Museum of the Moving Image Pinewood Dialogues

The Color Wheel, Alex Ross Perry's highly original second feature, beautifully filmed in black-and-white 16mm, follows the calamity and chaos when a young woman, JR, forces her reluctant and disapproving younger brother Colin on a road trip to help her move out of her professor-turned-lover's apartment. During this conversation with Chief Curator David Schwartz at Museum of the Moving Image, Perry, an inveterate cineaste, discusses his influences, and the film's unique style and its startling portrayal of incestuous sexual tension.The Color Wheel, which has developing a following on the festival circuit, was recently called "The future of cinema, I hope," by film critic Ignatiy Vishnevetsky.

Martin Scorsese's film Hugo is a vivid, cinematically breathtaking adaptation of Brian Selznick's beloved graphic novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret, the story of a young boy who lives in a Paris train station and develops an unlikely friendship with film pioneer Georges Méliès. Selznick discusses writing the book as a silent film's storyboard and the depth of research he pursued in creating the world of Méliès and classic French cinema. After a special screening at the Museum the Moving Image, Selznick and screenwriter John Logan sit down to talk about the process of adapting a book to a screenplay and working with Scorsese.

Distinctive character actor Dennis Farina (Get Shorty) gives a career performance in the affecting drama The Last Rites of Joe May. Invoking the spirit of 1970s films like Fat City, Joe Maggio's film follows the life of a 60-something hustler who is looking for a last shot at greatness. In a discussion at the Museum of the Moving Image, Farina and Maggio talk about the inspiration for the story, the challenges filmmakers face getting films made today, and the involvement of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company throughout the production process.

In Sean Durkin's impressive first feature, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Elizabeth Olsen delivered a breakthrough debut performance as a woman who escapes from a polygamous cult and struggles to reconnect with her family after years of abuse and estrangement. Olsen and co-star John Hawkes join Chief Curator David Schwartz at the Museum of the Moving Image to discuss what drew them to Durkin's screenplay. This wide-ranging conversation explores the Jackson Frank song used in the film, scouting locations, and how Hawkes avoided caricature while creating his riveting performance as a cult leader.

Bennett Miller's acclaimed film Moneyball, based on a true story, stars Brad Pitt as Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A's, and features a remarkable ensemble cast including Jonah Hill and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Forced to reinvent his team on a tight budget, Beane has to outsmart the richer clubs. It's more than baseball, it's a revolution—one that challenges old school traditions and puts Beane in the crosshairs of those who say he's tearing out the heart and soul of the game. In this conversation, Miller, who also presented Capote at the Museum, discusses the arduous process of getting Moneyball produced and how it is different than most other sports films.

Errol Morris's film Tabloid is an entertaining and provocative compendium of some of his favorite themes, including crime, obsession, truth, and the nature of self-presentation. It digs deeply into a sensational and salacious news story about Joyce McKinney, a former beauty queen whose alleged kidnapping and rape of a Mormon in England in 1977 made her a pop culture sensation. This conversation between Morris and Chief Curator David Schwartz at Museum of the Moving Image included a lively exchange with the audience about Morris's attitude towards his subject, and whether the film encourages us to admire her or laugh at her...or both.

As part of the Fashion in Film Festival series "Birds of Paradise," curated by Marketa Uhlirova, this panel discussion with Ronald Gregg, Stuart Comer, Agosto Machado, and Ela Troyano offered a lively conversation about the legacy of the queer aesthetic in which the spectacle of fashion plays a dominant role, from the shimmering dresses in Kenneth Anger's Puce Moment to Jack Smith's reimagining of 1940s Hollywood Orientalism to the stunning, surreal imagery of Steven Arnold. At the Museum of the Moving Image, the panel moderated by Stuart Comer (curator of film at Tate Modern, London) focused on the important role of costume in the avant-garde aesthetic.

