twi-ny recommended events

HATESHIP LOVESHIP

Kristen Wiig shows a new side of herself in tender tale of an odd woman

HATESHIP LOVESHIP (Liza Johnson, 2013)
Opens Friday, April 11
www.ifcfilms.com

SNL alum Kristen Wiig gives a chilling breakthrough dramatic performance in Hateship Loveship. Wiig (Bridesmaids) stars as Joanna Parry, a relatively nondescript, ordinary woman who works as a professional caregiver, with little life of her own. After her client, an old woman, dies — Joanna barely reacts when she finds her dead in bed — she is hired as a housekeeper by a widower, McCauley (Nick Nolte), to watch over his teenage granddaughter, Sabitha (Hailee Steinfeld). The girl’s father, Ken (Guy Pearce), was recently released from prison, having served time for his involvement in the tragic accident that killed his wife — Sabitha’s mother and McCauley’s daughter. Trying to get back into his daughter’s life, Ken writes a kind note to the shy, lonely Joanna, who misinterprets his interest and writes him back. When her letter is intercepted by Sabitha and her best friend, Edith (Sami Gayle), the two girls begin a fake e-mail exchange with Joanna, deceiving her into thinking that she and Ken are falling in love. When Joanna ultimately approaches Ken, she discovers the truth, but just like everything else in her life, she sees it as a mess that can be cleaned up.

Kristen Wiig and Guy Pearce star in indie film based on Alice Munro short story

Director Liza Johnson’s follow-up to her debut, Return, is a tender, poignant tale of an odd woman not necessarily trying to find her place in the world. Working from a script by Mark Poirer (Goats, Smart People) based on the short story “Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage” by 2013 Nobel Prize winner Alice Munro, Johnson takes what could have been an overly familiar, clichéd situation and builds a believable narrative with realistic characters. Wiig is extraordinary as Joanna, channeling Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman as she generally goes about her daily chores with no emotion whatsoever. Just as in the recently released Breathe In, Pearce is excellent as a gentle, troubled soul at a crossroads in his life, his eyes revealing just the right amount of fear at the choices facing him. The all-star cast also includes Christine Lahti as a local banker with a thing for Mr. McCauley and Jennifer Jason Leigh as Ken’s drug-addict girlfriend. (For our twi-ny talk with Johnson, go here.)

WAVERLY MIDNIGHTS: MS. 45

A mute rape victim (Zoë Tamerlis Lund) seeks revenge DEATH WISH-style in Abel Ferrara’s MS. 45

LATE-NIGHT FAVORITES: MS. 45 (Abel Ferrara, 1981)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Friday, April 11, and Saturday, April 12, 12:10 am
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.drafthousefilms.com

If you missed the new digital restoration of Ms. 45 at BAMcinématek’s “Vengeance Is Hers” festival in February, you have another chance to catch it this weekend when it screens as part of the IFC Center’s weekly “Waverly Midnights: Late-Night Favorites” series on April 11-12. Abel Ferrara’s third film, following the 1976 pornographic 9 Lives of a Wet Pussy Cat and the 1979 gorefest The Driller Killer, is a low-budget grindhouse female revenge fantasy set on the gritty streets of New York City. In Ms. 45 (also known as Angel of Vengeance), Zoë Tamerlis Lund makes her screen debut as Thana, a mute woman working as a seamstress in the Garment District. After being raped twice in one day on separate occasions, she soon goes all Death Wish / Taxi Driver on men seeking a little more from women. Thana — named after Freud’s death instinct, Thanatos, the opposite of the sex instinct, Eros — grabs herself a .45 and quickly proves she is one helluva shot as she goes out in search of potential victims in Chinatown, Central Park, and the very place where Woody Allen and Diane Keaton sat on a bench, romantically looking out at the Queensboro Bridge in an iconic moment from Manhattan. Ferrara, who plays the masked rapist, captures the nightmarish feel of the city at the time, where danger could be lurking around any corner, with the help of James Lemmo’s lurid, pornlike cinematography and Joe Delia’s jazz-disco soundtrack. Lund would go on to cowrite Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant, in which she plays a junkie named Zoë, before drugs killed her in 1999 at the age of thirty-seven. Ms. 45 is a cult classic that keeps getting better with age — and yes, that is a man dressed as Mr. Met at the Halloween party.

