to becoming a great steel-bender is great, and it’s clearly a focus of the movie, but his other journey of learning to be comfortable around people is even more fascinating to me.
I think a lot of what he struggles with is social interaction, finding something in the world to get really excited about and take you away from negativity. I’d be lying if I said that part of me doesn’t relate to what Chris is going through, in some way. Having taken this film on the road, I think audiences find that association as well.

Chris is a wonderful documentary subject. It came as a surprise to me when we learn that he doesn’t really have any friends. I think he’s very charming and intelligent.
He is charming and intelligent. I think he just sometimes doesn’t know what to do with himself in crowds of people. He’s more of a one-on-one guy. He’s a personal trainer by profession, and I think that lends itself to his personality. He engages the camera in a way that plays to his strengths. We spent over nine months with him where he was kind of using the camera and us as a way to engage with himself and look deeper into his own life.

In the movie, his strongman mentor is encouraging him to hold up the steel he bends like a trophy for the audience to show off what he’s done. But Chris is almost incapable of doing this. It’s fascinating psychologically. As he says, when he bends, the whole world melts away. When he’s done, he’s more happy for himself that he’s succeeded in bending the steel than he is concerned about the crowd’s happiness.
You’re absolutely right. When he performs, there’s this sense that he’s just doing this for himself. He’s just coming to terms with how to share this with people. When I met him, he wasn’t sharing it at all; he was doing it by himself. He got gratification out of it. What’s cool about the film is that you could never get that level of intimacy with Chris on-stage. When you’re aware of his story, seeing his stage performance is really special. It’s not just some guy bending steel; he’s overcoming these huge social issues. That last scene was a real joy to be a part of.

There are two empty seats at his final performance…
The element of his parents…[trails off]. It’s possible that people in your life who are physically close to you don’t really understand you. As the filmmakers, we were in between these worlds. On one side, his parents didn’t really understand what he was doing or how it helped his life. On the other side, Chris couldn’t articulate why what he was doing was important. It was like two ships passing in the night. It’s an interesting element of the film.

There’s this scene in the film where Chris and his parents have a tense conversation at their house. Chris leaves in a hurry and shuts the door. I was thinking, “The filmmakers are still in there!” How awkward to be left with his parents after an argument like that!
Documentaries are interesting in that way. Everyone just carried on like we weren’t there, which is the best thing you can hope for. There were definitely moments where we had to show ourselves out quietly, nod and thank them. [laughs]

The Angulo brothers—Mukunda, Narayana, Krisna, Govinda, Bhagavan and Jagadesh—are aspiring filmmakers with a background all their own: they were raised in seclusion in a tiny apartment, forbidden to step foot into the outside world until they were close to adulthood. They devoted their lives to movies, watching Tarantino flicks, reading film books and making their own movies, accruing a wealth of knowledge that has a certain purity to it, considering the fact that they had such limited influence from the outside.

While running wild on the NYC streets in Reservoir Dogs-inspired attire, they had the good fortune of zipping past filmmaker Crystal Moselle, who found their childlike exuberance fascinating. She chased after them on foot and, a few years later, we now have The Wolfpack, a documentary by Moselle about the boys and their remarkable family story. Doesn’t get more lucky than that. The film premiered at Sundance this past January and has not only garnered a ton of attention, but has also launched what will hopefully be a fruitful filmmaking career for the brothers from the Lower East Side.

The story of how you met the boys is pretty amazing. Maybe it’s because I’m not a filmmaker or documentarian, but I feel like nothing that amazing ever happens to me!
I feel like you just have to be open to it. Strange stories seem to follow me. I’m just interested in the bizarre.

Do you search for bizarre stories?
Not at all. They literally run past me and chase them down.

I feel like most people wouldn’t have chased them down like you did.
I’m always street casting and trying to come up with ideas and interesting characters and stuff. I thought they were mesmerizing. I just instinctually wanted to know what was happening. I’ve always been very curious, ever since I was young.

What was your creative outlet when you were young?
I lived in the hills and I was always going on these crazy adventures, getting lost and getting in trouble. I’d create these fantasy worlds. We had these neighbors. There was this blackberry bush between our houses, and we’d tell them that we were fairies. Then we felt guilty and told the truth, that we were just the kids from next door. [laughs]

You seem to still have that same playfulness.
I don’t think I’ll ever grow up. I can’t. My dad’s 62 and still goes dancing three times a week and doesn’t stop the party.

Sometimes you see people older than us who’ve let go of that playfulness, and they’re less happy for it.
It really helps keep you alive.

I feel like the boys will never let that go.
They have a lot of sequestered energy that needs to be let out.

What’s cool to me about the boys is how talented they are at making movies. I made movies with my friends when I was their age, and our movies sucked. The boys’ minds seem to work differently than most other kids, creatively.
They had a lot of practice. If you think about it, all they did on their free time was watch movies. They’d spend two days writing these scripts, and they’d practice and practice and practice. It was more like performance art. They weren’t filming all of the performances; it was really more about becoming these characters and going into these worlds, these movies. The filming stuff came later. At first, it was about building the world. Filming would interrupt all of that. They went for it, like a play. Their audience was each other. Finishing things is hard, a movie, a short film, a painting, whatever. They did, like, 50 different films.

I feel like their minds work so differently because their upbringing is so unique. It can’t really be duplicated, so there really aren’t any other filmmakers like them. I’m excited to see their stuff.
They just sent me a treatment they’re working on. It’s so cool!

Are you going to be involved with their work at all going forward?
They’re starting a Wolfpack Pictures production company, and I’m helping them.

Do you learn stuff about filmmaking being around them?
Yeah! What was cool is that they read so many books about movies, so they’ll tell you about crazy affairs that happened on set and stuff. They know the backstory about films none of us would ever know. They also study directing books. They know the techniques, and now they’re in the process of finding their own voice.

If I were to grow up in the situation they did, I imagine I’d have been pretty scared of the outside world. The boys are the opposite. They’re fearless and curious about everything.
Throughout this process it’s really been about letting go of fear. They had so much fear, but once they realized the monster wasn’t underneath the bed, they got out there and did it. The first thing Mukunda asked me was, “What do you do for a living?” I said, “I’m a filmmaker.” He said, “We’re interested in getting into the business of filmmaking.” He was very serious about it and straightforward and ready to go. When I first met them in the park, they all had little notepads and they were taking notes. They’re very, very passionate and ready to learn.

