A self-admitted lover of armchair philosophy, nonfiction filmmaker Andrew Neel prefers questions to answers. “Present day cinema, indie documentaries included, has devolved into thesis-driven filmmaking; people want a conclusion walking out the door. I think that’s the death of cinema.

“When I leave a film that I feel is really good, I leave with lots of complicated questions that I can’t always answer, that I don’t feel comfortable answering,” he explains.

In studying the little understood culture of political conspiracy theorists, Neel, along with longtime collaborator and co-director Luke Meyer, engages with New World Order several of these uncomfortable questions, the most unnerving of which are: Is there a global elite, this New World Order, that orchestrates the hierarchies and power plays in societies? Does this elite, more alarmingly, hope to handicap the world only to rebuild it in its own image later?

As it follows the leaders of the growing 9/11 Truth Movement, foremost among them incendiary activist Alex Jones, the documentary staunchly refuses to make any judgment calls. If at times the messages sent within the film edify too passionately, the calls “9/11 was an inside job,” and “Wake up!” forever after to play in the recordings of the subconscious, it’s that the subjects of the film, not Neel or Meyer themselves as directors, have spoken those messages out so forcefully. Opting instead simply to gaze with great compassion at its oft ignored and scorned subjects, New World Order, at its core, is much less about government machinations than it is about the profundity of humaneness in a world rife with confusion.

Whereas in their last directorial collaboration Darkon, a glimpse into the fantasy world of live action role players, Neel and Meyer had the freedom to engage with all questions of fact and fiction, with New World Order, Neel says, explorations were thorny in that through the process of making the film questions arose that, as the directors, neither he nor Meyer could address for fear of compromising their objectivity, and hence the film along with it. In this interview, however, Neel opens up to share his thoughts on the power of ideas, the problem of peaceful revolution and the little bit of fear he has for the future.

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On the other end of the phone line, first time feature director though veteran film and television producer Dia Sokol admits that she’s more than a bit nervous for this interview about her naturalistic “anti-chemistry, unromantic comedy” debut Sorry, Thanks. “This never used to happen to me. As a producer, I’d listen to directors fumble their way through describing their films, and I’ve always jumped in and been the person to sell it, to be articulate about it, and now I totally get it,” she says. “When it’s your film, you’re totally inarticulate about it; it comes from inside of you, so you have no perspective.”

Starring a mixed cast of professional and non-professional actors and shot by a skeleton crew in San Francisco’s endearingly eccentric Mission District, Sorry, Thanks follows two adrift lonesomes Max (Wiley Wiggins) and Kira (Kenya Miles), neither of whom, even after a shared one-night stand, can begin to reconcile their thoughts on romantic relationships. As Max chases Kira, detaching himself along the way from longtime girlfriend Sara (Ia Hernandez), and attempts to immune himself to the criticism of his best bud Mason (Andrew Bujalski), Kira explores an uninspiring dating scene that only very quietly pinpoints the sadness of her recent break-up.

Despite its bittersweet, introspection-inducing lining, Sorry, Thanks is at its core incredibly funny, even at times painfully funny. Foibles are so at the surface, sarcasm so easily blended with childlike wonder that it’s simple to just enjoy the film without questioning every character intention and situation repercussion. It’s easy, namely, to root for Max and Kira even as they stumble into moral quagmires, and that’s where Sokol, in only the most articulate of manners, begins discussing her work.

[In the film’s production notes] you pose the question, “Can we still love these characters even when they are doing things wrong?” For me that answer with this film was, “Yes.” Yet I don’t fully know why it is that I still have that faith even as I watch these characters fall into situations that are morally gray. So, this idea of the moral quandary, I was hoping that we could start our talk there.

I started my career working for Errol Morris, and that informed a lot of my skepticism about the idea of redemption. So, when I talked to [co-writer and producer Lauren Veloski] about starting to write this, I said, “I really want to make a film that’s about redemption.” (laughs) When I look at this film now and think about that, to me it’s a reminder, “Oh yeah, and I don’t believe in redemption.” I believe in it as a concept, but I don’t know that I believe in it as an actuality. I don’t think the world works that way, and I’m incredibly ambivalent about films that act like you can make up for your bad actions. So, in some ways, I wanted the film to be about, “When you break something, is it really broken?”

