Museum of the Moving Image Pinewood Dialogues

Four-time Academy Award nominee Jeff Bridges has received tremendous acclaim for his deeply felt and richly detailed performance as Bad Blake, a broken-down, hard-living country music singer in writer-director Scott Cooper's debut feature Crazy Heart. Bridges has appeared in more than 70 films, including Fat City, The Fisher King, and The Big Lebowski. As Bad Blake, who has had too many drinks, too many marriages, and too many years on the road, Bridges not only gives a powerful dramatic performance, but also performs songs by T-Bone Burnett. Bridges and Cooper spoke after a special Museum of the Moving Image screening. (Note: the audio quality is poor).

The 2009 film The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond, based on an unproduced screenplay written by Tennessee Williams in the late 1950s, is the latest example of the enduring importance of Williams's artistic legacy. Two of the film's stars, Bryce Dallas Howard and Ellen Burstyn, and its director, Jodie Markell, participated in a panel discussion, along with legendary actors Eli Wallach and Elaine Stritch, moderated by The New York Times theater critic Charles Isherwood. The lively discussion, "Tennessee Williams on Screen and Stage" focused largely on the qualities of Williams' work that inspired so many great performances over the years.

The unfettered imagination of Terry Gilliam (Brazil, Twelve Monkeys) is on full display in The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, an endlessly playful movie that contains Heath Ledger's final performance. (Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell were brought in after Ledger's death to complete and amplify his role). Christopher Plummer is Dr. Parnassus, a trickster showman who travels through contemporary England, with a seemingly ramshackle show in which audience members step through a magical mirror into a surreal other world. Gilliam discussed the unique adventure of making this movie, following a Museum of the Moving Image preview screening.

Henry Selick, who directed the animated features Coraline, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and James and the Giant Peach, offered an in-depth, intimate look at his early days and his career as an animator, in two programs presented by Museum of the Moving Image. On November 18, he discussed his work and his creative process in a conversation with the Museum's Senior Deputy Director Carl Goodman, On November 19, he spoke with Chief Curator David Schwartz after a screening of Coraline. The rich texture of Selick's work comes from its adherence to the physicality and hand-made quality of stop-motion animation.

Henry Selick, who directed the animated features Coraline, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and James and the Giant Peach, offered an in-depth, intimate look at his early days and his career as an animator, in two programs presented by Museum of the Moving Image. On November 18, he discussed his work and his creative process in a conversation with the Museum's Senior Deputy Director Carl Goodman, On November 19, he spoke with Chief Curator David Schwartz after a screening of Coraline. The rich texture of Selick's work comes from its adherence to the physicality and hand-made quality of stop-motion animation.

Jane Campion's Bright Star is a romantic drama about the final years of 19th-century romantic poet John Keats, seen through the eyes of his lover, Fanny Brawne. As in her best films, Campion creates a strong female character, depicting layers of desire and emotion that churn beneath the surface, and using imagery, music, and performance to create a tactile, sensual cinematic experience. Campion spoke after a preview screening for the Museum of the Moving Image.

Judd Apatow, the writer/director of Funny People, Knocked Up, and The 40-Year-Old Virgin is the most prolific and influential figure in contemporary screen comedy. His work combines emotional honesty and insight with unabashed, frequently vulgar comedy, as he explores the most fundamental life experiences, including coming of age, losing virginity, dealing with pregnancy, getting married, and confronting mortality. In this Museum of the Moving Image program, Apatow talked about his career, from his early days hosting a radio show at Syosset High School to Funny People, a loosely autobiographical film starring Apatow's former roommate Adam Sandler as a famous comedian who has a near-death experience.

Harold Ramis, who directed and co-wrote Year One, is the man behind some of the funniest Hollywood movies of the past thirty years. He wrote Animal House, whose raunchy humor revitalized screen comedy. He also wrote Ghostbusters and starred in the film with Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray. His many credits include Caddyshack, Groundhog Day, Analyze This, and The Ice Harvest. In this special Museum of the Moving Image program, Ramis talked about his career, starting with his days as head writer of the series Second City TV. Comedian and actor David Cross, who co-stars in Year One, introduced Ramis.

The documentary Food, Inc., which lifts the veil on America's food industry, is a muckraking film that is elegantly made and entertaining. The Museum of the Moving Image presented the New York premiere, followed by a discussion with: Eric Schlosser, whose best-seller Fast Food Nation inspired the film; Robert Kenner, the director; Alice Waters, the renowned chef of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California; Gary Hirshberg, the president of Stonyfield Farm, the world's leading organic yogurt producer; and Marcel Van Ooyen, the executive director of the Council on the Environment of New York City, which runs nearly fifty greenmarkets.

Sam Mendes, the Academy Award-winning director of American Beauty and Road to Perdition, was putting the finishing touches on the intensely dramatic Revolutionary Road when he started working on Away We Go, a whimsical and heartfelt movie about an expectant couple on a cross-country odyssey in search of a place to set down roots. The films are companion pieces: two very different movies about couples trying to find their place. Mendes and the film's co-star, John Krasinski, best known for his role on The Office, discussed their collaboration at a special screening for the Museum of the Moving Image.