Tara Price hails from New England and has her toes in a few different waters. She acts, produces, writes, and directs. For her directorial debut, Earworm, she dips in comedy and horror. She also wrote the horror short Another Grace and Johnny Adventure: Zombie Island in which she stars as Grace.
The Talk of Hollywood (1929)
This year marks the 90th anniversary of the release of “The Jazz Singer,” which forever changed the way audiences see and hear films. Today, it is difficult to imagine the chaos that sound recording brought to the film industry, but back in the day the introduction of the microphone and the sound engineer resulted in the destruction of some prominent careers.
The 1929 independent feature “The Talk of Hollywood” was the first film to detail the impact that the “talkies” had on the motion picture capital. The production also takes advantage of the lenient Pre-Code era by incorporating racy and politically incorrect humor into its often-savage satire of the business side of the movie world.
Glimpse (2016)
I don’t know how many audiences will click with “Glimpse” but for folks that can appreciate film as an experimental form of art with no real narrative, John Nicol’s movie is solid. It has no story and no dialogue and often time feels like some kind of music video, but it’s well made. Director Nicol seems to know what kind of movie he’s making, even if it’s never quite clear throughout the eight minute run time.
An Interview with Filmmaker Jill Sixx Gevargizian [WiHM 2017]
Jill Sixx Gevargizian is a filmmaker and music video director from Kansas City with roots in hairstyling and one awesome eye for beautiful images on films. Her newest project, a short for the Soska Sisters’ Massive Blood Drive PSA just dropped and she even stars in it.
Drifter (2016)
Two brothers on the run come afoul of one group after the other until they reach a seemingly abandoned desert village. There they meet a young woman who helps them and meet with a family of crazy cannibals. Written by Chris von Hoffman and Aria Emory, based on a story by von Hoffman who also directed, Drifter is a film about survival in the desert post apocalypse that shows every character but one as bad people. The “bad guys”, the cannibalistic family unit, are truly bad, while the brothers come off as being bad people out of necessity and desperation. Only one character seems mostly good but also a victim of some weird form of Standahl Syndrome. She’s the one who attempts to help the brothers before things really go to shit for them.
The Red Turtle (La Tortue Rouge) (2016)
This is one of the very few animated productions where Studio Ghibli’s fantastic storytelling is given a hint of European flavor. While “The Red Turtle” is branded a Studio Ghibli production it garners much of the same elements from Ghibli’s library including a wide open world, a menacing series of creatures and the overtones of the symbioses of nature and humanity. It’s best to think of “The Red Turtle” as a fairy tale, as the movie relies on a lot of inexplicability to tell its thin narrative. The narrative being thin is by no means a criticism as “The Red Turtle” is a lot about raw events, and simplicity at its finest.
A Second Glance at 2016’s Oscar Animated Shorts
Time seems to be the central theme of the animated shorts for the Oscars this year, as all of the animated shorts have some semblance of the theme of time. Most of the shorts spend their story examining the beauty of the past and the present, while others examine the tragedy of the past, the present, and the future. As with most years at the Oscars, you won’t always find typical animated entries, but this year’s crop have been quite special and incredibly thought provoking. I take a second glance at the shorts this year, and what I am voting to win come February 26th.