A Steady Diet of Film

Wine and Film, these are a few of my favorite things...

This weekend was the lovely but unattainable Sonoma Valley Film Festival where over the course of 5 days dozens of indie, foreign, documentary, and student films were screened. Film Light favorites included:


Mondovino - Jonathan Nossiter's new documentary about wine-making in a geo-political context. Nossiter was recently iviewed by FilmMaker magazine.

Four-eyed Monster - a bizarre, low-budget comedy about online dating in a post-post-modern, meta-relationship NYC.

Tennis, Anyone? - Hyphenate extradanaire Donal Logue wrote, directed, and starred in this film about B-list actors trying to get back into the spotlight via celebrity charity tennis circuit.

On the Outs - three stories about young girls who each wind up in a youth detention center in New Jersey.

Return to Sender - a prison love story starring Tim Daly and Lifetime-for-Women-favorite Connie Nielson. Delicious.

Z Channel: a Magnificent Obsession - Xan Cassavetes' short doc about a local cable station in Los Angeles in the late 70's that was the first (and possibly the last) to show unedited films by Bertolucci, Leone, Peckinpah, etc. inspiring a generation of young LA film-makers. Interviews include: Robert Altman, Jacqueline Bisset, Alexander Payne, Quentin Tarantino, Paul Verhoeven, James Woods.

Beauty Academy of Kabul - documentary about aspiring hairdressers in Afghanistan. Part of indiewire's Undiscovered Gems series


Special tribute paid to Saul Zaentz, James Woods, Joe Pantoliano, Aidan Quinn, Jon Favreau.

posted by Erin @ Monday, April 04, 2005