Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was my favorite film of 2011. I was prepared for the byzantine plot but surprised by its emotional heft. The narrative’s pervasive sense of anguish, wrought by personal and professional compromise, was carefully anchored by Gary Oldman’s nuanced portrait of George Smiley. And the visual atmosphere, opulent yet decaying, reminded me of another portrait of societal decline, The Conformist.

The film easily affirmed Tomas Alfredson as one of the most assured stylists in cinema.  And like neo-noir peers David Fincher and Park Chan-Wook, Alfredson uses VFX as an expressive yet often imperceptible tool.

This video reveals how he and the VFX team at The Chimney Pot utilized animation to subtly enhance the film’s visual scope.

Third project in a series of video installations for the band Wax Fingers.

Kubrick, during a conversation on Hemingway: “Do you think it was true that he was drunk all the time, even when he wrote? Yeah? Well, I’ll have to find out what he was drinking and send a case to all my writers”

On the topic of another writer, Kerr relates:
I once told Stanley William Burroughs’s line “A paranoid-schizophrenic is a guy who just found out what’s going on,” and he took it to his heart. “Wait a minute, wait a minute. I’ve gotta write that down.”

RIP Stanley.

Eric Koretz, cinematographer on Iditarod, shot this superb-looking doc, Dragonslayer, executive produced by Christine Vachon.

My friend and fellow AFI classmate, director Zal Batmanglij is screening his film Sound of My Voice. It was shot by another good friend, and my cinematographer/co-writer on Redemption Maddie, Rachel Morrison. It debuted at Sundance to very positive notices.

Here’s a brief synopsis: Peter and Lorna, a young Silver Lake couple, delve into the underworld of a cult that meets in the San Fernando valley.

Check out a clip here:http://www.traileraddict.com/emd/35354