TWI-NY TALK: TIMOTHY HASKELL — FULL BUNNY CONTACT

Timothy Haskell’s Full Bunny Contact features a big-time battle for Easter eggs

Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center
107 Suffolk St. between Rivington & Delancey Sts.
April 17-20, $10-$60
Admission: $10 entry only, $20 plus 25 booth tickets until 7:00 in advance, $30 plus 37 booth tickets after 7:00 in advance
VIP: $50 before 7:00, $60 after 7:00
www.fullbunnycontact.com
www.iscareyou.com

Theater impresario extraordinaire Timothy Haskell has been scaring the hell out of New Yorkers for a decade now with his annual Nightmare haunted house, which for the last two years has focused on killers as its theme. A fan of immersive theater and kitschy pop culture, Haskell has now brought those together for his latest production, Full Bunny Contact. Billed as an “Insane Easter Carnival,” FBC takes places April 17-20 at the Clemente Soto Vélez Center on the Lower East Side, where ticket holders can play such games as Shoot the Peep, Raw Egg Putt, Little Bunny FuFu’s Revenge, and Dunk the Savior and watch or participate in egg-decorating and bunny burlesque contests, a Bunny Beauty Pageant, and a Temper Tantrum Easter Candy Contest for kids twelve and under. The main draw, however, is Full Bunny Contact: The Game, in which two people at a time enter a caged-in area and try to fill their Easter baskets with as many plastic eggs as possible in one minute — while fighting off a trio of large, not-so-friendly rabbits. Haskell, who has also directed such stage shows as I Love Paris, Fatal Attraction: A Greek Tragedy, and Road House: The Stage Version of the Cinema Classic That Starred Patrick Swayze, Except This One Stars Taimak from the 80’s Cult Classic “The Last Dragon” Wearing a Blonde Mullet Wig, recently discussed his childhood holiday celebrations, how he likes his eggs, vicious rabbits, and more with twi-ny.

twi-ny: What happened to you as a child? Based on the kinds of shows and events you write, produce, direct, and create, there had to be some kind of major trauma involved.

Timothy Haskell: Nothing unusual. My mother says she dropped a toy Ferris wheel on my head, and anytime I do something unusual she blames herself for dropping a heavy toy on my noggin. As far as haunted houses are concerned, there was a trauma: the humiliation of going with my older sister and her girlfriends to a local haunt when I was seven and me chickening out in the first room and them making fun of me forever. I guess I’ve always wanted to prove to myself that I wasn’t afraid of anything ever since then, even though I’m scared of everything.

twi-ny: How did you and your family celebrate Easter when you were a kid?

Timothy Haskell: I was raised Catholic, and Easter was a very big deal at my house. It’s when all the relatives from all over the country would come to the grandparents’ house, who lived in Atlanta (where I am from), and we would go to church, eat a massive meal, and do an egg hunt. But first, early in the morning before we went to church, we looked for our Easter baskets in our own house. My mother was very good about hiding them. I have very, very fond memories of Easter. All of my cousins were there, we got new outfits; I very much looked forward to it. Except going to church. None of us looked forward to that. I always wondered if the adults truly did.

twi-ny: Did you ever have a rabbit for a pet?

Timothy Haskell: We did ducks, we did rabbits, dogs, cats. I have no idea what its name was, and I was very young when we did rabbits. But I remember it being pretty vicious.

twi-ny: Where do you stand on the pets or meat discussion?

Timothy Haskell: I am a meat-eater, but only if it’s organic. I do have a problem with the mistreatment of the animals we use as food.

twi-ny: Where did the idea to turn Easter inside out and upside down come from?

Timothy Haskell: You know, I love holidays so much. I adore Christmas and of course Halloween. It’s not so much turning them upside down as much as it is making them fun again for adults. And not just any adults. Me. Making it fun for me again. I am a sentimental guy. Holidays are fantastic. I think people love celebrating them, and I think Easter in this city has lost its youthfulness. I hope this event brings some of that back.

twi-ny: What was the craziest thing you wanted to do for FBC but were eventually, and perhaps correctly, talked out of?

Timothy Haskell: It wasn’t my idea, but my codirector came up with an idea called “The Chicken and the Egg.” It had something to do with an egg coming out of a chicken in a graphic way. I nixed it pretty quickly.

twi-ny: With that in mind, how do you like your eggs prepared? (We won’t ask which came first, the chicken or the egg, unless you really want to tell us.)

