By Mark Lipsky
As the Cannes Film Festival approaches once again, this AP story about the looming collapse of cable TV reminded me of a panel I was on last year at Cannes sponsored by the American Pavilion.
I was representing Gigantic Releasing, a new distribution company I’d launched on behalf of my friends Brian and Brooke Devine.
I’d just unveiled an innovative digital delivery platform called Gigantic Digital with “Must Read After My Death,” an amazing documentary from first-time director Morgan Dews.
I’d developed Gigantic Digital as a way to dramati...
As the Cannes Film Festival approaches once again, this AP story about the looming collapse of cable TV reminded me of a panel I was on last year at Cannes sponsored by the American Pavilion.
I was representing Gigantic Releasing, a new distribution company I’d launched on behalf of my friends Brian and Brooke Devine.
I’d just unveiled an innovative digital delivery platform called Gigantic Digital with “Must Read After My Death,” an amazing documentary from first-time director Morgan Dews.
I’d developed Gigantic Digital as a way to dramati...
- 5/3/2010
- by Lisa Horowitz
- The Wrap
Morgan Dews' Secret Family History Is Revealed In The Director's Must Read After My Death. Courtesy Gigantic Releasing. Good things can always be salvaged from even the worst of circumstances, and that has seldom been more true than in the case of documentarian Morgan Dews. He was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1968 after his mother had run away from a troubled family situation to get married. He grew up oblivious to the difficult circumstances from which his mother had escaped, and then attended Rutgers University, where he studied History, graduating in 1990. Subsequently, he decamped to Spain where he became active in numerous and wide-ranging creative pursuits: he founded the arts magazine Snack and the performance space The...
- 3/4/2009
- by Nick Dawson
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Director Alan Poul and screenwriter Craig Wright are planning a feature film version of the documentary "Must Read After My Death," which opened in New York on Friday.
Morgan Dews' film is drawn from 8mm films, tape recordings and written materials left behind by his grandmother, who died in 2001. It offers a portrait of a suburban couple in 1960s Connecticut who attempt to combine a traditional life with an open marriage and the wife's desire to break free of conventional expectations.
Poul and Wright will produce the film adaptation.
Poul, repped by UTA, is making his feature directing debut with CBS Films' romantic comedy "Plan B," starring Jennifer Lopez, currently in preproduction. His credits as producer and director include "Six Feet Under" and "Swingtown," and he's also directed episodes of "Big Love" and "Rome."
Wright, co-executive producer of "Brothers & Sisters," also was the creator and exec producer of "Dirty Sexy Money.
Morgan Dews' film is drawn from 8mm films, tape recordings and written materials left behind by his grandmother, who died in 2001. It offers a portrait of a suburban couple in 1960s Connecticut who attempt to combine a traditional life with an open marriage and the wife's desire to break free of conventional expectations.
Poul and Wright will produce the film adaptation.
Poul, repped by UTA, is making his feature directing debut with CBS Films' romantic comedy "Plan B," starring Jennifer Lopez, currently in preproduction. His credits as producer and director include "Six Feet Under" and "Swingtown," and he's also directed episodes of "Big Love" and "Rome."
Wright, co-executive producer of "Brothers & Sisters," also was the creator and exec producer of "Dirty Sexy Money.
- 2/24/2009
- by By Gregg Kilday
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
An upper-crust Hartford, Conn., family collapses in slow motion in "Must Read After My Death," a spare but riveting documentary.
Allis and Charley raised three sons and a daughter in the 1960s despite the strains of the husband's frequent, long business trips to Australia, during which the spouses sent each other diaries in the form of audio recordings.
These scratchy records, which are of such poor sound quality that the entire film is subtitled for clarity, play jaggedly against a nearly surreal collection of smiley home movies in which the family gathers around a holiday turkey or frolics in the sun.
Allis and Charley raised three sons and a daughter in the 1960s despite the strains of the husband's frequent, long business trips to Australia, during which the spouses sent each other diaries in the form of audio recordings.
These scratchy records, which are of such poor sound quality that the entire film is subtitled for clarity, play jaggedly against a nearly surreal collection of smiley home movies in which the family gathers around a holiday turkey or frolics in the sun.
- 2/20/2009
- by By KYLE SMITH
- NYPost.com
Largely because of the movies, the era from the end of World War II to the assassination of John F. Kennedy has a reputation for being idyllic and clean, full of pressed clothes and pleasant attitudes. (Never mind that the novelists and B-pictures of the age said otherwise.) If nothing else, Morgan Dews’ documentary Must Read After My Death offers a rebuttal to nostalgists and reactionaries who pine for “the good ol’ days.” When Dews’ grandmother Allis died, he inherited her cache of photographs, journals, home movies, and audiotapes, and discovered a harrowing family history. Allis was a fervent believer ...