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Alejandro Adams‘ second feature, Canary, is a wildly ambitious and not particularly audience-friendly (in fact, you could almost call it audience-hostile) work of indie sci-fi with new-fangled digital aesthetics and old-fashioned Altman-esque dialogue patterns put to the service of an overwhelming and surprisingly fresh-feeling sense of dystopian dread.  The film premieres at CineQuest on Sunday. I watched it on my MacBook while flying from New York to Los Angeles last week. Adams thinks it’s important that I mention that. He says, “I’m glad you watched it on an airplane…that is not merely a valid way to watch my film; that IS my film.  I reject all other modes of consumption because they unmake what I made.  What I made was for Karina Longworth on that flight from New York to Los Angeles.”

In an ongoing email conversation, I started out by asking Alejandro a variation of one of The 5 Questions We Ask Everybody; he took over from there, eventually pushing me to the point where I felt the need to invoke Heidegger, which I usually try really hard not to do. Canary’s screening schedule can be found here; there have also been some interesting conversations on the film’s blog.

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One of Karina Longworth’s favorite undistributed films of last year is available to watch for free on Reel 13. Sita Sings the Blues won the Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You award at the 2008 Gotham Awards. In Karina’s review from Tribeca 2008, she called it, “a strange and beautiful little film, a potentially wispy slice of autobiography smartly elevated through irresistible, orgiastic style.”

Watch the movie and read Brandon Harris’ interview with director Nina Paley from last November (republished) after the jump.

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ATWT: Let me ask you about this book you have coming out, “The Conquest of the Useless”.

WH: Ah yes, that’s a book, a prose book that’s going to be released in the summer by Harper Collins. The translation is just finished and I’m working on the translation, I’m doing some corrections and modifications. But it’s good that you mention it, because this book is certainly better than all of my films together.

ATWT: Really? Why do you say?

WH: When it’s out, read it and you will know.

In an interview with AJ Schnack, Werner Herzog discusses his upcoming book, Conquest of the Useless, which will be released on June 30. According to Amazon, its subtitle is Reflections on the Making of Fitzcarraldo, which would suggest that it’s an English translation/update of a version of Herzog’s diaries from the making of that film which was already published in Italy.

“Conquistadors of the useless” is a pet phrase of Herzog’s, popping up in Herzog and Herzog in reference to his determination to actually move the boat over the mountain in the making of Fitzcarraldo, rather than fake it or take it apart and move it in pieces. The phrase most recently appeared in print when he used it to describe “[most] everyone who climbs a steep cliff and climbs a building made of steel and glass,” when two men tried to coincidentally tried to scale the New York Times building the same day Herzog appeared there in coversation with Jonathan Demme.

Set in alternate-universe present day versions of frozen-over Russia and the Manhattan theatrical intelligensia (the latter resembling something Charlie Kaufman might have come up with, minus the self-deprecating suspicion of success that leads him to mock the careerist stars of Needleman in a Haystack), Sophie Barthes‘ very strong first feature Cold Souls stars Paul Giamatti as an actor named Paul Giamatti, a movie star struggling to get into the character of Uncle Vanya on the stage. His agent points him to an article in the New Yorker about an extraction and cold storage facility for souls on Roosevelt Island. At the end of his rope, Paul goes through the procedure, but find that soulless, his performance is even worse — imagine Vanya as interpreted by a handsy William Shatner. It’s when Giamatti attempts to get back his original soul (shaped, in one of the film’s best running jokes, like a chick pea) that he discovers that the pristine New York clinic where he had the procedure is a front for a roiling Russian soul black market, and with the help of an attractive female soul mule (Dina Korzun), embarks on a journey to St. Petersberg.

In an interview at the Sundance Film Festival last week, Barthes discussed reading Jung, dreaming about Woody Allen, and why she hopes Putin doesn’t read film blogs.

So why would Paul Giamatti’s soul look like a chickpea?

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John Krasinski is best known for his role as Jim on NBC’s The Office, but he originally got into acting because he’d attended a table reading of David Foster Wallace’s Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, and he decided he wanted to stick with it when he realized how smart acting could be. He began pursuing the film rights to Brief Interviews, and at a suggestion from co-star Rainn Wilson he decided to direct it himself.