Timothy Haskell: Well, I should have kept that other booth in the event to have found out which came first, but as far as my eggs, I love them poached. Diners hate it when I order them that way because it’s a pain in the ass, but I have to.

Timothy Haskell turns his attention to Easter and bunny rabbits in latest immersive production

twi-ny: How about your chicken?

Timothy Haskell: Being from the South, I prefer my chicken grilled and barbecued.

twi-ny: Which game that made the final cut is your personal favorite?

Timothy Haskell: Well, the main event is the centerpiece and is what I came up with many years ago before any other idea. I always wanted to do something centered around people trying to capture eggs away from bunnies who don’t want them to. But in terms of the midway, I am fond of Hare-y Up. You race against a person dressed like a rabbit, hopping while you have to wear a forty-pound tortoiseshell and get on all fours. The rabbit has the odds, but he/she will be pretty cocky and will give the slow and steady turtle a shot.

twi-ny: Do you have a favorite Easter-themed (or bunny-themed) movie or television show?

Timothy Haskell: Well, I guess Harvey is the go-to response, but I genuinely love that movie. It is so off-the-wall for any era, especially 1950. I guess Donnie Darko would be a close second, however.

twi-ny: It’s one thing to mess with Halloween, and something very different to screw around with Easter. Do you expect any blowback or controversy to rise up over FBC?

Timothy Haskell: I hope not. It would be nonsensical and would prove they know nothing about the event. As I have told others, “Remember all the stuff you used to love about celebrating Easter? All the fun stuff? That’s Full Bunny Contact.” Christians embrace the Easter Bunny, so I’m not sure why they would start protesting now, but you never know. There is a little tongue-in-cheek religiosity, but it is not the M.O. of the event at all.

twi-ny: Have you set your sights yet on any other holidays for future events?

Timothy Haskell: We tried to do a summer event last year, Camp Nightmare, that logistically became untenable, but I still would like to try that. We’ve done Nightmare Before Christmas: The Experiment twice already. That did very well, but it wasn’t quite the Christmas event that I’ve wanted to do. This year we will hopefully do it the way I want to do it. I want to create the most garish Christmas wonderland imaginable, as if we ran a contest for the best Christmas lawn decorating in the country and some couple from the Midwest won and their prize was a trip to New York to design our set. And you can barely move there is so much illuminated plastic, but once you get past the junk, there are eight different kinds of Santas that you can take a picture with. Only one of them is a normal Santa. It’s basically a bizarro version of Macy’s winter wonderland.

ART OF THE REAL 2014: MANAKAMANA

A mother and daughter eat ice cream in experimental documentary MANAKAMANA

MANAKAMANA (Stephanie Spray & Pacho Velez, 2013)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
Francesca Beale Theater, 144 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Saturday, April 12, 1:30
Festival runs April 11-26
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com
www.manakamanafilm.com

If you’re an adventurous filmgoer who likes to be challenged and surprised, the less you know about Pacho Velez and Stephanie Spray’s Manakamana, the better. But if you want to know more, here goes: Evoking such experimental films as Michael Snow’s Wavelength, Hollis Frampton’s Zorns Lemma, and Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests as well as the more narrative works of such unique auteurs as Jim Jarmusch and Abbas Kiarostami, Manakamana is a beautiful, meditative journey that is sure to try your patience at first. The two-hour film, which requires a substantial investment on the part of the audience, takes place in a five-foot-by-five-foot cable car in Nepal that shuttles men, women, and children to and from the historic Manakamana temple, on a pilgrimage to worship a wish-fulfilling Hindu goddess. With Velez operating the stationary Aaton 7 LTR camera — the same one used by Robert Gardner for his 1986 documentary Forest of Bliss — and Spray recording the sound, the film follows a series of individuals and small groups as they either go to or return from the temple, traveling high over the lush green landscape that used to have to be traversed on foot before the cable car was built. A man and his son barely acknowledge each other; a woman carries a basket of flowers on her lap; an elderly mother and her middle-age daughter try to eat melting ice-cream bars; a pair of musicians play their instruments to pass the time.