It goes back to the idea of finishing things; they motivate me to finish things. I had to finish the film for them. When you’re working on a documentary, not only are the subjects in your hands, but you’re doing it together. No matter what, it’s a sort of collaboration. Mukunda gave me a stack of VHS tapes. He said each of them had ten hours of their childhood on it. I was going through a lot of archival stuff. Govinda would go around shooting B-roll of the neighborhood and stuff. It was an interesting process. The boys are so resourceful and resilient.

What was the biggest challenge of structuring the film?
I worked on this for 4 1/2 years with Enat Sidi, who’s the editor. She’s brilliant, and I learned so much from her. The way she cuts is about working with the motion and finding scenes that speak to you. Once you have the scenes cut together, you just start doing this mix-n-match. It took a while to get to the end. It’s so simple, but there are so many ways you can go. And you have to kill your darlings. The movie’s about the family and what they went through and how they’re dealing with their new lives.

Were you scared to film their father?
At first I was kind of scared. I didn’t film the dad for the first two years. He was there, but when I’d come over, he’d leave. Everything flowed in the right way. I asked him to interview eventually, and he was excited about it. He was very kind to me and thanked me for helping his kids. By the time I came into their story, he had been overthrown. There wasn’t anything to be scared of. I had no idea what was happening in the first year or so.

What do you mean?
I was just interested in the kids because they were cool and fun to hang out with. They have this openness that you don’t really see in New York; everybody has this jaded vibe, like they’re too cool. [laughs] It was cool hanging out with them, but I didn’t know about their history. Slowly, it started unraveling and I’d pick up little clues here and there.

My favorite moment in the movie is when they go to the theater and are so stoked that their money is going to Christian Bale and David O. Russell. It made me emotional because I think most of us take for granted how cool going to a movie is. I loved that they were so excited to support the industry.
Being there was really emotional. This is their obsession, and they’ve never gone to a theater.

The Dark Knight scene with the Joker blows everyone away. The acting is so good!
These kids! These kids! Look at them! [laughs] I love that part. It’s so good.

You mentioned killing your darlings.
There was a great scene that was on Tarantino’s birthday that we had to cut. They celebrate it like it’s a holiday. I’ll find another way to bring that in as a DVD extra or something. But you have to go with the narrative.

Tarantino’s a filmmaker people naturally gravitate to because he’s so beloved by everyone. I like that, even though the boys grew up in this bubble, they still gravitated toward Tarantino, without any outside influence.
I know, right! They saw Pulp Fiction on TV and they were like, “Bring us all his movies!”

What are they like at Q&As?
They’re really funny and open and not nervous, like I usually am. I’m getting better at it, but they’re super cool. Krisna’s like, “You know, I’m more into ’80s rock now.” [laughs]

Are they ladies’ men?
I think they’re getting their mojo. They really liked Chloe, the girl in their movie at the end. The idea for that movie was really brilliant. It came from something deeper and had emotion to it. I thought it was pretty cool.

Michiel Huisman is best known for his work on TV, his turns on Treme, Nashville, and Game of Thrones making him the object of desire for female (and male) binge-watchers everywhere. And rightfully so! He’s crazy handsome, and despite hailing from Amsterdam, he can pull off any accent asked of him, making him a shoe-in for every hunky TV role that pops up.

The Dutch actor has greater aspirations than being relegated to playing the muscly eye candy on every project he takes, though. Despite the success of Game of Thrones, in which he plays Daenerys Targaryen’s oft-disrobed lover and quasi-advisor Daario Naharis, between shooting seasons of the show, he’s made it a mission to take on more dimensional roles and jump from the world of TV and into the movie theater.

Enter The Age of Adaline, Lee Toland Krieger’s San Francisco-set romance with a sci-fi twist. In it Blake Lively plays Adaline, a twentysomething who at the turn of the 20th century is struck by lighting following a fatal car accident, reviving her and, most amazingly, stopping her body’s aging process. As the people she loves begin to out-age her (including her daughter), she’s forced to live a life on the run to avoid being caught by people who may want to exploit her anti-aging properties.

Huisman plays Ellis, a modest philanthropist whose connection with Adaline might be strong enough to compel her to stop running. Ellis seems like standard rom-com fare at first, but when his father (played by Harrison Ford) comes into the picture, the story takes an unexpected turn that changes everything. Huisman’s first major role in a feature film is a memorable one that gets his movie career of on the right foot.

I spoke with Mr. Huisman in a roundtable interview during his visit to San Francisco to promote The Age of Adaline, though Game of Thrones talk inevitably popped up as the conversation went on.

The Age of Adaline hits theaters nationwide this Friday, April 24th.

How much filming did you guys do in San Francisco?
That’s the kind of question I try to avoid, and you start with it! [laughs] The thing is, shooting in San Francisco is a pain. We shot most of the movie in what we refer to as “San Francouver.” It was very strange for me, playing a character that is very much rooted here in San Francisco. It wasn’t until later, after we chopped the movie, that I made my first visit to the city. It seems to be the story of my life, shooting somewhere that’s supposed to take place somewhere else. I was here two weeks ago for the Game of Thrones premiere. Apart from one afternoon walking around and seeing as much as I could, the next day I had somebody take me around town, and I saw a lot. I managed to see the Bliss Dance statue on Treasure Island. You guys see that one?

No!
You should go see it! It’s awesome!

How did you get involved with the film?
By the time the script reached me I was already aware of Blake [Lively] being attached to it, as well as Harrison Ford. The thought of being able to play the male lead opposite Blake and being the son of Harrison Ford in one movie is too much for me, really. That was before I had even read the script. When I read the script, I was swept away by this journey of a woman through time. I thought it could become a very, very romantic movie that kind of feels like a small, independent, well-crafted movie, but at the same time, hopefully it appeals to a large audience. For me there is not a doubt in my mind; I was dying to be a part of it. Also, I come from doing a lot of great TV stuff, which I’m very proud of, but I was really eager to make that step and break into film. The Age of Adaline is special for me from that perspective because it marks the first time I’m playing a leading role in a proper Hollywood production.

