I’m 26. My generation of cinephiles and filmmakers began its maturation in the mid-2000s. Unfortunately, this means that many of my contemporaries are mostly (if not totally) unacquainted with the work of Hal Hartley. Hartley is, for me, one of the 10 or so best American filmmakers of the past 25 years — an estimation […]
In the first ever Talkhouse Film podcast, we bring together in conversation two pivotal figures from the recent American independent film scene: erstwhile “mumblecore” ringleader Joe Swanberg (Happy Christmas, Drinking Buddies) and Hal Hartley (Amateur, Simple Men), one of the smartest, wittiest directors to emerge in the ’90s. Over the course of their conversation, they discuss everything from film […]
Hal Hartley is a prolific American filmmaker who won awards at the Sundance Film Festival for his film Trust in 1991, the Cannes Film Festival for Henry Fool in 1998, and the Tokyo International Film Festival for Amateur in 1994. His other films include Simple Men (1992), Flirt (1995), The Book Of Life (1998), No […]
Darren Jessee is a singer-songwriter and drummer, and a founding member of Ben Folds Five; Dave Hartley performs as Nightlands and plays bass in The War on Drugs. Darren’s record Central Bridge was just released last week on Bar/None, so to celebrate, the two friends got on the phone to catch up about pinball, analog […]
Jeff Lynne is the most analytical rock star of his generation. Take the Electric Light Orchestra hit “Strange Magic”: there is a phaser on the rhythm guitar that cycles perfectly in time with the tempo of the song, no small feat in the tape era. I can almost hear an exhausted engineer saying, “That’s close enough, Jeff, it’s […]
I’m not your typical Xiu Xiu listener — my musical tastes skew towards artists that can temporarily quell my simmering anxiety rather than dredge it up and force me to examine it. Fripp and Eno’s ambient masterpiece Evening Star has probably gotten more rotations on my turntable than any other LP, along with stuff like David Crosby’s If I Could Only […]
I lowered two sullen eyes on Sunday upon hearing of the death of actress (and French New Wave icon) Anna Karina. The news seemed to reach me instantly on social media, in waves of heartfelt tribute some might have found disproportionate to her relative obscurity here in The States. But as I paced across campus, […]
I’m currently in production on my second animated feature and am very fortunate to animation students from the local arts college working with us as interns. They scan and process artwork and see our idiosyncratic process. When they leave, I lend them a book or film from my library that they might enjoy or be […]
Have you ever sat down at a piano and starting fucking with the keys? Maybe you learned a few chords. Maybe you didn’t. But you started fiddling with them a little bit and before you knew it, you had composed a piece of music. Maybe it wasn’t music at all. Maybe it was a rip-off […]
Magical realism is probably my favorite genre. Female leads are also my thing, and the combination of a respected foreign indie auteur (Nacho Vigalondo) with one of Hollywood’s biggest stars (Anne Hathaway) is always interesting to check out either as a coup (the art attracts the actor willing to take a risk) or as a […]