A heavy metal band takes a picture of themselves in meditative documentary

Each trip has its own narrative, which must be partly filled in by the viewer as he or she studies the people in the cable car and the surroundings, getting continually jolted as the car glides over the joins. The film is a fascinating look into human nature and technological advances in this era of surveillance as the subjects attempt to act as normal as possible even though a camera and a microphone are practically in their faces. Produced at the Sensory Ethnography Laboratory at Harvard, Manakamana consists of eleven uncut shots of ten-to-eleven minutes filmed in 16mm, using rolls whose length roughly equals that of each one-way trip, creating a kind of organic symbiosis between the making and projecting of the work while adding a time-sensitive expectation on the part of the viewer. A film well worth sticking around for till the very end — and one that grows less and less claustrophobic with each scene — Manakamana is screening April 12 at 1:30 in the Focus on the Sensory Ethnography Lab section of the Film Society of Lincoln Center series “Art of the Real,” held in conjunction with the Whitney Biennial, and will be followed by a Q&A with Spray and Velez. The inaugural festival runs April 11-26, featuring more than three dozen works that push the boundaries of documentary film.

THE BIG EGG HUNT

Jane Morgan’s penny coin sculpture is one of more than 260 eggs scattered across all five boroughs (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

From 1885 to 1916, Russian jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé and his company created fifty lavish, jewel-encrusted Easter eggs for the imperial royal family, primarily as gifts the emperor could present to the empress. Over the years, mystery has surrounded some of the eggs, eight of which appear to have gone missing. In tribute to its famed history, Fabergé is sponsoring the Big Egg Hunt, “hiding” more than 260 large, artist-designed eggs across all five boroughs. As you come upon the eggs, you can use an app to claim them, making you eligible for the weekly prize of a Fabergé Zenya jeweled egg pendant. (The just-released map is sure to help.) The eggs are also being sold at auction (starting at $500), benefiting Studio in a School, which teaches the visual arts to underserved New York City children, and Elephant Family, which protects Asian elephants and their habitats. Among the artists and designers who have crafted eggs for the occasion are Pat Steir, Bruce Weber, Carolina Herrera, Peter Beard, April Gornik, Clifford Ross, Martha Stewart, Peter Max, Diane von Furstenberg, D*FACE, Julian Schnabel, Bruce High Quality Foundation, Donald Baechler, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Leo Villareal, Mary Mattingly, Tommy Hilfiger, Betty Woodman, Robert Wilson, Cynthia Rowley, and Ralph Lauren; the hottest eggs so far are Zaha Hadid’s “Liquid Skyline” at $27,000, Tracey Emin’s untitled sculpture at $14,000, the Prince’s Drawing School’s “The Royal Egg — Humpty Dumpty” at $13,000, Marc Quinn’s untitled orb at $11,000, Emma Clegg’s “B” at $8,000, and Jon Koon’s “The Golden Child” at $7,000. Oh, and then there’s Jeff Koons’s colorful seal egg balancing a silver ball, which is estimated as “priceless” and can currently be had for a mere $140,000. If those prices are a bit too steep for you, there are also postcards for $10, T-shirts for $30, tote bags for $25, miniature eggs for $45, and ostrich eggs for $130. On April 18, all of the large eggs will be nesting together at Rockefeller Center, followed by the grand auction at Sotheby’s on April 22.

THE AIPAD PHOTOGRAPHY SHOW 2014

Gyorgy Kepes, “Juliet with Peacock Feathers,” vintage gelatin silver print, 1939 (photo courtesy James Hyman Fine Art and Photographs)

Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Ave. between 66th & 67th Sts.
April 10-13, one-day pass $30, four-day pass $50
www.aipad.com