Are you getting more offers now to play the “hunk” in movies and TV?
Yes, but I think it’s very important as an actor to spread your wings constantly and to not fall for the same thing. One of the things I thought was important during my hiatus between two seasons of Game of Thrones was to shoot a cool movie in which I’m not holding a sword. The Age of Adaline really hit that button.

One through line in your work is that you play a lot of characters that support strong, incredible female characters. Are you drawn to that?
I’m very thankful for the opportunity to work with [those actresses]. I love stories about strong women. I think that there aren’t enough stories about strong women in film and TV. I worked with Reese Witherspoon on Wild and I admired that entire project so much, and the way she played that character, too. If you look at it from that perspective, yeah, I get to support strong women, and that’s cool. I love that. But I also love stories about strong men. [laughs] Maybe in the future I get to play the strong man.

One of the most beautiful messages in the movie is about the quality of time as opposed to the quantity of time.
This woman’s found the so-called fountain of youth, and it turns out to be such a burden. I thought it was a very nice concept. I thought [the sci-fi element of the story], at least on the page, was not so far of a stretch. For a second I thought, “Maybe I should Google whether this is scientifically possible.” Maybe not with a human, but with a mouse. Can you actually kill it and then bring it back to life? I like that idea. You have to kind of go along with the movie’s concept, and I hope the audience will.

What kind of roles do you seek out?
I shot this movie basically a year ago. I went back to Game of Thrones, and it’s a show that’s so much about moments. There’s such a big cast, and as an actor I feel like I want to try to nail the moment. I was hoping to do projects during my next hiatus that don’t force me to nail a moment, that really allow me to be a character and carry a story not for a couple of scenes, but the whole way through. That’s how I pick, together with my team, the project I’m working on during this hiatus. I’m about to finish a movie we shot in Australia. We have a week left of stuff in New York…there you go! [laughs] San Francouver, shot in Sydney, takes place in New York. It’s very much a story in which I get to carry it the whole way through. I really enjoyed the freedom it gave me. In a certain sense, it adds a little pressure because I’m carrying the story. If the movie doesn’t work, it’s kind of on me. But when I’m shooting, I don’t really think about that. That comes a year later when I’m talking to people and they’re actually going to see this movie. When was shooting, I didn’t have four scenes to tell a story and sell a character, but one hundred and four.

Did you feel like you got to have that kind of arc on Treme? Even though it’s an ensemble, it was developed very thoroughly.
That arc was very gratifying to play, but it was that same thing. You get a couple scenes every episode. I love being part of a show, like Game of Thrones for example, that is so well made and so well written. The moments I’m trying to nail as an actor…they’re handing them to me on a little golden plate. “Here you go! You can say to the mother of dragons, ‘The queen of dragons without dragons is not a queen.'” You’re going to do everything you can to try and nail that line! I’m so grateful for that. But when I’m off of [the show], I try to do different stuff. Not only different genres and different characters, but [projects] I can carry.

I’ve met Harrison Ford once, and it was the most terrifying experience. I said, “Hello Mr. Ford!” and he just grunted and walked away. Was it intimidating working with him?
It was a different experience, really. [laughs] It’s a little intimidating for the first ten minutes because of who he is and because I admire him. But when we started working I was kind of surprised by how invested he was in this project and in this story. I think part of me though that, for him, this is just a little movie on his roster. But I felt like it wasn’t, and he gave it his all. Once he enters the movie, it not only puts it into another gear, but he also put me into another gear. He forced me to step it up. God, I loved it.

Harrison’s kind of known to not play well with fans. He hates hearing about Indiana Jones and Star Wars.
Everybody’s constantly asking me, “Did you ask him about Star Wars?!” Obviously not! [laughs]

Now you’re getting a little taste of that with Game of Thrones. You’re playing Daario!
The strange thing is, people are probing, but not really. They don’t really want to know. At least that’s my experience. “What’s happening? Don’t tell me!” I think it’s funny. You don’t want to know, really. You’d go crazy if I told you.

Daenerys’ storyline is going differently on the show than in the book.
We’re letting go of the books this year. I shouldn’t say more. [laughs] Everything I say is some kind of spoiler-y thing.

To bring it back to The Age of Adaline, your character, Ellis, uses his wealth philanthropically. What would you do if you suddenly came into tens of millions of dollars?
I would definitely set up some philanthropic foundations. A line in the movie I really liked was when he says, “It’s actually really hard to do good.” You try to do good and make the most of the money, but it’s actually really hard. Maybe it would be [a foundation] for the arts, something helping kids find a way into expressing themselves through music or acting, things that have given me so much fun and eventually a career.

Indian Point, making its World Premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, gets its name from the Indian Point nuclear power plant that resides less than 40 miles north of New York City. The documentary from Ivy Meeropol takes a comprehensive look at the tenuous situation surrounding the future of the nuclear reactors in relation to the over 20 million Americans that live near the plant. While the problems regarding the implementation of nuclear power are far-reaching, Meeropol’s documentary takes a focused look at the situation in Buchanan, New York, as she follows several residents whose everyday lives concern Indian Point.

As the film begins, Indian Point looks as if it’s attempting to document the lives of the people who work at the power plant. Meeropol showcases the daily routine of Indian Point’s control room supervisor, as well as a couple other plant employees, who vouch for the safety of their plant. To a nuclear plant worker, it’s about risks versus perceived risk, and the risks appear minimal from the inside. The film’s scope then widens when it introduces Roger Witherspoon, an environmental journalist who has covered Indian Point for decades.

His wife, a local environmental activist named Marilyn Elle, is another prominent figure in the film. Like her husband, Marilyn attends any public hearing on Indian Point; however the couple insists on arriving separately so as to maintain professional integrity. Marilyn rails against the company and the Nuclear Regulatory Committee while Roger sits back, reporting. The interviews with Witherspoon and Elle provide the majority of Indian Point’s case against the continued existence of nuclear facilities, mining their years of immersion with the issues for a deep understanding of each side’s talking points.

Between Indian Point’s employees and the combination of Roger and Marilyn, the majority of the documentary’s interviews come from residents of the Buchanan area that have spent decades steeped in the debate over the nuclear site’s future. Condensing years of disputes makes parts of Indian Point feel like a bit of a general overview, which can be frustrating when an interviewee mentions structural damage as if were just in passing. Gradually, Indian Point’s seemingly even-handed approach fades, as informational screens warn of the immense dangers that nuclear power plants pose.

