Paul Cullum

The New Math

Among the unexcavated gems at the recent Los Angeles Film Festival was a film called The Prime Gig. A tale of treachery and con men set amid the world of multilevel marketing, the film marks a return to form for Vince Vaughn and features Ed Harris, Julia Ormond and a......

Orphanistas!

Hollywood films are the home movies of global capital. --Patricia Zimmermann, film historian A sound case has been made over the past decade for the importance of film preservation: The Library of Congress now selects 25 films annually to enter the National Film Registry, and Turner Classic Movies and others......

My So-Called Rotten Life

Photo by Anne FishbeinIn late April of this year, after taking an unexpected fall, then finding herself unable to stand up and walk again, actress Susan Tyrrell was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where extensive diagnostic tests revealed she had something called “essential thrombocythemia,” a rare disease in which the......

Canada Semi-dry

At the recently concluded Toronto International Film Festival, Asia Argento, daughter of Italian director Dario, arrived at the premiere of her presumably autobiographical directing debut, Scarlet Diva, in a sweeping green-velvet gown that looked like an exact copy of the one Scarlett O’Hara sews from the ancestral drapes in Gone......

Ballad of a Tin Man

“My mother spent 15 years living in Mexico practicing to be a shaman with the Huichole Indians,” says first-time filmmaker Aiyana Elliott. “We‘ve done some shooting on that. I locked it in the back of my closet, I want to keep it there for a little while until I’ve recovered......

Back in 60 Seconds

For those who slogged through Gone in 60 Seconds wondering exactly what Jerry Bruckheimer had in mind, the answer is on imminent display as part of LACMA‘s ongoing ”Cars ’n‘ Stars“ road-film series. The original Gone in 60 Seconds, released in 1974, was produced, directed, written, financed and stunt-doubled by......
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Absolut Art Guise

Those headed east on the Sunset Strip in recent months may have noticed an Absolut Vodka billboard between Fairfax and Crescent Heights that seems to be taking a preternaturally long time to be put up. In fact, that’s the whole point: The ”ongoing installation“ is the conceptual handiwork of a......

The Man Who Got Away

Photo by Debra DiPaolo Before The Woman Chaser, based on Charles Willeford’s 1960 pulp classic, was selected for last year’s New York Film Festival, it was like every other independent film looking for the slightest patronage without even a calling card to get inside the gate. Shot in 35mm color......

Play Raffi for Me

“You‘re the first person to ask me that.” Screenwriter and reluctant star Mike White is somewhere in Larchmont on his 30th birthday, explaining the inspirations behind Chuck & Buck, a stalker comedy turned sexually ambiguous love story that is supremely adept at pushing deeply suppressed emotional buttons even as it......

Cinema Tech

It should be remembered that he came out of the old Hollywood that was rough and tough and where the wildest bluffs hold. --F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Last Tycoon In Wim Wenders‘ 1982 homage to filmmaking, The State of Things, a director leaves his crew on location in Portugal, where......