Director Duncan Jones followed his acclaimed feature debut Moon with the expertly crafted and provocative thriller Source Code, starring Jake Gyllenhaal as a soldier who wakes up in the body of a different man and finds that he is part of a mission to find the bomber of a Chicago commuter train. In this conversation at the Museum of the Moving Image, Jones discusses how Moon impacted his career, what it was like to work with editor Paul Hirsch (Star Wars), and how Source Code compared to a Hitchcock movie. The conversation was followed by a lively dialogue with audience members.

In 2005, Lisa Kudrow and Michael Patrick King co-created The Comeback, a penetrating and often brutal satire of reality TV, sitcoms, and show business in general. The series was cancelled, but quickly developed a cult following. After a screening of the first episode, Kudrow and Dan Bucatinsky (executive producer and actor on The Comeback) discuss the conception, execution, and untimely demise of the series with Tod Lippy, editor of Esopus, the innovative magazine that had an interview about The Comeback in its special issue about television. The conversation examines how the show foresaw the trajectory of the reality TV phenomenon and how it suffered in ratings for being ahead of its time.

Bill Cosby is one of the most influential and successful creative figures in television history. I Spy, the first network series starring a black actor, made Cosby one of the most popular actors in television. Cosby then starred as gym teacher Chet Kincaid in The Bill Cosby Show (1969-1971). The Cosby Show (1984-1992), about the Huxtables, an affluent Brooklyn family, was the top-rated show for five consecutive years. In one of the first special programs in the Museum's new theater, Cosby spoke with chief curator David Schwartz, and Museum chair Herbert S. Schlosser, former president of NBC.

On the opening night of his retrospective at Museum of the Moving Image, director David O. Russell (The Fighter, Spanking the Monkey, Flirting With Disaster, Three Kings, and I Heart Huckabees) was interviewed by his friend, director Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich), following a special screening of The Fighter. The conversation, like their films, was unpredictable and unforgettable, and filled with surprises. It was part of the opening programs at the Museum's expanded and transformed building.

Tom Hooper won the Academy Award for Best Director for The King's Speech, which also won Best Picture and two other Oscars. Hooper, and cast members Claire Bloom and Jennifer Ehle, were the first guest speakers in the Museum of the Moving Image's brand new theater, which opened to the public on January 15, 2011. Hooper had taken an overnight flight from Los Angeles after the Golden Globe Awards, where Colin Firth won Best Actor for his performance in The King's Speech. When entering the Museum's strikingly modern theater, Hooper exclaimed "what a magnificent cinema."

Amy Ryan's Oscar-nominated performance as Helene McCready, a working-class drug-addicted mother in Gone Baby Gone, established her as one of America's leading screen actresses. Her vivid, wide-ranging performances on film and television include her roles in movies directed by Paul Greengrass (Green Zone), Clint Eastwood (The Changeling), and Sidney Lumet (Before the Devil Knows You're Dead), and on TV as Officer "Beadie" Russell on The Wire, Holly (Steve Carrell's girlfriend) on The Office. In a special Museum of the Moving Image event, Ryan spoke about her career before a screening of her Jack Goes Boating, the directorial debut of Philip Seymour Hoffman.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Michael Caine, who was born Maurice Micklewhite, reveals that he chose his new surname when he saw a poster for Humphrey Bogart's movie The Caine Mutiny. Growing up in a working-class London neighborhood, Caine watched movies seven days a week; Bogart was his favorite actor. In more than 100 films, Caine has maintained a distinctly British persona but inflected it with a hardboiled, laconic style. In this discussion, presented in collaboration with BAFTA East Coast, Caine focused on his tough-guy roles, in films including Zulu, The Italian Job, Get Carter, and his latest, Harry Brown.

Michael Fassbender, the German-born Irish actor who received international acclaim for his performance as Bobby Sands in Hunger (2008) gives a pivotal performance in Andrea Arnold's film Fish Tank. He plays the charismatic, irresponsible Connor, a man who starts a flirtatious relationship with a teenager, Mia, while he is dating Mia's mother. Set in the projects in a bleak neighborhood on the outskirts of London, this emotionally complex, dynamic film has a cast that included nonactors, most notably its young star, Katie Jarvis. Fassbender spoke about the unique process behind the film at a Museum of Moving Image preview screening.