Tag: production assistant

Oh, Canada

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 13 January 2026
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Director – Paul Schrader – 2024 – US – Cert. 15 – 94m

From the novel by Russell Banks

***

A documentary filmmaker dying of cancer consents to a filmed interview about his life and work to air his dirty laundry – on UK and Ireland digital platforms on Monday, January 12th

“Remind me why I agreed to do this,” says the ageing Leonard Fife, aka Leo (Richard Gere, from Schrader’s earlier American Gigolo, 1980) setting up for a filmed interview, about his life and work as a documentary filmmaker, at which he has insisted his wife Emma (Uma Thurman), a former student of his, be present. His interviewer Malcolm (Michael Imperioli from Song Sung Blue, Craig Brewer, 2025; The White Lotus, TV series, Mike White, 2021; The Sopranos, TV series, 1999–2007) is another former student, as is Malcolm’s producer Diana (Victoria Hill from First Reformed, 2017; Master Gardener, 2022, both Paul Schrader), another former student conquest of Leo’s; Malcolm’s production assistant is 24-year old Sloan (Penelope Mitchell from Sting, Kiah Roache-Turner, 2024; Hellboy, Neil Marshall, 2019; The Vampire Diaries, TV series, 2014-15; Hemlock Grove, TV series, 2013).

What lies behind Leonard’s acceptance of the gig swiftly becomes clear when he hijacks the first question, framing it with a date in 1968 of great significance in his personal life.… Read the rest

Tags 1968, 24-year old, abandoning relationships, adaptation, adultery, ageing, artist, bad decisions, Calvinist upbringing, Canada, Caroline Dhavernas, CEO, Christian, Christianity, close to death, confession, conservative values, death, dirty laundry, disloyal, documentary, documentary films, draft dodger, dream sequence, dreams and reality, dying of cancer, exposing, extra-marital affair, family business, family home, family priest, father-in-law, fathers and sons, filmed interview, first novel, first wife, flashback, former student, frame device, frame story, good offer, high places, humanist, husbands and wives, imagined memory, in-laws, infidelities, investigative, Jacob Elordi, Jake Weary, Kristine Froseth, life and work, life decisions, loyalty, male heir, marital infidelities, Megan MacKenzie, memory, Michael Imperioli, miscarriage, morality, mortality, mother-in-law, novel, novelist, nurse, Paul Schrader, Penelope Mitchell, producer, production assistant, property, prosperity, relationships, religion, retrospective, Richard Gere, rite of Confession, Russell Banks, sex, sexism, Southern US, student conquest, talk things through, Uma Thurman, US, Vermont, Victoria Hill, Vietnam War, voice-over, wives, writer, wrongdoing, younger self, Zach Shaffer

Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Dark Star

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 10 December 2025
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Director – John Carpenter – 1974 – US – Cert. PG – 83m (71m Directors Cut)

*****

Let There Be Light: The Odyssey of Dark Star

Director – Daniel Griffith – 2010 – US – 118 mins

*****

A bored crew of astronauts travel through space blowing up unstable planets – out now as a 4K Ultra-HD and Blu-ray Box Set, and a standalone Blu-ray

Carpenter’s 71-minute cut of his extraordinary debut feature is a lean, if tacky, sci-fi comedy that succeeds because of clever characterisations in the script and exemplary use of minimal resources in its production. Begun as a student film at USC, it preceeds his more polished, widescreen thriller efforts of the 1970s starting with Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) and Halloween (1978) with their relentless, pounding scores which he also composed and which would enable him to reinvent himself as a performing musician much later in his career. With no driving beat, Dark Star’s keyboard tones merely hint at what is to come musically.

The spaceship interiors are deceptively simple. One is a small room with four seats crammed side to side alternately facing from which four crew members operate the ship. Or, rather, three – Lt.… Read the rest

Tags action figure, alien, astronauts, beach ball, Bill Taylor, bomb bay, bomb timer, bored, Brian Narelle, Cal Cuniholm, cognitive bomb, comedy, control room, Cookie Knapp, crew, Crohn’s disease, cryogenically frozen, cryogenics, cut-out animation, Dan O'Bannon, Daniel Griffith, Dark Star, detonation schedule, Diane O'Bannon, diary entry, documentary, Douglas Knapp, Dre Pahich, eight-track cartridge, explosion, feed, film student, Greg Jein, Jack H. Harris, Jeff Burr, Joe Saunders, John Carpenter, keyboard, lift, lift interior, lift shaft, Major Matt Mason, malfunctioning seat circuit, Mattel, model, model work, musician, Nick Castle, optical effects, production assistant, sci-fi, ship’s chicken food, ship’s computer, ship’s mascot, space travel, special effects, student film, Tommy Lee Wallace, trap, travel, unstable planet, US, use only at sub light velocity

Features Live Action Movies

Do Not Expect Too Much
from
the End of the World
(Nu Astepta Prea Mult
de la Sfârsitul Lumii)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 29 February 2024
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from
the End of the World
(Nu Astepta Prea Mult
de la Sfârsitul Lumii)
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Director – Radu Jude – 2023 – Romania, Croatia, France, Luxembourg – Cert. 18 – 163m

*****

The daily, working life of an overworked production assistant on a corporate film about victims of industrial accident – out on digital from Monday, June 3rd

Angela (Ilinka Manolache) wakes in her mess of an apartment. Another busy day of overwork. She drives to the homes of serial, prospective interviewees for the corporate film on which she is currently working as a production assistant to evaluate their suitability for the film and take mobile phone videos of them herself.

Whenever she gets a spare moment, she posts on TikTok using a filter that changes her head into that of a man, and under the name Bobita posts colourful and sweary, verbal rants about the British Royal family and other topics. Suffering from sleep deprivation, she dozes during the afternoon production meeting and keeps the radio on while driving to prevent sleeping at the wheel.

Towards the end of the day, she finds time for an in-car assignation with her lover, but that doesn’t last long as she has to go and pick up the production’s corporate commissioning marketing person Doris Goethe (Nina Hoss), direct descendant of the famous writer, from the airport.… Read the rest