What would happen if a movie director were given free reign inside a film vault, with thousands upon thousands of titles? What would he choose? What would he say? These may not be questions that would trouble most people. But they did trouble the UCLA Film and Television Archive. The result is the archive’s “Curated […]
Author Archives: Guido Pellegrini
UCLA directors receive grants
Everybody needs a helping hand. And that’s exactly what four UCLA graduate film directing students have received. Zack Godshall, Miranda Yousef, Michelle Hung and Nicole Haeusser all obtained grants from the Caucus Foundation, a non-profit organization that seeks to encourage diversity in the entertainment industry. “The Foundation really has a mandate to help launch the […]
Fowler film series to show reality of Tuareg life
They say a photograph is truth. And a film, truth at 24 frames per second. Whether or not that is the case, the Fowler Museum’s newest film series hopes to reveal something of the reality behind an often misunderstood people. Starting with “Africa: Desert Odyssey,” tomorrow at 6 p.m., the Fowler Museum at UCLA will […]
Screen Scene: 'Letters from Iwo Jima'
War films tend to suffer from an aura of banal sameness. They can all seem alike at times. And whenever one film comes along to shake things up a bit (for example, “Saving Private Ryan,” with its shaky cam and washed-out visuals), every subsequent output in the genre follows in its footsteps with near-religious fanaticism. […]
Screen Scene: "Screamers"
Screamers Director Carla Garapedian MG2 Productions “Screamers” is an apt name for this documentary ““ an impassioned, often incoherent, but always affecting look at genocide throughout the past 90 years. Director Carla Garapedian (“Beneath the Veil”) alternates between concert footage of Armenian-American rock band System of a Down, interviews with scholars and grainy newsreels of […]
Screen Scene: "The Nativity Story"
“The Nativity Story” Director Catherine Hardwicke New Line Cinema “The Nativity Story” is an exercise in verisimilitude and historical perfection. Each costume, each dirty fingernail, and each Middle Eastern city is created with rigorous care. Yet it is not only an elaborate costume party; each actor appears to honestly inhabit his or her role. Every […]
Screen Scene: "The Fountain"
“The Fountain” Director Darren Aronofsky 20TH Century Fox Darren Aronofsky’s (“Requiem for a Dream”) latest film, “The Fountain,” is a grandiose pseudo-intellectual folly that is bound to bore some and perplex others. But few will be able to deny that it is a feat of the imagination which deserves to be seen. The plot revolves […]