Cut to Sundance 2009, where his adaptation of Brief Interviews With Hideous Men was in competition. Spout attended a small press conference with Krasinski at Sundance where he spoke about adapting Foster Wallace’s collection of short stories, his first time directing, and why he’s not ready to leave The Office.

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Michael Jai White is best known to the world of movie-going geeks as the title hero in 1997’s Spawn, and as the gangster overlord Gambol in The Dark Knight. However, after this year’s Sundance Film Festival, it’s going to be hard for him to dodge calls of “Black Dynamite!” in public. This homage to classic 1970s blaxploitation films surpasses movies like I’m Gonna Get You Sucka, and is definitely worth seeing.

White and director Scott Sanders sat down to discuss the Obama presidency, how James Brown inspired the movie, the future of action films, and what the future plans are for a Spawn sequel.

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Patton Oswalt’s starring role in Big Fan is a huge departure from what his fans will expect. It’s not a comedic role, but rather a dark turn as a fan so deeply obsessed with his beloved New York Giants that he exists solely to serve the team. Even when presented with the opportunity to change his life forever, he holds on to his bottom-rung job as a toll-booth attendant and continues down the same path he’s on at the start of the film.

We caught up with Oswalt at Sundance and he spoke about Dungeons & Dragons, how he’s over the fad of improvising, and why Crank is equal to Rachel Getting Married.
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Director Greg Mottola has had a Sundance-in-reverse journey since his 1996 film The Daytrippers premiered at Slamdance that year, and he then moved into the world of television directing, worked on Judd Apatow’s Freaks and Geeks followup series Undeclared, directed Superbad, one of the biggest comedies in recent years, and now is finally at Sundance with his movie Adventureland.

Adventureland was inspired by Mottola’s own experience working at a theme park in the 1980s after college, and it’s a bittersweet look at young romance. Check out our interview with Mottola after the break.

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Doug Pray has directed documentaries ranging from Hype!, about the exploitation of the grunge music scene in Seattle, to Infamy in 2005, about graffiti culture, to last year’s Surfwise, about the surfing Paskowitz family and their eccentric patriarch. Pray’s Sundance premiere Art & Copy is a scattershot look at some of the pillars of advertising including George Lois, Lee Clow, Dan Wieden, Mary Wells, David Kennedy, and the big campaigns they’ve worked on, such as Apple’s 1984, the Got Milk campaign, Nike’s “Just Do It,” and more. We talked to Pray about his planned move into narrative filmmaking, making an ad for ads, and “growing flowers in hell.”

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In the director’s statement slipped into the press notes for his Robin Williams-starring Sundance entry World’s Greatest Dad, Bobcat Goldthwait says it took him 25 years in show business to figure out that what he really wants to do is direct movies, and doing so makes him feel like he’s “getting away with murdr.” That’s a fair description of what he pulls off in Dad, in which a frustrated novelist/high school teacher (Williams) exploits the death of a loved one to plump up his own popularity. Though far more polished than Goldthwait’s 2006 Sundance competition film Sleeping Dogs Lie (also known as Stay), Dad rides the same line between obscene satire and almost mushy sincerity. I talked to Goldthwait about self-Googling, why he has no desire for his stand-up fans to see his movies, and why he’s not going on Celebrity Fit Club any time soon.

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Peter and Vandy, starring Jess Weixler (Teeth) and Jason Ritter and adapted by director Jay DiPietro from his own play, hops around in time to show a romance’s beginning and end simultaneously. Answering our 4 Questions We Ask Everyone, DiPietro talks about gift bags, threats from Mike Ditka, and why Scenes From a Marriage could make facing instant death seem bearable.

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If you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, or don’t have the internet available at home yet (which makes me wonder how you’re reading this), then maybe you’ve been obliviously to the explosion of fan films. These are movies produced with the intent of taking an existing property and breathing new life into it, with sequels, prequels, or “what ifs.” In some cases these films take on a life of their own, which was the case with the childhood friends who decided to make a shot-by-shot remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark with a VHS camcorder.

Author Clive Young has put together a book that charts the progress of fan films (starting in the 1920s!), and how the internet and inexpensive filmmaking tools have taken these otherwise obscure short films and fan efforts into new arenas. We talked to Young about the fan film dabbling of Hugh Hefner and Andy Warhol, the distribution future of that Raiders remake, and why fan filmmaking is a boy’s club.

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