After Indian Point profiles a series of locals, the documentary turns its attention to the bureaucratic logjam disrupting progress on handling nuclear facilities throughout the country. In the wake of 2011’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the United States’ attention turned to its nuclear power plants, but none more threaten to harm a larger population than Indian Point. Former NRC chairman Gregory Jaczko plays a pivotal role in the documentary’s latter part; however, his interview appearance is surprisingly brief. During his chairmanship, Jaczko pushed for rapid changes to US nuclear policy before getting pushed out of his job. For Indian Point, he’s a particularly authoritative figure on the subject, and it might have been beneficial to get more of his insight. The documentary keeps its focus on Indian Point, the company that owns the facility, and the people most directly impacted by the nuclear site.

Indian Point outlines a lot of frightening aspects of real danger, but at points the approach feels like a bullet point summary of relevant topics. Several shocking revelations about Indian Point’s safety concerns are glanced over without a descriptive explanation of the problem. However, Meeropol includes such a litany of reasons against the continued use of nuclear reactors in Buchanan that her documentary becomes deeply chilling. Indian Point offers limited bits of information on many disconcerting facets to the Indian Point nuclear plant, creating a persuasive argument for greater scrutiny in our approach to nuclear.

Noah Baumbach loves making movies. Somehow, he’s got two coming out in 2015: Mistress America, his latest collaboration with Frances Ha‘s Greta Gerwig, is tentatively set to come out later this year, and While We’re Young, a cross-generational comedy starring Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts, is out tomorrow in limited release, with an expansion to follow.

Stiller and Naomi play a married, middle-aged couple living in New York whose lives are rattled to the core when they meet a younger, more spontaneous, hipper couple (Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried) who inspire them to ditch their bland home-body life and reinvigorate their long-dormant adventurous side. The presence of the hip twenty-somethings eventually drives a wedge between them, leading to jealousy, restlessness, and self-loathing.

In a media roundtable interview, we spoke to Baumbach about being so prolific, the film’s generational theme, Adam Horovitz’s acting career, his relationship with Dreamworks Animation, writing the lead role for Stiller, his writing process, portraying hipsters, and much more.

Was the plan always to make While We’re Young and Mistress America back-to-back?
Yeah. It goes back even further. The initial plan was to make While We’re Young first, but it didn’t happen for various reasons. Then we made Frances Ha, and Ben was making Walter Mitty, which was a much longer commitment. Greta [Gerwig] and I were working on Mistress America and had this other movie we wanted to do, and we felt like, we’re not going to have enough time to finish it, but why don’t we just do it as far as we can do it. I knew we had enough time to shoot it and start cutting it, but I wasn’t going to be able to [finish it.] I actually cut it fairly well, but I wasn’t finished, so I made While We’re Young and then went back and finished Mistress America.

Several of your films have this generational conflict going on.
I wasn’t really that conscious of the notion of being young or old as much as I was characters that were interesting to me and stories that I was interested in telling. I was thinking about couples from different generations and how they interact, but I wasn’t thinking of it in terms of my other work. That doesn’t mean it’s not there.

You’ve got one of my childhood heroes in the movie, Adam Horovitz. He’s great in the film. From being around him do you get a sense that he might want to keep acting?
Yeah, I think so. I hope he’ll do it for me again. I love working with Adam. There was no question in my mind that he was going to be great. You could just tell.

In the credits you thank Dreamworks Animation.
I worked on Madagascar 3. They’ve been great partners in a way, and I really like working with them. I felt like I wanted to acknowledge their support for me even though they weren’t involved in this movie.

Were you thinking of Ben as your lead while you were writing the script?
I don’t always write with someone in mind, but I started writing this after Greenberg came out, and we had a really great time on that. There was a connection and we became friends. I did this one with him in mind, and it was clear to me early on that I wanted to write a comedy of a type, something that connected me to movies from my adolescence, when studios would make comedies for adults that could be mainstream and have broad humor, but could also be character oriented. I felt like using Ben’s comic iconography in my terrain.

One of the first things I asked Richard Linklater when I met him was if his actors improvised in his films, and he said, “No. Nothing.” It’s astonishing to me, because the dialogue sounds so natural, as if it had to be improvised, and yet it’s not at all. From what I understand you work the same way, with your actors not improvising at all on set.
To quote Richard Linklater, “No.” [laughs]

Does writing dialogue come naturally to you?
Dialogue for me is something that comes quickly. That doesn’t mean the scenes come quickly. Often I kind of write my way and have conversations [in my head] to find the characters and the scenes early on. In a way, I’m improvising with myself. I can write dialogue for quite some time, but it’s like, where in it is the scene? Sometimes you’re lopping off the top and bottom and it’s in the middle, and other times it’s like, I found it over here, and now I can start the scene. It really depends. In some ways, that’s the motor for me.

I admire the fact that your portrayal of hipsters is so balanced, making them very likable and not too douche-y.
Part of it is that we meet the [hipster couple] through Naomi and Ben. We’re kind of learning them through the eyes of another couple. Because Ben’s character is stuck in many ways and looking for answers, he puts so much of it on Adam Driver’s character. I felt like, from Adam Driver’s character’s perspective, no human being should have to bear the responsibility of saving somebody else’s life. As it turns out, he doesn’t hold up under that weight, nor should he. Some people have looked at it the other way. “You’re saying the hipsters are destroying [everything.]” But I don’t see it that way at all. There are also arguments about technology and truth in art, which are subsets of the major story that I’m telling, which is of a marriage. Sometimes you have to come apart to come back together, which is a traditional comedy structure. Shakespearean even. In that I could then wrestle with all these arguments about things in the moment and generational fights without needing to take sides. I wouldn’t know what side to take anyway.

Charles Grodin is sort of a picky actor and doesn’t work as much as a lot of us would like him to. How did you get him involved?
One of my casting directors, Doug Aibel, was at a benefit or something and saw Grodin there. He intimated that he was open to working, and we happened to be casting. We were thinking about this character, and Doug told me [about Grodin] immediately, and I said, “Let’s make this happen.” I met with him, had a long meeting, and he did it.

A small detail I noticed was that Adam Driver’s character sometimes ends sentences with “see.”
In crafting the way he talked, I felt like that was a sort of old-timey way of saying things. It might be something he kind of took to. It’s kind of like a Damon Runyan thing, like he’d be into old New York. The way he says “beautiful” is like in the ’60s when people would say, “It’s just beautiful! It’s just beautiful!” It’s like a compilation of old stuff.