- 2/19/2009
- avclub.com
With all eyes on the upcoming Academy Awards (not to mention the Spirit Awards, the afternoon before), it's a relatively quiet week at the box office. There are some bubblegum high school antics, a couple of documentaries about the dysfunctional, a children's literary classic and a somber drama set during WWII. Take heart, we're nearly over the hump.
Download this in audio form (MP3: 6:11 minutes, 8.5 Mb)
"Delhi 6"
BAFTA-nominated director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra returns with this transatlantic journey of self-discovery that offers itself as another girder in the bridge between Bollywood and the U.S. American-born Indian Roshan (Abhishek Bachchan) makes a pilgrimage from New York to India to bring his ailing grandmother home. In the process, he discovers a little something about himself, his ancestral homeland and the proud traditions contained within it. Veteran composer A.R. Rahman, who's vying for an Oscar for his work on "Slumdog Millionaire,...
Download this in audio form (MP3: 6:11 minutes, 8.5 Mb)
"Delhi 6"
BAFTA-nominated director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra returns with this transatlantic journey of self-discovery that offers itself as another girder in the bridge between Bollywood and the U.S. American-born Indian Roshan (Abhishek Bachchan) makes a pilgrimage from New York to India to bring his ailing grandmother home. In the process, he discovers a little something about himself, his ancestral homeland and the proud traditions contained within it. Veteran composer A.R. Rahman, who's vying for an Oscar for his work on "Slumdog Millionaire,...
- 2/19/2009
- by Neil Pedley
- ifc.com
Spring is a season of renewal, particularly in the movie business, where the completion of the awards derby allows Amy Adams to segue from playing a solemn nun in "Doubt" to a klutzy crime scene cleaner in "Sunshine Cleaning." Along with "Sunshine," there are plenty of festival favorites about to get their day in the sun, whether that's in theaters, on DVD or on demand online or on TV. This preview recognizes the many ways to get your indie film fix, as well as the special events you might want to head out to if you live in New York or Los Angeles, including "The Brothers Bloom" director Rian Johnson's week-long con man movie "Festival of Fakery" at L.A.'s famed New Beverly Cinema, about which we recently spoke to the director. But regardless of whether we're watching films from the past or present, we're looking forward to the next couple months.
- 2/18/2009
- by Stephen Saito
- ifc.com
Feb 18, 2009
Like the remarkable Capturing the Friedmans, Morgan Dews' Must Read After My Death is a riveting examination of family at its most dysfunctional told entirely with home movies and personal recordings. Using nothing but his editorial skills with the footage he found when his grandmother passed away in 2001, Dews reaches behind the closed doors of the picket fence, much like AMC's Mad Men or Sam Mendes' Revolutionary Road and finds unbelievable darkness behind it. The difference, of course, is that Must Read After ...Read more at MovieRetriever.com...
Like the remarkable Capturing the Friedmans, Morgan Dews' Must Read After My Death is a riveting examination of family at its most dysfunctional told entirely with home movies and personal recordings. Using nothing but his editorial skills with the footage he found when his grandmother passed away in 2001, Dews reaches behind the closed doors of the picket fence, much like AMC's Mad Men or Sam Mendes' Revolutionary Road and finds unbelievable darkness behind it. The difference, of course, is that Must Read After ...Read more at MovieRetriever.com...
- 2/18/2009
- CinemaNerdz
Must Read After My Death Directed by: Morgan Dews Starring: Allis, Charley, Anne, Chuck, Bruce, Douglas Running Time: 1 hour 16 mins Rated: Not rated Additional info: The film is opening digitally outside of New York and La. Everyone can access the film for digital viewing at www.giganticdigital.com beginning this Friday morning, February 20th at 10am Eastern. The ticket price will be $2.99 for a 3-day, unlimited viewing ticket. It will be streaming in HD quality. Plot: This documentary focuses on a family in the 1950s and 1960s. Dews discovered his grandparents had a pile of audio tape and home movies, and he constructs this film to dissect the lives he didn't know. Who's it For? Voyeurism might be the key here. This is a behind the scenes look at a dysfunctional family from a different time...
- 2/18/2009
- The Scorecard Review
Chicago – If someone had a recording of the dissolution of a seemingly perfect family, would you listen? What would you learn from it? You can test your answer to these questions with the riveting “Must Read After My Death,” a fly-on-the-wall documentary using only silent home movies and audio recordings of a family in steep, depressing decline.
Rating: 3.5/5.0 Filmmaker Morgan Dews was always close to his grandmother Allis, but he had no idea about the dark past that barely preceded his existence. In the ’60s, Allis lived a dark life with husband Charley and kids Anne, Chuck, Douglas, and Bruce. And they recorded all of it on a Dictaphone that they used as a friend, game, confessor, and shrink.