Formed in 1979, the Association of International Photography Art Dealers is, per its mission statement, “dedicated to creating and maintaining high standards in the business of exhibiting, buying, and selling photographs as art.” The next year, AIPAD organized its inaugural AIPAD Photography Show; the 2014 edition will be held April 10-13 at the Park Avenue Armory, preceded on April 9 by a gala benefit for Her Justice, a nonprofit consisting of lawyers and law firms that help facilitate life-changing results for women facing poverty and abuse. The fair features more than eighty galleries from around the world exhibiting solo, group, and thematic displays; you’ll find works by Stan Douglas, Philip diCorcia, Thomas Ruff, and James Welling at David Zwirner; Richard Renaldi at Bonni Benrubi; William Eggleston’s Memphis series at Catherine Edelman; Jim Campbell at Bryce Wolkowitz; Robert Heinecken at Robert Koch and Stephen Daiter (as well as a terrific show at MoMA), Jen Davis at Lee Marks; Robert Frank’s Peruvian images at Alan Klotz; Matthew Brandt’s “Dust” at Yossi Milo; Debbie Grossman’s “My Pie Town” at Julie Saul; Zhang Bing at 798; Richard Misrach at Etherton; Teikoh Shiotani at Taka Ishii; Charles Marville at Charles Isaacs, Hans B. Kraus Jr., and Robert Koch (in addition to a show at the Met); and Kikuji Kawada at Photo Gallery International and L. Parker Stephenson.

Elinor Carucci will be signing copies of her new book at AIPAD show

Among those signing books at various times are Adrienne Aurichio at Monroe (The Beatles: Six Days That Changed the World), Jerry Uelsmann at Scheinbaum & Russek (Uelsmann Untitled: A Retrospective), Andy Freeberg at Kopeikin (Art Fare), Elinor Carucci at Edwynn Houk (Mother), John Cyr at Verve (Developer Trays), and Renaldi at Bonni Benrubi (Touching Strangers). There will be also be four panel discussions on Saturday around the corner at Hunter College, beginning with “The Deciders: Curating Photography” at 10:00 and continuing with “LGBTQ/Photography” at noon, “Perspectives on Collecting” at 2:00, and a screening of Cheryl Dunn’s Everybody Street at 4:00, followed by a talk with Dunn, Jill Freedman, Max Kozloff, and Jeff Mermelstein.

TWI-NY TALK: LIZA JOHNSON

Kristen Wiig gives a breakout dramatic performance in Liza Johnson’s HATESHIP LOVESHIP

HATESHIP LOVESHIP (Liza Johnson, 2013)
Opens Friday, April 11
www.ifcfilms.com
www.lizajohnson.wordpress.com

Writer, director, teacher, artist, journalist, and filmmaker Liza Johnson has followed up her debut feature, 2011’s Return, with Hateship Loveship, a subtly beguiling and intimate drama based on a short story by Nobel Prize winner Alice Munro. In the film, Kristen Wiig gives a career-redefining performance as Johanna Parry, an odd, lonely caregiver hired by a widower (Nick Nolte) as a housekeeper for him and his granddaughter, Sabitha (Hailee Steinfeld), whose father, Ken (Guy Pearce), is trying to put his life back together after having served time for the accident that killed his wife. Johanna is misled by Sabitha and her best friend, Edith (Sami Gayle), into thinking she is having a romantic correspondence with Ken, as the two girls take advantage of Johanna’s innocence and simplicity.

An associate professor of art at Williams College, Johnson has been making short films for more than fifteen years, including several works (Good Sister / Bad Sister, South of Ten, In the Air that have been shown at prestigious international film festivals and in art museums. Hateship Loveship, which, like Return, is powerfully realistic, opens April 11 in theaters and on VOD.

twi-ny:. You’ve gone from making experimental short films that have included nonprofessional actors to now two feature films with impressive casts, including Linda Cardellini, Michael Shannon, and John Slattery in Return and Kristen Wiig, Guy Pearce, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Nick Nolte, and Christine Lahti in Hateship Loveship. What has that transition been like?

Liza Johnson: The biggest change really just has to do with the way the production runs. I made those short films in worlds where people lived extremely precarious, contingent lives — Mississippi after Katrina, the deindustrialized town I grew up in, indigenous Northern Australia. (Thematically this is also true of the characters in the features.) But within those real-world contexts, and working with almost zero money on the productions, it’s very hard to have a story that has cause and effect, because people can’t be absolutely certain that they can come back to perform for a second or third or sixth day. Even though Hateship/Loveship is a very small independent film, it still has a full crew and unionized actors who are all in a position to return to finish out the whole story!

