I had a business meeting last week in which there was an honest discussion about whether the “Two Girls, One Cup” phenomenon was played out or not. I’ll say no more. Apparently, though, it has not, as the internet meme has crossed over into the old-media world of Esquire magazine. Karina Longworth reports over at SpoutBlog: I’m fairly certain Cary Grant was never asked by an interviewer to watch internet scat porn so that his word-for-word reaction could be printed in a major magazine, but poor George Clooney lives in a different time. Presumably because there’s very little new to […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 20, 2008Over at his DIY Filmmaker blog, Sujewa Ekanayake posts a long interview with Barry Jenkins (pictured) about his Medicine for Melancholy, one of the real discoveries (and a film I very much liked) out of SXSW. He talks about Godard, being inspired by Claire Denis’s Vendredi Soir, and whether Medicine for Melancholy is, in Sujewa’s words, “the Barack Obama of indie films.” Here’s his response to the latter — specifically, whether or not his film can “cross over” from the typical “multi-ethnic but largely white” base of indie film to reach more diverse audiences. “The Barack Obama of indie films.” […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 19, 2008The Film Panel Notetaker has an interview up with filmmaker Leah Meyerhoff, who is bringing a retrospective of her short films to the Boston Underground Film Festival this weekend. She is also beginning work on her first feature, Unicorns, which she hopes to begin shooting this summer. Here’s Meyerhoff answering the question of what made her want to be a filmmaker: I originally thought I wanted to be a marine biologist, something totally not in the arts at all. Then I went school at Brown and started taking film classes. I started with film theory, kind of more on an […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 19, 2008I haven’t seen Doomsday yet, but I want to — I loved Neil Marshall’s Descent, and despite the 28 Days Later meets Resident Evil meets Road Warrior mix-and-match vibe of the trailer, I can’t believe this director doesn’t deliver something interesting with this new film. Filmmaker contributor Travis Crawford, who has seen the film and sent the below in an email, corroborates my feelings that Doomsday may offer more than people are giving it credit for. From Crawford: I felt that it was a very self-knowing, vintage Verhoeven-esque PARODY of the ultra-violent futuristic action thrillers from which it admittedly derives […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 18, 2008As David Hudson wrote at GreenCine, there’s a leisurely paced quality to SXSW that creates a general sense of conviviality among not just its filmmaker attendees but also its journalists. Like Hudson, I still have several films to write about, and I’ll to get these thoughts online sometime soon. But, in the meantime, there’s this really nice video by Mike Hedge that I post below. He’s created a hypnotic montage of his own festival moments, including some that I shared. SXSW 2008 from mikehedge on Vimeo.
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 18, 2008Over at the main page there are two new web-only pieces that both interview directors whose films open this week and who both quite consciously explore in them issues of borders and identity in a globalist age. One is a new director, Patricia Riggen (a Filmmaker 25 New Face discovery in 2005) and the other is a veteran, Olivier Assayas, and their films couldn’t be more different. Damon Smith interviews Riggen about her La Misma Luna, an emotional and affecting mother-son tale that draws from both the Mexican telenovela and the American indie road movie genres. And then there’s Olivier […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 18, 2008Last when I was a mentor for the IFP Rough Cuts labs, one of the most interesting projects was Alex Karpovsky’s Woodpecker, a doc-styled feature about those obsessed with the hunt for an ivory-billed woodpecker. I missed seeing the finished film at SXSW and hope to catch up with it very soon. In the meantime, at GreenCine David Hudson has rounded up some links, including this podcast conducted by Aaron Hillis, and has posted his own thoughts as well. Head over there to read more about Karpovsky’s fascinating film.
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 18, 2008The Nee Brothers, who were two of our “25 New Faces” in 2006, have made a lovely music video for the band Terrene which is up for a Yahoo Best Indie Music Video award. You can watch it below, and if you like it you can vote for the Nee’s here.
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 18, 2008Everything is connected. While the Elliiot Spitzer call-girl scandal seems to be providing cable news with a pre-Pennsylvania election break and bloggers with plenty of new linking opportunities, it’s impacting the film business as well — specifically, the successful NY tax credit program which has been up for an expansion. In the Hollywood Reporter, Gregg Goldstein writes about how “Spitzer exit threatens his tax-credit plan.” Here are two key graphs, but read the piece for the whole thing: By the end of Wednesday, both the Republican-led state Senate and Democratic-led Assembly had unveiled proposed budgets with their partisan versions of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 13, 2008We’ve been covering on this blog the intersection between politics and user-generated video, most often by posting some of the better campaign mash-ups that have been posted to YouTube this season. But now, however, anyone (well, any Obama supporter) can go legit with their political ad by taking part in “Obama in 30 Seconds.” The contest is being sponsored by MoveOn.org, and it assembles an incredible panel of judges (Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Lawrence Lessig, James Schamus, Ted Hope, Russell Simmons, Oliver Stone, Moby, Tom Ortenberg, John Legend and DJ Spooky are a few) to pick the best submitted Obama […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 13, 2008