Read Brian Tallerico’s full review of “Must Read After My Death” in our reviews section. When Allis Dews dies in 2001, she left behind hundreds of hours of tape. Morgan has...
Rating: 3.5/5.0 Filmmaker Morgan Dews was always close to his grandmother Allis, but he had no idea about the dark past that barely preceded his existence. In the ’60s, Allis lived a dark life with husband Charley and kids Anne, Chuck, Douglas, and Bruce. And they recorded all of it on a Dictaphone that they used as a friend, game, confessor, and shrink.
Read Brian Tallerico’s full review of “Must Read After My Death” in our reviews section. When Allis Dews dies in 2001, she left behind hundreds of hours of tape. Morgan has...
- 2/18/2009
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
By Neil Pedley
With all eyes on the upcoming Academy Awards (not to mention the Spirit Awards, the afternoon before), it's a relatively quiet week at the box office. There are some bubblegum high school antics, a couple of documentaries about the dysfunctional, a children's literary classic and a somber drama set during WWII. Take heart, we're nearly over the hump.
Download this in audio form (MP3: 6:11 minutes, 8.5 Mb) "Delhi 6"
BAFTA-nominated director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra returns with this transatlantic journey of self-discovery that offers itself as another girder in the bridge between Bollywood and the U.S. American-born Indian Roshan (Abhishek Bachchan) makes a pilgrimage from New York to India to bring his ailing grandmother home. In the process, he discovers a little something about himself, his ancestral homeland and the proud traditions contained within it. Veteran composer A.R. Rahman, who's vying for an Oscar for his work on "Slumdog Millionaire,...
With all eyes on the upcoming Academy Awards (not to mention the Spirit Awards, the afternoon before), it's a relatively quiet week at the box office. There are some bubblegum high school antics, a couple of documentaries about the dysfunctional, a children's literary classic and a somber drama set during WWII. Take heart, we're nearly over the hump.
Download this in audio form (MP3: 6:11 minutes, 8.5 Mb) "Delhi 6"
BAFTA-nominated director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra returns with this transatlantic journey of self-discovery that offers itself as another girder in the bridge between Bollywood and the U.S. American-born Indian Roshan (Abhishek Bachchan) makes a pilgrimage from New York to India to bring his ailing grandmother home. In the process, he discovers a little something about himself, his ancestral homeland and the proud traditions contained within it. Veteran composer A.R. Rahman, who's vying for an Oscar for his work on "Slumdog Millionaire,...
- 2/16/2009
- by Neil Pedley
- ifc.com
Toronto -- Montreal's Festival du Nouveau Cinema on Tuesday unveiled a competition lineup that highlights indie U.S. cinema, Canadian and European productions.
U.S. director Antonio Campos' "Afterthought," Steve McQueen's "Hunger" and Spanish director Gerardo Olivares' "14 Kilometros" are to compete next month for the Louve d'Or, organizers said Tuesday.
They will join 16 other competition films, including "A l'Ouest de Pluton," by Canadian directors Henry Bernadet and Myriam Verreault, "Cap Nord," by French director Sandrine Rinaldi, and Justin Simms' "Down to the Dirt," also from Canada.
The Montreal festival will showcase 250 films from 69 countries during its 37th edition, set for Oct. 8-19.
The 11-day festival booked for its Special Presentation sidebar Abel Ferrara's "Chelsea on the Rocks," Jonathan Demme's "Rachel Getting Married," "12" from Russia's Nikita Mikhalkov and, from France, Claire Simon's "God's Offices" and Robert Guediguian's "Lady Jane."
U.S. indie films bound...
U.S. director Antonio Campos' "Afterthought," Steve McQueen's "Hunger" and Spanish director Gerardo Olivares' "14 Kilometros" are to compete next month for the Louve d'Or, organizers said Tuesday.
They will join 16 other competition films, including "A l'Ouest de Pluton," by Canadian directors Henry Bernadet and Myriam Verreault, "Cap Nord," by French director Sandrine Rinaldi, and Justin Simms' "Down to the Dirt," also from Canada.
The Montreal festival will showcase 250 films from 69 countries during its 37th edition, set for Oct. 8-19.
The 11-day festival booked for its Special Presentation sidebar Abel Ferrara's "Chelsea on the Rocks," Jonathan Demme's "Rachel Getting Married," "12" from Russia's Nikita Mikhalkov and, from France, Claire Simon's "God's Offices" and Robert Guediguian's "Lady Jane."
U.S. indie films bound...
- 9/23/2008
- by By Etan Vlessing
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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