David LowEthan de Siefe ’95 has written an entertaining new book, Tashlinesque: The Hollywood Comedies of Frank Tashlin (Wesleyan University Press). In the preface of his study, de Siefe writes: “Director Frank Tashlin left an indelible impression on American and global film comedy. His films are some of the funniest, most visually inventive comedies ever made, and they feature landmark performances by some of the greatest comedians in American film history, a list that includes not only Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis, but Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, and Bugs Bunny.” Tashlin (1913–1972) was a supremely gifted satirist and visual stylist yet…
David PesciEvery Tuesday night this July is a Cary Grant night at Wesleyan, though he'll be joined by some very attractive company. “Cary Grant and his Leading Ladies” is the title and theme of this year's installment of Wesleyan University's annual Wesleyan Summer Film Series. The free series held at the Goldsmith Family Cinema will feature a classic, fully-restored Cary Grant film each Tuesday night in July, with an introductory talk beginning at 7:30 p.m. The screenings star on Tuesday, July 6, with “To Catch a Thief” featuring Grant and Grace Kelly. On Tuesday, July 13, Connecticut’s own Katherine Hepburn and…
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Olivia DrakeThe Wesleyan Film Studies Department and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are hosting the 2010 Independent Filmmaker Series through April 29. The series features a different film and guest speaker every week. The program consists of a diverse array of films and speakers which showcase the very best in contemporary independent cinema. All shows in the series begin at 8 p.m. in the Center for Film Studies' Goldsmith Family Cinema. They are free of charge and open to the public. April 8: Writer/director Courtney Hunt will speak after a viewing of her film, Frozen River. April 15:…
When college students Chris and Robby woke up outside after their 21st birthday bash, they assumed their night included dancing, girls and a fist fight. But a friend later confirms the intoxicated duo spent the entire party outside lying on top of their cars. "What were we even doing out there, man," Chris asks a hung-over Robby. The characters "Chris" and "Robby," played by Christopher Correa '10 and Robby Hardesty '11 are two of four main characters in the new FutureHouse Pictures Enrolled web series. To date, the FutureHouse Pictures staff has created two episodes, screened exclusively through YouTube. Correa…
A film directed by Ákos Östör, professor of anthropology, emeritus, and edited by film major Joe Sousa ’03, explores the life of a painter, composer and singer living in West Bengal, India. The 35-minute film, Songs of a Sorrowful Man, was screened Oct. 29 in the Powell Family Cinema inside the Center for Film Studies. The "sorrowful man," Dukhushyam Chitrakar is a charismatic figure who encourages women to take up the traditional craft of scroll painting and musical composition pursued almost exclusively by men before. In a series of edited sequences, the film chronicles Dukhushyam's vision of the decline and rebirth…
The hit movie Zombieland marks the directorial debut of Ruben Fleischer ’97 and was number one at the box office when it opened nationwide on October 2. During its opening weekend, the film sold $25 million worth of tickets in the U.S. and Canada and cost Columbia (Sony) Pictures and co-financier Relativity Media only $23.6 million to produce. It has remained in the top 10 films at the box office in the weeks that followed. The film also was notable for ending a recent trend of poor openings for movies with horror elements such as Jennifer's Body and Sorority Row. Zombieland…
Thomas Kail ’99 is the director of a new play, Broke-ology, by Nathan Louis Jackson, which opened on Oct. 5 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center in New York City. This touching and often humorous play concerns two African-American brothers who care for their ailing widowed father in Kansas City, Kansas, as they face their own responsibilities. Kail elicits first-rate performances from the four-person cast, which includes Wendell Pierce (The Wire), Crystal A. Dickinson, Francois Battiste, and Alano Miller. The play opened to several positive reviews. In his review in The New York Times, Charles Isherwood wrote: …
Corrina KerrSeveral Wesleyan alumni-related films were part of the recent program on view at the Toronto International Film Festival, which was held Sept. 10–19. The festival has become the launching ground for films from around the world as well as for films that go on to win prominent awards. Among the films shown were Youth in Revolt, directed by Miguel Arteta ’89 (Chuck & Buck, The Good Girl), a very funny comedy based on the cult novels by C. D. Payne about the misadventures of a sex-obsessed 14-year-old Nick Twisp with a French alter-ego who inspires him to misbehave. Michael Cera…
Oscar-winner Akiva Goldsman ’83 (with David Koepp) co-wrote the screenplay of Angels and Demons, directed by Ron Howard, which was number one at the box office at $48 million during its first weekend. The film opened nationwide at at 3,527 theaters on Friday, May 15. Based on the novel by Dan Brown, Angels and Demons is a prequel to the best-selling thriller The Da Vinci Code which follows the adventures of Harvard University symbologist and theology sleuth Robert Langdon. The movie version of The Da Vinci Code, which also had a screenplay by Goldsman, was a hugely popular film internationally,…
Next to the Sundance Film Festival, the annual South By Southwest (a.k.a. SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas, may be the most prestigious forum for new independent films in The United States. So when Noah Hutton ’09 had his film Crude Independence accepted by SXSW in the documentary category he couldn’t help feeling excited. “It was a huge honor,” he says. “The festival has evolved so quickly in the past few years to be one of the top US film festivals with an international spotlight and it was a perfect place to show our work. The exposure you receive there is…