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The Unknown Known

It isn’t probable that Donald Rumsfeld’s memos are going to be collected in a volume for popular consumption. Unlike David O. Selznick’s. Selznick was perhaps the most prominent producer in the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood and the man who produced Gone With the Wind. He was also famous for his profusion of memoranda to directors, writers, and cinematographers, advising them of his take on their work as it progressed or didn’t. Often he’d visit the set to get a sense of what was happening. He may have thought of this as collaboration or protecting his investment. Some filmmakers regarded it as meddling. (Alfred Hitchcock was said to have pretended that the camera wasn’t working when Selznick showed up so he couldn’t tell what Hitch was really doing.)

God's Pocket

Philip Seymour Hoffman was 46 when he died a few months ago, which means he might well have given us 30 more performances had his life run its normal span. They probably wouldn’t all be gems—I won’t sit through the upcoming Hunger Games sequels only to see him. But that he was still working at the top of his game is demonstrated in God’s Pocket, one of two films he made that were unreleased at the time of his death. (The last, A Most Wanted Man, comes out in late July.)

Just a Sigh

Alix (Emmanuelle Devos) is not having a good day. An actress in her 40s still looking for her big break, she’s stuck doing Ibsen in the French port town of Calais, in a production that is past due on paying her salary. She takes a day trip to Paris for an audition during which she forgets to charge her phone, can’t get any money because her credit card is maxed out, and can’t get hold of her boyfriend of eight years.

Go Down Death

If you’ve been following the more-or-less monthly film series offered by Little Red Booking at Squeaky Wheel, you will know that this is cinema not for the faint of heart. That tradition is not broken with their latest offering, Go Down Death, the debut of Brooklyn filmmaker Aaron Schimberg.



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