Deenah Vollmer

Love Story

January 23, 2014

War Story is not a light movie, but you’d never know it by talking to star Catherine Keener and director Mark Jackson.

Richard Ayoade and Jesse Eisenberg on Dostoyevsky and Doppelgängers

January 23, 2014

Richard Ayoade’s dark comedy The Double is making the festival rounds: first at Toronto in September and now at the Sundance Film Festival.

The Real Housewife: Louise Lasser

December 6, 2013

On January 5, 1976, television sitcom luminary producer Norman Lear (All in the Family, The Jeffersons) unveiled his most unique creation, the soap-opera satire Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. In her signature braids, actress Louise Lasser, already a co-star and ex-wife of Woody Allen, brilliantly portrayed the titular Mary, a housewife struggling with adversity on all sides.

Lightening Strikes Matt Porterfield

October 3, 2013

Matt Porterfield’s films are quiet and patient, suggesting more than they tell.

Berlin’s Teddy Family

February 19, 2013

Freak flags flew at the 27th Teddy Award ceremony and party last Friday at Station, one of Berlin’s countless abandoned transportation hub turned multi-functional art and party venues.

Before Midnight: Third Time’s the Charm

February 12, 2013

The highly anticipated third installment of Richard Linklater’s walking-and-talking relationship drama features—you guessed it—more walking and talking. But Before Midnight is best of the three by far, with poignancy coming not from the characters’ development over 18 years, but in how the three-way writing team has matured.

Kyle MacLachlan’s Fine Vintage

May 10, 2012

On a Sunday afternoon in March, a timid line of eager and excited fans lined up outside Vine Wine, a charming wine shop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Inside, Kyle MacLachlan poured tastings of his 2008 Cabaret and Baby Bear Syrah, new vintages from his Walla Walla-based wine partnership with Eric Dunham called “Pursued by Bear.”

Inventing the Abacus

January 27, 2012

The young, attractive, slightly deranged, eyeblack-wearing Paul Abacus (as he is called, though he may not be real) was something of a celebrity on the streets of Park City last week, followed by a pair of Steadicam-wielding dancers and a hoard of paparazzi performance artists whose flashes were attached to resin cameras and lit the falling snow like confetti.

Marina AbramoviÄ? Makes Sundance Shut Up

January 26, 2012

Born in 1946, Serbian performance art luminary Marina AbramoviÄ? visited Sundance this year in support of Matthew Akers’ documentary The Artist is Present, about her blockbuster and game-changing MoMA exhibition of the same name.

Tim and Eric (and Will Forte)’s Zero-Dollar Interview

January 25, 2012

Visionary comedians Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim stormed Sundance this year with their debut feature Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie, an absurdly funny film made on a low budget, and also co-starred in The Comedy, a drama.

How Dee Rees Built a Cocoon

December 15, 2011

Blowing up the indie film world is emerging writer and director, Dee Rees, whose new film Pariah is sweeping up awards and recognition—including a Gotham Independent Film Award for Breakthrough Director and two nominations for the Independent Spirit Awards.

Joshua Leonard Tells Some Truths

November 17, 2011

Joshua Leonard’s most recent project The Lie is his narrative feature directorial debut. He stars as Lonnie, a likable but misdirected husband and father who, experiencing a thirtysomething crisis, tells his boss his baby died so he can get out of work.

Hear Him Now: Paul Marcarelli on His New Film and Ten Years as the Verizon Guy

October 17, 2011

Best known as the Verizon Guy, actor and writer Paul Marcarelli is now wearing a different hat—or different pair of eyeglasses, we should say—as screenwriter and producer for the chilling new drama The Green, about a gay high school teacher in Connecticut who is accused of inappropriate relations with one of his students.

Mike White Sees the Light

October 7, 2011

A two-time Amazing Race contestant, French bulldog enthusiast, and all-around indie darling, White is the creator of HBO’s new series Enlightened, a quietly funny portrait of Amy Jellicoe (Laura Dern), who is attempting to rebuild her life (and the lives of the people around her) with meditation and nature following a nervous breakdown.