Dailies is a round-up of essential film writing, news bits, and other highlights from across the Internet. If you’d like to submit a piece for consideration, get in touch with us in the comments below or on Twitter at @TheFilmStage.
At The Dissolve, Jason Bailey on the wilderness years of Steve Soderbergh:
Over the near-decade that followed that night in Cannes, Soderbergh’s quip came to sound more like than self-fulfilling prophecy than facetious modesty. The 26-year-old wunderkind’s debut feature, Sex, Lies, And Videotape, won Cannes, was nominated for an Oscar, grossed more than 20 times its modest budget at the box office, and made Soderbergh the toast of Hollywood. But he harbored no illusions of infallibility. Even while basking in Sex, Lies’ heat, he knew the score; a profile in Rolling Stone’s 1989 “Hot” issue notes, “Soderbergh can name half a dozen [directors] who have been the flavor of the month, and these days you practically have to put out an all-points bulletin to find out what they’re up to.”
Fantastic Fest has announced its second wave of programming with Nightcrawler, The Tale of Princess Kaguya, Blind, Tokyo Tribe, and more.
At The Daily Beast, Marlow Stern speaks with David Lynch about the state of cinema, Kanye West, True Detective, and more:
It’s a strange time. There’s not a whole lot that any of us can do about it. You’ve seen waves of things go up and down, but maybe the arthouse will be back in vogue, and they’ll reappear all over the place again. I don’t know. It would be beautiful. Cable television is the new arthouse, so it’s there, but it’s not the big screen. If people have a big screen at home, great sound, and they turn the lights down and turn their phones off, they can get into the world and have an experience. But most people don’t watch films that way anymore.
At Mental Floss, Rudie Obias looks at the 12 most distracting extras:
Background actors, also known as extras, have one of the most important jobs on a film shoot. They contribute to the overall believability of a scene while making it easier for filmmakers to control a set or location. But sometimes, extras draw attention to themselves—either intentionally or unintentionally—and break the main focus of the scene.
Watch highlights from the Venice press conference for Birdman (and read our review):