I love working with nonprofessional actors, and it’s also a great thrill to work with people who have an incredibly trained sense of the craft of acting. It’s just a very different way of working.

twi-ny: In the 2008 Hugo Boss Prize catalog, you wrote about Patty Chang’s Flotsam Jetsam (which is currently on view at MoMA, where your work has also been shown), “The visual style of Flotsam Jetsam suggests a documentary relation to the real at the same time as revealing the conventions we use to produce ‘realness.’” In many ways, a similar thing might be said of Hateship Loveship, which has a very realistic feel to it, especially in regard to camera movement and the lead performances. Would you agree?

Liza Johnson: You are an amazing researcher! Patty Chang has been a close friend and a sustaining confidante for a long time, and I’m sure we influence each other even if we’re working in pretty different styles.

And yes, when I first met with Kristen on the project we talked about how important it was for the world of the film to feel real, and to be shot in the style of realism — which is definitely a style and not just how the world inherently looks! I had a great time working with Kasper Tuxen, the cinematographer, and we watched a lot of movies that use available light when we were preparing. He’s pretty amazing, and we really went to great lengths to use available light whenever possible, or to just supplement it if necessary. The production designer, Hannah Beachler, was also really supportive of my idea to try to build a world that is not overdesigned, and tries to maintain the feeling of accident and surprise that come with locations, even though she redesigned and reordered every surface that you see in the film.

twi-ny: Hateship/Loveship is based on a short story by Alice Munro, who just won the Nobel Prize. Her work has also been adapted by such directors as Sarah Polley, Anne Wheeler, and, next, Jane Campion. How familiar were you with Munro’s writing prior to making the film? Are you concerned at all about being branded as a woman director who makes “women’s films”? You’ve previously explored a more radical side of feminism in Good Sister / Bad Sister.

Artist, writer, teacher, and filmmaker Liza Johnson’s sophomore feature, HATESHIP LOVESHIP, opens April 11

Liza Johnson: I have loved Alice Munro’s writing for as long as I can remember. I was pretty thrilled when Mark Poirer brought his script to me. The story that the film is based on is an almost perfect story, and a very literary one filled with internal monologue and close, shifting points of view. The movie is inherently different from the story, because Munro is so brilliant at writing the inner life of characters in ways that sometimes can’t be photographed. (If you filmed the end of her story literally, you would see a picture of a teenage girl just standing there, whereas in the story it unfolds amazing revelations within her mind.) The film is truly a translation into another medium, and hopefully one that honors the tone of the original, which is unsentimental, non melodramatic, and really committed to the beautiful and complicated choices of its characters.

If you’re going to compare me to Sarah Polley and Jane Campion, that is a ghetto I’m more than happy to be a part of! But no, I’m not afraid of being branded as someone who makes “women’s films.” A lot of male directors that I like have also made beautiful movies with female protagonists. Personally I would want to invite John Cassavettes, William Wyler, Robert Altman, and Todd Haynes into the neighborhood.

I also think that Hateship is not just a movie for women. There’s no question that Kristen’s character is the spine of the story, but it also showcases performances by Guy Pearce and Nick Nolte, who are both powerhouse actors delivering complicated male characters.

twi-ny: In certain ways, Johanna, the character Kristen Wiig plays in Hateship Loveship, reminds me of Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, maybe without quite so much doom and gloom. Is that way off base, or is there a direct or indirect influence there?

Liza Johnson: Direct! Kristen and I watched Jeanne Dielman when we were working on her character and thinking about domestic work. In both the story and the screenplay, her work as a caregiver and as a cleaner is really important to the way she sees the world and the way she reacts to everything. So of course we tried to look at whatever precedents we could find for the cinematic treatment of this kind of occupation. Obviously Akerman is making a different kind of sustained conceptual gesture there, one that I would be proud to have made, but my movie is more classical in its forms than the ones that she uses in the amazing, extreme experiment of her film.

twi-ny: You also teach art at Williams College. Has your relationship with your students changed at all now that you have two well-received feature films under your belt?

Liza Johnson: I don’t think so. They’re pretty engaged and attentive, but that was also true before. It’s really good to be the film professor — you get a lot more enthusiasm than when people are just taking your class to fulfill their premed requirements.

twi-ny: With Hateship Loveship only just opening theatrically, is it too early to ask what your next film project might be?

Liza Johnson: I’m writing something that I really like that is a drama about some unexpected things that happen to a group of teenage girls. And I also have a new project coming up with Michael Shannon, who is an incredible talent. (That is a movie about men, by the way, in case you are worried for me about the women thing!)