You’ve mentioned that you were trying to get The Squid and the Whale into the Criterion Collection. Has there been any progress on that?
Yes. It’s more like dealing with a rights thing right now, but yeah. Everybody wants it to happen.

The soundtrack is really eclectic. Why Vivaldi?
Vivaldi supplied a timeless aspect to the movie, which balanced it out because it is so eclectic. I felt like the overarching score would almost take you into another era entirely, or all eras, really. Vivaldi for me also brings back older movies that I liked. Kramer vs Kramer is one that used Vivaldi very well, obviously to different effect. I thought it was working really well for the movie, but it also was bringing me back in touch with movies from my childhood that had real meaning for me. I saw this movie as my version of those films. I love the energy, and there’s something very New York-y about it.

I read in an interview that you loved Naomi Watts in Mulholland Dr. and that you thought her performance was very funny. I agree.
I saw humor in it. That audition [scene] she does…you can’t do that if you don’t know what’s funny. It’s funny because it’s not funny. I’d wanted to work with Naomi for a while, and there were times when I thought of her, but I didn’t have a part for her. She’s just somebody I’ve had on a wish list of actors I’ve wanted to work with. This just seemed like an ideal thing for her. Again, thinking of Kramer vs Kramer, I thought Ben and her together almost evoked Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep. We even sort of dressed them similarly. I was thinking of that symmetry. She’s just lovely. I always think of the hip-hop [dance class] scene. I felt like Naomi Watts going into that class feels much more intimidating because you feel her anxiety about what’s going to happen. Thus, it’s that much funnier when she actually jumps in and commits. It was like a way to have a comic set piece without announcing, “Here comes the funny dance scene.”

The sheer ambition on display in Third Person, from Crash writer-director Paul Haggis, is staggering and admirable without question. It’s actually a very, very rare thing to behold, with Haggis carefully constructing an intricately woven ensemble love story set in three famous cities with just a hint of supernatural mystery blanketing the entire thing. Despite the film feeling earnest and being a clear labor of love, it also manages to feel absolutely wrong in so many ways that it’s quite painful to sit through. Haggis had a beautiful vision in mind, but the elements used to deliver it from his brain to ours are, frankly, unsightly.

Liam Neeson leads the ensemble of A-listers in the tri-story drama, starring as a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer who’s struggling desperately with writer’s block while piecing together his latest novel in an extravagant hotel room in Paris. This battle with creation is one of the film’s two major themes, the other being the unmerciful nature of love and longing. Representing love’s viciousness for Neeson is Olivia Wilde, who plays his nutty mistress staying in a suite a couple floors below his.

Their story line consists of them alternating between them being comically cruel to each other and hysterically in love, having wild sex at the drop of a hat. Nothing about their relationship feels authentic, believable, or natural, with them pinball-ing from brutal to enamored way too quickly to take seriously. Yes, there are couples in real life who have similar up-and-down, abusive relationships, but Wilde and Neeson’s relationship is so hammy, desensitizing, and exhausting you’ll want to take a nap. They’re just not relatable enough to make investment in them worthwhile. The pair’s acting does have energy, however, and in isolated moments they’re quite magnetic.

More interesting is a second love story involving Adrien Brody, playing an American in Rome who’s so unimpressed with the city all he wants is a burger, which he waltzes into a pub called Bar Americano to find, but with no luck. Instead, he meets a beautiful gypsy (Moran Atias), the first thing he’s found in Rome he actually likes (though he claims the shot of limoncello they share to be the first as a pick-up line). His attraction to her is so strong that he’s compelled to help her when her daughter’s life is threatened and she must come up with ransom money somehow. This is easily the most enjoyable strand of the three stories, as it mixes elements of danger and betrayal with Brody and Atias’ potent chemistry. It also heavily recalls the work of Antonioni (one of Haggis’ favorites) in a good way.

Mila Kunis leads the third story as a hotel maid in New York entrenched in a custody battle over her son with a cold-hearted painter played by a vacant James Franco. Kunis’ character is positioned to be the film’s most sympathetic, with everyone in her life having zero belief in her, but again, the obtuse way in which her plight is presented derails it early on. The final showdown between she and Franco is as overblown and numbing as the climactic gunshot in Crash.

The supernatural element I mentioned earlier comes in the form of Haggis interconnecting the three stories when they couldn’t possibly be, as they take place thousands of miles apart. We see Kunis, who’s supposed to be in New York, clean up Neeson’s Paris hotel room, for instance. The revelation that makes sense of all this is clever and actually ties in to the film’s themes nicely, but by the time we get there we’re so depleted it barely leaves an impression.

Third Person trailer

After an evocative opening credit sequence featuring warm, grainy 8mm footage of old buildings in New York City that harkens back to the ’70s “director’s era”, Fading Gigolo locks its gaze on a charming book shop. Murray (Woody Allen), the owner of the soon-to-be-closing shop, suggests (in a fidgety, roundabout way that’s classic Allen) to his friend and employee Fioravante (John Turturro), that they enter a pimp-prostitute partnership to make some much-needed dough, Fioravante is audibly trepidatious, but barely flinches at the preposterous offer. He barely flinches at anything really, as is demonstrated in the rest of the film: his default reaction to any situation is a melancholy, almost expressionless stare.

This sequence is a good indicator of things to come. The well-written, interesting characters populating the film (written and directd by Turturro) seem to flock to Fioravante, with his low-key, knowing, guru-like aura. The problem is, he’s the most uninteresting character of the bunch, making the film feel a bit lopsided. Still, it’s an ultimately worthwhile experience. (Woody Allen is John Turturro’s pimp. That’s a priceless setup no matter which way you slice it.)

The film is an earnest, tender take on the world’s oldest profession, steering clear of many tropes of the subgenre and focusing more on the healing properties of the human touch. Fioravante’s new career as a high-end gigolo gets off to a great start, to his surprise. His clients (Sofia Vergara and Sharon Stone among them) gravitate to him because he treats them with respect and a gentle touch, awakening in them something that undeniably feels like love. He’s a natural, and business is booming, with Murray handing out business cards at local hangouts.

