This photo, by The Isthmus’ film critic Kenneth Burns, is from last night’s WIFF opening night screening of The Art of the Steal.  This is festival director/superhero Meg Hamel.  I’m at the upper left of the photo, with my wife Anne leaning in.  The full article is here and captures the WIFF atmosphere pretty well.
Tonight: another [...]

The Wisconsin Film Festival launched one day earlier this year, in festival director Meg Hamel’s tentative steps in expanding the scope of WIFF to five days rather than the typical four.  This is the twelfth year of the festival and it’s been growing in popularity each year; I moved to Madison from Salt Lake City, so it’s [...]

The 2010 Wisconsin Film Festival begins this week Wednesday, running through Sunday at various venues across Madison, Wisconsin.  My annual tradition is to blog the festival, and I’ll be doing so again right here.  Here’s my lineup:
Wednesday:
The Art of the Steal
Thursday:
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg & the Pentagon Papers
Friday:
The Thorn in the [...]

Joseph Losey’s These are the Damned (aka The Damned) is one of the better thrillers to ever be released by Hammer Studios, although, apart from the presence of studio mainstay Oliver Reed, it hardly seems to fit into their repertoire. Yet they can claim it proudly – there, it says “shot in Hammerscope” in bright [...]