Click here to listen to the interview. Clarkston, GA has been the most diverse square mile in America, and that was the original focus of REFUGE, the documentary Din Blankenship and Erin Levin Bernhardt had planned to make. For several decades it has been where refugees from all over the world have been settled by… Read More »
BURDEN — Andrew Heckler and Robbie Brenner Interview
Click here to listen to the interview. When Andrew Heckler first heard the story of how an African-American clergyman, Rev. David E. Kennedy, shepherding a flock in a small southern town, put his principles to work in order to save the soul of a Klan member, Michael Burden, who had seen the light, he knew… Read More »
GODDESS: THE FALL AND RISE OF SHOWGIRLS — Lotti Pharriss Knowles Interview
Click here to listen to the interview. Lotti Pharriss Knowles is an unabashed, non-ironic fan of SHOWGIRLS, and she is prepared to tell you exactly why. It’s had an enormous impact on her personal life (we get to that story later in my interview with her), but what she really wants to explore in GODDESS:… Read More »
TRIAL BY FIRE — Ed Zwick Interview
Click here to listen to the interview. A film like TRIAL BY FIRE provokes a host of questions about the justice system and the ethics of capital punishment. When I spoke with Ed Zwick on April 15, 2019, those inevitably came up as we discussed adapting the true story of Cameron Todd Willingham’s murder conviction, and… Read More »
THE WOODSMAN
THE WOODSMAN is the bravest film of the year, perhaps of the decade. Emotionally challenging and ferociously unforgiving, it is an astonishing work of surprising delicacy played out with the rawest of emotion simmering just beneath the surface. In telling the story of Walter (Kevin Bacon), a convicted pedophile, it demands that we look beyond… Read More »
Brit Marling Considers ANOTHER EARTH
ANOTHER EARTH is a film that sets the synapses firing with its consideration of identity, reality, and redemption as it posits a reality where the sky is suddenly filled with a duplicate of our home planet. When I spoke with co-writer and co-star Brit Marling on July 14, 2011, the conversation reflected that as it… Read More »
The LEVITY of Ed Solomon
Making his directorial debut filming his own script wasn’t the only break Mark Solomon made with his previous work. Unlike the broad comedy he’s done before, LEVITY is a thought-provoking film that isn’t afraid to examine matters religious and moral in a world that offers few absolutes when it comes to right and wrong. It was… Read More »