When Murray sends an extremely orthodox widow named Avigal (Vanessa Paradis) Fioravante’s way, however, things get more complicated, as he finds himself becoming emotionally attached to the fragile, meek mother of six. Their sessions consist of sensual therapeutic massages that unlock suppressed emotions in both of them. It’s a deeply moving, wordless exchange between the two, beautifully directed and shot by Turturro and DP Marco Pontecorvo. Paradis is a showstopper, conveying tidal waves of emotion with her tiny, porcelain face. Every quiver and lip-bite is captured in extreme close-up, underlining the sensuous nature of the experience.

Noticing a marked improvement in Avigal’s typically sullen complexion is the lovelorn Dovi (Liev Schreiber), a local law-enforcement officer for the Orthodox community who’s been in love with her since they were kids. “I’ve never seen her smile…not like this.” Suspicious, he investigates to discover her regular appointments with Fioravante at his apartment. Dovi utilizes every resource available to him (including Secret Service-like Orthodox agents, which is hilarious) to muck up Murray and Fioravante’s business.

Turturro plays Fioravante in such an understated fashion that he comes across as more detached than quietly perceptive. His ultra-low enthusiasm is too disengaging, to the point where, when he’s talking to the unbelievably funny Murray, he virtually fades into the background (pardon the pun). Yes, the at-arms-length nature of the character is by design, but it feels as though Turturro undershot it.

Allen is the crowning jewel of the film, putting on his best performance on film in years. He’s not doing anything out of the ordinary here–he convulses awkwardly when he doesn’t know what to say, his voice goes up and down like a yo-yo as he stammers, he overthinks everything he says–but the difference here is that he embraces the role Turturro’s writing wholeheartedly, aggressively finding ways to make scenes funnier. He even gets to do some physical comedy: When Dovi’s Hasidic SWAT team apprehends Murray and stuffs him into a car to take him in for questioning, he unexpectedly pops out of the opposite door in a feeble attempt to elude his captors, an attempt thwarted quickly. Precious moments like these are vital.

The plot is ridiculous, but the absurdity of it a.l is easily forgiven thanks to Turturro’s disciplined skills as a filmmaker. Many scenes shine, all of them involving either Allen or Paradis. What makes Fading Gigolo unique is its sensitivity toward the female perspective, representing hooking in a positive light as an emotionally therapeutic practice. There’s too much distance between us and Fioravante, however, for the film to go down as a seminal work.

Fading Gigolo trailer

Rob the Mob opens with a robbery, but not the perilous kind the title suggests: In early 1990’s New York, Tommy and Rosie (Michael Pitt and Nina Arianda, both delivering terrific turns), a frantic, foul-mouthed young couple, botch a barely thought-out flower store stick-up, earning Tommy a ticket to jail for 18 months. Rewind to moments before the failed heist: The thieving lovebirds fall into a heated spat in the car because Rosie chose to bid her man good luck with a classic “I love you!”, last words Tommy considers a bad omen. But it’s that very love–that fevered passion that drives them wild–that defines them.

The film is based on the true story of Tommy and Rosemarie Uva, a boroughs-bred Bonnie and Clyde who were fixing to get rich quick by stealing from the only folks in the city who would never call the police: The Mafia. Director Raymond De Felitta, who’s got a proclivity to profiling life in New york (Two Family House, City Island), loosely adapts the Uva’s New York robbing spree to great success. It’s a relentlessly entertaining take on reckless love and domestic mob life, presenting tried-and-true themes and motifs in creative ways that make it all feel fresh again. Clever writing and killer performances (particularly the young leads) solidifies Felitta as a great Big Apple storyteller.

Following Tommy’s stint in the slammer, he reunites with Rosie to find that she’s straightened up, landing a secure job at a collection agency under perpetually cheery boss Mr. Lovell (Griffin Dunne). She convinces Lovell to hook Tommy up with a job as well, but Tommy’s distracted at work as he’s become enamored with the John Gotti trial, which he goes so far as to skip work to attend himself. While at the trial, he notices a testifying mobster mention that guns are forbidden at Mafia “social clubs”. Barely getting by on Mr. Lovell’s measly paychecks, he and an initially leery Rosie kick off a spree of wise-guy shakedowns that, to their surprise, actually yield some big-time dividends.

The social club stickups are wildly varied, each permeated by a sense of unpredictability. Tommy, armed with an Uzi he doesn’t know how to use (Rosie has to teach him how to load it in a funny moment), isn’t taken seriously by the mobsters at first (they get a good laugh out of the kid’s foolhardy audacity), but they’re eventually forced to comply when Tommy accidentally starts spraying bullets around the room like a broken sprinkler. Tommy’s bumbling inadequacies as a criminal (Pitt’s comedic timing is spot-on) make these scenes outrageously funny. After each robbery, he ducks into Rosie’s car and they drive home to bask in their bounty of greenbacks and gold chains. Steal and wheel.

Unbeknownst to Tommy and Rosie, the clubs were being monitored by the FBI, who leak info about the heists to seasoned tabloid reporter Cardozo (Ray Romano). Desperate for a headline, he offers to tell the couple’s story on the front page of the paper. Being the self-centered dummies that they are, they dish on all the juicy info, and Cardozo keeps his promise, spreading their story to the masses. Mob boss Big Al at first considered the social club heists as a minor annoyance, but when Tommy finds a piece of evidence that could take down Al’s entire syndicate on an aging wise-guy named Joey D (Rocky‘s Burt Young) and uses it to blackmail the salt and pepper-bearded don, he’s forced to sic his goons on the young-idiot Robin Hoods.

Scribe Jonathan Fernandez has fashioned a highly entertaining, taut script that doesn’t force De Felitta to rely on visual flair to hold our interest like a lot of modern mob flicks do. The story takes time for intimate, hushed moments of genuine emotion, but always feels brisk and on the move. De Felitta recognizes and delights in the crackling chemistry between Arianda and Pitt: They can jump from wanting to strangle each other to wanting to screw to cracking dumb jokes without a hiccup. Arianda, a Broadway star, is electric as the mouthy firecracker Rosie, and Pitt is magnetic, turning his character’s intellectual shortcomings into irresistible charm. Romano and Garcia impress as well, never going over-the-top and servicing the story perfectly. Garcia’s scenes with at home with his young grandson, teaching the youngster to make arancinis and instilling in him the importance of love and passion, are surprisingly touching moments of real emotion that add depth to an already excellent film.

