By Robert Goldrich
VENICE, Calif. --Assistant editor Daniel Moreno-Luna of Union Editorial, Santa Monica, topped the field of entrants in the Association of Independent Creative Editors (AICE)/ Los Angeles chapter’s third annual Trailer Park Festival. Originated by AICE/Chicago and since picked up by several other chapters (see story on AICE/New York event, p. 7), the film trailer-cutting competition is an opportunity for assistant editors from AICE shops to showcase their editing talents. Winners were honored last month during a screening ceremony held at Brass Knuckles Editorial in Venice.
This time around the L.A. chapter chose Lord of the Rings-Return of the Kings as the Trailer Park movie. The film won the best editing Oscar at the 2004 Academy Awards. For the AICE/L.A. competition, the trailers for the film had to be a cross genre portrayal, meaning that sci-fi adventure was off limits and that all other genres were fair game. This made for a broad creative canvas for aspiring editors.
Moreno-Luna opted for an over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek, comedic trailer promoting a Mexican Cinema presentation: Legend of the Chupacabra, a tale of mystery, suspense, death, romance and tequila.
Taking second place in the competition was Logan Hefflefinger of The Whitehouse, Santa Monica, followed by Marelina Martinez of Brass Knuckles, Asako Ushio of Jigsaw, Santa Monica, and Kristen McCasey of FilmCore, Santa Monica.
The work was judged by a panel of leading editors: Igor Kovalik of Inside/Out, Santa Monica; Paul Martinez of Lost Planet, Santa Monica; Bee Ottinger of Rock Paper Scissors, Los Angeles; Tiffany Burchard of FilmCore; and the mono-monikered Katz of Cosmo Street, Santa Monica.
The awards gala was organized by Joe Disanto, executive producer of Brass Knuckles, Steve McCoy, president of FilmCore, and Tim Jacobs, a producer at FilmCore. Jacobs also served as the evening’s emceeNew York Film Fest Preview: “The Brutalist,” “Nickel Boys,” “April,” “All We Imagine as Light”
When you think of blockbusters, the first thing that comes to mind might not be a 215-minute postwar epic screening for the first time at Lincoln Center. But that was the scene last week when the New York Film Festival hosted a 70mm print of Brady Corbet's "The Brutalist." The festival hadn't then officially begun — its 62nd edition opens Friday — but the advance press screening drew long lines — as some attendees noted, not unlike those at Ellis Island in the film — and a packed Walter Reade Theatre. Word had gotten around: "The Brutalist" is something to see. Corbet's epic, starring Adrian Brody as a Jewish architect remaking his life in Pennsylvania, is the kind of colossal cinematic construction that doesn't come around every day. Shot in VistaVision and structured like movements in a symphony (with a 15-minute intermission to boot), "The Brutalist" is indeed something to behold. It's arthouse and blockbuster in one, and, maybe, a reminder of the movies' capacity for uncompromising grandeur — and the awe that can inspire. It's been fashionable in recent years to wonder about the fate of the movies, but it can be hard to placate those concerns at the New York Film Festival. The festival prizes itself on gathering the best cinema from around the world. And this year, the movies are filled with bold forays of form and perspective that you can feel pushing film forward. This is also the time Oscar campaigns begin lurching into gear, with Q&As and cocktail parties. But, unlike last year when "Oppenheimer" and "Barbie" were entrenched as favorites, the best picture race is said to be wide open. In that vacuum, movies like "The Brutalist" and the NYFF opener, RaMell Ross' "Nickel Boys," not to mention Sean Baker's "Anora" and Jacques Audiard's... Read More