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In 1983, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, along with Media Study/Buffalo, created a touring retrospective of avant-garde films, primarily feature-length ones and a few shorts, which they called “The American New Wave 1958-1967.” To accompany the tour, a hefty catalog was produced that included notes on the films, essays by film historians and critics, writings by major underground film figures and more.

The retrospective was created at a time when financially viable independent filmmaking was on the rise, such as films made by John Sayles, Wayne Wang and Susan Seidelman. According to the co-curators of the retrospective, Melinda Ward and Bruce Jenkins, the objective of the tour was to:

provide a more adequate picture than conventional history affords us of a rare period of American cinematic invention and thereby prepare a coherent critical and historical context for the reception of the new work by the current generation of independent filmmakers.

Originally published at https://storyboardfilm.wordpress.com/ Some people choose to trivialise horror (horror films almost never win any important awards). Some choose to intellectualise it (read Noel Carroll’s The Philosophy of Horror). Some choose to ban it out of a (misplaced) sense of righteousness. Whatever it is, horror is one genre that never goes out of style. Was there ever a time when there were few, or no horror films in the cinemas? Every decade, every era, finds its relevance in horror fiction, and vice-versa. As long as there are wars, diseases, murders, unexplained terrors, our collective angst and paranoia will feed the creators of horror fiction. I decided to write this post having recently watched the much-praised James Wan movie The Conjuring. My verdict of that...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

For the fifth year, IndieWire is co-hosting the Locarno Critics Academy, giving a group of talented up-and-coming critics a chance to help their role in the current climate for film criticism and journalism at the Locarno International Film Festival. With assistance from Penske Media, the Swiss Alliance of Film Journalists and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, participants will engage in a series of activities and then get to work. They will spend the first half of the festival which begins today, in roundtable discussions with working critics and industry figures; beginning next week, they’ll write about films at this year’s festival, as well as topics ranging from television to digital media.

Before then, take a minute to get to know them, and find out what they’re looking forward to checking out. Keep up with their dispatches from this year’s festival here and follow them on Twitter.

When Machinima announced the re-launch of its Machinima Prime channel, execs promised a return to the network's roots. Sure enough, the first original series from the new Prime is a classic combination of video games and comedy. It's called Dr. 1Up, and it stars Noel Carroll as the titular doctor, who provides medical advice to video game characters. Each episode features a diagnosis of a famous video game character. In the debut, Solid Snake arrives at Dr. 1Up's clinic and learns that 30 years of nonstop cigarette consumption has caused him to contract aggressive lung cancer. He doesn't seem to mind, because he's too busy hiding in boxes and launching into 30-minute long soliloquies. Meanwhile, the doctor's receptionist (played by Bree Essrig) hatches a plan to get the stars of The Last of Us to stop annoying her. Dr. 1Up was written by Woody Tondorf (who is co-leading Machinima Prime's return...

The first all-new original program to launch on the re-branded Machinima Prime, Dr. 1Up is visited each week in his office by the biggest and most fearsome names in the video game world - including Master Chief (Halo), Lara Croft (Tomb Raider) and Nathan Drake (Uncharted), Raiden (Mortal Kombat), and much more - so he can treat each character's ailments. Dr. 1Up is directed by Ukrainian Yuri Baranofsky (Break A Leg, The Temp Life, Leap Year) and written by Woody Tondorf (The Morning After, The Dark Knight Legacy).  The series stars Noel Carroll as Dr. 1Up, YouTube personality Bree Essrig as Nurse Janet and Haley Mancini (Most Popular Girls In School, Smosh's 16 bit High, Mad Men) as Dovahkiin. Additionally, each episode will feature notable actors and YouTube personalities including Inside Gaming Host Adam Kovic who plays Master Chief and premiere voiceover star Matthew Mercer (Attack on Titan, Destiny, Arkham Origins,...