Dirty Fred (Justin Rice) and Bruho (Leo Fitzpatrick), believe that peak oil–the theory that we will soon deplete the earth of petroleum, causing the demise of our modern lifestyles–will bring upon mass hysteria and a societal breakdown. In preparation of the impending apocalypse,  they’ve chosen to stay ahead of the curve, adopting a vagabond lifestyle, trekking through the Catskills, scavenging through rich people’s vacation homes for supplies (and booze, pills, and other fun stuff). When they accept a smart-ass teenager (Brian Charles Johnson) and a fiery young woman (Laura Campbell) into their group, however, they’re forced to reevaluate their pre-apocalyptic lifestyle.

Doomsdays is a meticulously crafted, devilishly funny road movie on foot (though cars do play a role as the smash-able victims of Bruho’s rage). First time director Eddie Mullins was a film critic for a decade prior to becoming a filmmaker, and as a result has an encyclopedic pool of filmic reference from which to pull from. During SF Indiefest, we spoke to him about whether he’d have the same reaction to the apocalypse as his characters, how film criticism can numb enthusiasm, his directorial influences, the art of blocking as opposed to editing, and more.

If the world did break down as a result of peak oil, would you behave the way your characters do?

Eddie: Most of the crew were young men, guys in their 20s. The same comment was made over and over again. “I could see myself doing this.” It could be peak oil, or global warming. There are so many possibilities.

Singularity may be a different movie entirely.

Eddie: I didn’t actually name check Ray Kurzweil, but I wanted the Reina character to at least pay lip service to an alternative possibility. I guess because I’m an old man, I still buy and read the hard copy of Rolling Stone every month. I know it’s like saying, “I read Playboy for the articles,” but I actually read Rolling Stone for the articles. Matt Taibbi is the man. There was a piece about Her, and they asked a couple notables in the tech world, “When will we be at a point where an operating system that is this close to being human?” Ray Kurzweil said, “Oh. 2039.” I was like, that’s really specific, man! You seem really confident! I was impressed an appalled at the same time.

You got some beautiful shots in the film. Since you shot in the town you live in, did you already have a lot of these shots in mind before production began?

Eddie: Absolutely. Most of the homes are friends’ places. The art gallery is my house. My girlfriend and I run an art gallery out of that room. It was great because I knew well in advance where I was going to be shooting, so I could tailor my shots as I was blocking them out on the page months and months before I started hiring a crew. I shot the film in a fairly idiosyncratic way. There are maybe four match cuts in the entire film. The idea was to have each scene rendered in one shot. You have to figure out how to sustain visual interest through blocking. We have a lot of deep focus shots where different theaters of activity encourages a different kind of spectatorship than what you normally get at the movies. This is certainly not something I dreamt up on my own; I’m standing on the shoulders of giants.

At times the shots remind me of Tati.

Eddie: Tati is certainly an influence. I’m in the minority. I think Traffic is his masterpiece. I’m not a Playtime guy. Shohei Imamura and Mizoguchi Kenji [are influences]. William Wyler, particularly Little Foxes. None of those filmmakers are quite as locked off as us. I think we have one tracking shot in the picture. Every single shot is on sticks.

Did you go to film school?

Eddie: Yes I did.

The reason I ask is, you don’t really see a lot of people making films the way you made Doomsdays anymore. There isn’t much editing involved in your film.

Eddie: The way Hollywood films are made…it’s like capitalism, or air. Most of us are just born into it, and we take it for granted. You go to film school and they say, “This is how you film a shot. You do the wide, the medium, the close-ups, the over-the-shoulders, and then you figure it out in the editing room.” No one ever presented to me in film school alternatives to this approach. My real education as a filmmaker came during my ten years as a critic. It’s an enormous privilege to be able to think and write about movies for a decade. Had I not done that, I’m not sure whether I would have become a filmmaker. And if I had, I probably would have been a rather shitty one.

How did those ten years of being a critic shape your taste in film?

Eddie: Being a critic can numb your enthusiasm for movies. You’re obliged to see so many, so often, and the majority of them are bad. I was fortunate to write for a fairly hip magazine. My longest tenure was at BlackBook, which is an awesome culture magazine. I’d be able to watch what I wanted sometimes, but I’d still have to muddle through Paul Blart: Mall Cop or whatever. It can be so demoralizing. It’s been a pleasure to stop being a film critic and no longer have to swim all the time and keep up with everything. Now people have to keep up with me. I much prefer this. (laughs) But I have seen Nymphomaniac. I ask myself this all the time: Who’s the American Lars Von Trier? Or Wong Kar Wai? Or Johnnie To? I don’t think we have them, certainly not in Hollywood. Independent filmmaking is becoming so vanilla, so jejune. You don’t really see a lot of edgy pictures coming out of Sundance or SXSW. Beasts of the Southern Wild is certainly an independent film, and it’s a lovely picture, but it slides very easily into the art house market that, in this day and age, is dominated by what we call in this industry “blue hairs”. Older women are the biggest consumers of independent cinema. This wasn’t true in 1992, when we had this rash of people coming through every day, like Richard Linklater, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, and even Kevin Smith, who I have no love for, but Clerks was a breath of fresh air. These were edgy filmmakers. There doesn’t seem to be an appetite for this anymore.

What shot are you most proud of in Doomsdays?

Eddie: Probably the shot where Leo goes to the window and sees Laura talking to her boyfriend outside. They start having a little fight, then Leo exits the upstairs window and comes down into the frame he was watching before. As he does that, Justin comes in and takes his place to watch the fight play out. There are, like, 12 different moving parts to that shot. We actually had the cops come during that shot. They had a number of calls that said there was a fight going on. The crew was scared, andI felt like a real champ, because the cop got out of his car and I said, “Oh, I know that guy. His name’s Mark.” The shot in the bar was incredibly difficult. I talk about different theaters of activity, and there’s the bit where Leo and the drunk go outside and fight, and you only see them as they go back and forth in front of this glass window.

That shot is so much fun.

Eddie: I like for the violence to be hyperbolic, and I think I get that from Godard. People mention Weekend in talking about the film, and they’re dead-on. That’s a huge influence on me, and I was thinking about it while I was writing the picture. I think the difference is that my film is much more self-consciously comic. It’s a black comedy, basically. The staging that I’m doing in this picture is a very specific formal agenda that I have going on in this picture. Very few people thought it was going to work, myself included. I thought, is this just going to be incredibly static? The camera’s on sticks, there’s no cutting, there’s zero coverage. I’ve often speculated that if the producer were anyone other than myself, this idea might not have flown. It’s so unforgiving. There’s no going back and fixing anyone’s timing. If your best take has a boom mic shadow in it…well, that’s the best take.

It’s approaching theater.

Eddie: Yeah, it is. It’s a mixed blessing for the actors because they have to sustain. If one person cocks it up and everybody else gets it right, that cock-up might stay in there. Alternately, it’s great for them because they don’t have to shoot a scene 47 times. I think the most amount of takes we had to do on a certain scene was 16. Once we got it right, we moved on. Justin Rice is my neighbor, and all of the actors stayed in his house. I think I got along famously with all of my actors. With a few exceptions, we always went straight to the bar after shooting.

How important was that rapport?

Eddie: It was indispensable. Everyone asks how I got this wonderfully organic relationship between all of these people. It’s easy! They all lived cheek by jowl for a month! Everyone liked one another, and they’re all still my friends. I’m quite fortunate.

Justin’s dialog is so peculiarly poetic. His lines are great.

Eddie: Justin came onboard before I’d even finished the script. He hadn’t done anything in 3-4 years, but he has 9 movies under his belt, all in lead roles. He’d always been type-cast as the sensitive, milquetoast type. I don’t think he’s ever had a role before Doomsdays where he doesn’t play guitar. I didn’t know if either of the characters were right for him, but then a light bulb went off in my head. Bing! I was like, “Oh my god…do you want to play Dirty Fred? It would completely upend your image. I want you to grow your hair long, grow a beard, wear glasses. And no guitar!” He even got method. I’d written in the script that Dirty Fred had a chipped tooth. One of Justin’s teeth had a crown from an accident that happened, so we got a dentist friend to shave it down. But with the way I shot it, you can’t see it at all! (laughs) Justin’s a Harvard graduate, so I knew he wouldn’t have a problem with the dialog. He’s a very Withnail-y character. Knowing what his energy is like, I knew he was going to do it deadpan. I think if I had read other people for the part, I’d have had a lot of people doing really flamboyant stuff. I love how you have Leo Fitzpatrick as Bruho with all of this angry energy, and then Justin who quietly goes about his business with all these pearls in his mouth.

I love the jokes in the movie. They match the characters perfectly. Dirty Fred’s is so poetic, and Jaiden’s is a fart joke. And Jaiden is so juvenile he can’t even recite Dirty Fred’s!

Eddie: (laughs) No, it’s too subtle for him. I like the idea of, as a piece of entertainment, to stipple throughout people telling jokes. The one that Dirty Fred tells is actually something my grandfather used to tell. When I showed it at the Virginia film festival, my two aunts were there. That joke always gets laughs, but that night you could hear peals of screaming laughter in the back! (laughs)

And Bruho’s joke is simply, “Fuck your mother”.

Eddie: (laughs) I think that’s in keeping with the character. Leo was really helpful. He had more experience than any of the actors, and he was encouraging to me, as a first time director. It was a really good time. It was very intimate–we shot the picture in 18 days. And lo and behold, people have actually given a shit.

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired all North American, German, and Scandanavian rights to Ira Sachs’ Love Is Strange starring John Lithgow and Alfred Molina. The film made its world premiere at Sundance to wide praise.

Here’s the plot synopsis, via SPC:

In LOVE IS STRANGE, Ben (Lithgow) and George (Molina) finally wed in Manhattan after 39 years together.  However, once the Catholic school where George has had a longtime job hears of the marriage, he is fired, and the couple is forced to move into two separate households as they can no longer afford their Manhattan apartment.  George moves in with two gay cops who live downstairs, and Ben moves to Brooklyn with his nephew, his wife, and their teenage son. While trying to find a new place to live together, Ben and George feel the pain of living apart while testing the strength of their relationships, both with each other and with those who have taken them in.

“I’m thrilled to be working with Michael, Tom and Dylan again,” said Sachs, “What was clear from our meetings is that they understand the film as a New York love story anchored by two powerhouse performances by Lithgow and Molina.”

“Filmmaker Ira Sachs, one of our most acute observers of humanity in modern times, has made his most accomplished film featuring two of the greatest actors in the English speaking world at the peak of their form. It is a privilege to collaborate with them on releasing LOVE IS STRANGE,” said Sony Pictures Classics.

LOVE IS STRANGE was negotiated with WME Global, marking this as their second sale with Sony Pictures Classics at Sundance following WHIPLASH.

After years of prodding, he’s finally woken the sleeping giant…and it’s pissed.

Several witnesses have accused Armond White, contrarian film critic and now former member of the New York Film Critics Circle, of vicious heckling directed at 12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen at a recent New York Film Critics Circle awards ceremony. McQueen was making his way toward the stage to accept the award for Best Director when White allegedly shouted insults from his table: “Liberal white bullshit!”, “Kiss my ass!”, “Fuck You!”. Many attendees also recalled him calling McQueen “an embarrassing doorman” and “a garbage man”. Strange…

White staunchly denied the accounts of his accusors, most notable of which was Slate’s Dana Stevens, who was seated at his table and initially reported the heckling of White and his guests, young men. In the end, the evidence proved too overwhelming: with several attendees backing up Stevens’ claims, the NYFCC voted White out of their ranks on Monday morning.

ABOVE: McQueen at the 2013 Mill Valley Film Festival

I view White’s disruptive actions as indefensible. Civility and respect for all filmmakers should be key standards for events like this, and all evidence points to White throwing those principles out the window.

What makes the scandal so regrettable is that White, in my estimation, is one of the most knowledgable, brilliant, demanding film critics of the past 50 years. His voice is irreplaceable. Despite many violently disagreeing with his defiant, consensus-crushing (some say antagonistic) statements and critiques, his opinions are inarguably educated, and his immovable stance is a constant catalyst for healthy film discussion. For someone so talented, who’s dedicated such a large part of his life to film, to disrespect his peers and the community he belongs to by acting so rudely, is a damn shame.

He’s as gifted and passionate a critic as you’ll find on the internet or in print, but now he’s gone and pissed people off in all the wrong ways.