After I posted links to various summaries of the Edison Chen nude picture scandal, a flurry of new news appeared online. Last week the actor held a press conference in Hong Kong where he stated that "society as a whole has been affected" by the scandal, apologized to "all the ladies and all their families," and announced his indefinite hiatus from the film business:



It seems that Chen has now left Hong Kong for the States where he will lay low... at NYU Film School? Meanwhile, Radar Online aggregates some of the latest developments, including the theory that Chen leaked the photos himself, as well as news about the impact of the scandal on Chen's girlfriend:

Reports are also surfacing that Chen tried proposing to his mob-connected girlfriend (and featured star of many of the leaked photos) Vincy Yeung four times in an effort to avoid a hit from the Triads, the underground Chinese criminal organization you might recall from such fine films as Rush Hour, Rush Hour 2, and Lethal Weapon 4. Yeung's uncle, Albert Yeung, is a famous Hong Kong gangster who evidently didn't take kindly to seeing shower pics of his niece on the Web.

The Life After the Agency blog has more, including the author's predictions on the ability of the scandal's various participants to survive it.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/29/2008 09:40:00 PM Comments (1)

From Fogonazos:

Kolmanskop is a ghost town in southern Namibia, a few kilometres inland from the port of Lüderitz. In 1908, Luederitz was plunged into diamond fever and people rushed into the Namib desert hoping to make an easy fortune. Within two years, a town, complete with a casino, school, hospital and exclusive residential buildings, was established in the barren sandy desert.

But shortly after the drop in diamond sales after the First World War, the beginning of the end started. During the 1950's the town was deserted and the dunes began to reclaim what was always theirs.

Soon the metal screens collapsed and the pretty gardens and tidy streets were buried under the sand. Doors and windows creaked on their hinges, cracked window panes stared sightlessly across the desert. A new ghost town had been born.

Passage credit: Kolmansokp - ghost town in the desert, from Encounter South Africa.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/27/2008 03:46:00 PM Comments (3)

... is the very eye-catching come-on for the theatrical release of Tarsem's long awaited, long in production second feature, The Fall. Previously Tarsem directed the underrated The Cell as well as some classic music videos, including R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion." Here's the trailer.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/26/2008 07:26:00 PM Comments (0)

Over at The Workbook Project, M. Dot Strange offers the case study of his film We Are the Strange that he prepared for the Berlin Talent Campus. Here's his intro:

This was part of a presentation called “Adventures in self distribution” I describe the journey I took with my animated feature film “We are the Strange” From my bedroom to Sundance and beyond and back to my little studio again after turning down Hollywood deals and deciding to self distribute and make my films my way.

And here's the embed:


M dot Strange: Berlin Talent Campus 08 from M dot Strange on Vimeo.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/26/2008 11:24:00 AM Comments (0)

Us Magazine has a piece on their website about why Brad Renfro didn't appear in the Oscar tribute last night to those who passed away in the preceding year. For the record, an Academy spokesperson chalks it up to "an editing decision." There's an active comment section following the article and most are outraged that the talented actor, who died of a heroin overdose on January 15 and who spent half his life working in the movies, wasn't included.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/25/2008 08:59:00 PM Comments (10)

The filmmakers behind From Here to Awesome have made this short video entitled "Why Film Festivals Don't Work" to explain the thinking behind their new festival, which you can read more about at the link above.


submit films | watch films | learn to make films | fest news | fest stream

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/25/2008 07:57:00 PM Comments (0)

.. over at the Director Interviews.

An excerpt:

Filmmaker: What was the process of casting like? It seems that who was playing the roles was integral to the movie's success.

Bahrani: I learned on Push Cart that the biggest job in learning to work with the actors is casting. We were relentless on the casting: we looked for months for the kids, we saw probably 2-3,000 kids, I put 625 interviews on tape. Usually the first step is Q&A: “Who are you? Where are you from?” After you get them comfortable and you get them talking, you start asking things like, “So, have you ever stolen anything?” “No.” “Really?! You haven't stolen anything?! Why not?” Then sometimes you'll get, “Well, one time...” “Oh, cool. Tell me more about that.” Then you start getting into things that match the character: “Would you kill someone if they were hurting your sister?” “You wouldn't?! You wouldn't think about it?” Alejandro was close to that, and he and Isamar were from the same school so they already had a rapport of some sort. She had stood up for his real sister and so he already loved her and looked up to her. After that, it was just constant rehearsing.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/25/2008 07:43:00 PM Comments (0)

Hillary Clinton's "Shame on you, Barack Obama!" outburst at the weekend has not only become a popular video on YouTube but, inevitably, spawned a mashup. Because of YouTube, people are now empowered to express themselves politically in a forum where the most intelligent voices will be seen and heard worldwide by millions. Pushed forward by figures such as Rx (who I have posted about a few times before), the political mashup has increasingly become one of the most vital and persuasive forms of political commentary.

Below I have posted a few videos featuring arguably the most potent source of mashup material, Hillary Rodham Clinton. In addition to the "Shame on you!" video, I have posted Slate's now-classic melding of Clinton and Election's Tracey Flick, and my personal favorite, which mixes two of the most recognizable YouTube moments of 2008 to great effect.

# posted by Nick Dawson @ 2/25/2008 01:36:00 PM Comments (0)

I'm not much on post-Oscar pontificating -- there are plenty of others who do it much better than me. But, the show did seem awfully low-key this year. I guess the writer's strike necessitated a slimmed down show overloaded with film clips and tributes. Anyway, I was happy to have interviewed three of the Oscar winners. For Filmmaker I interviewed Best Actress winner Marion Cotillard and the director of the Best Documentary, Alex Gibney. And for the FilmInFocus site I interviewed the winner of the Best Score Oscar for Atonement, Dario Marianelli. Also, here's Lisa Garibay, who interviewed Best Original Screenplay winner Diablo Cody (Juno) for Filmmaker's Fall 2007 issue. And Nick Dawson interviewed Stefan Ruzowitzky, the director of the Best Foreign Film, The Counterfeiters, for his Director's Interviews.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/24/2008 11:55:00 PM Comments (0)

I try to keep up with celebrity scandal just as much as the next guy, so I was taken aback at the Spirit Award after party when a producer friend said, shocked, "You haven't heard about Edison Chen?" No, actually, I hadn't, but a few moments later, after he gave me an excited outline of the salient points, I had.

In short, while Western audiences have been crashing the New York magazine website to see the Lindsay Lohan as Marilyn shots, audiences in Hong Kong and throughout Asia have been riveted by an internet scandal featuring hardcore sex photos of a leading actor and a succession of comely -- and equally famous -- actresses.

In an article entitled "China riveted by stolen sex photos of Hong Kong stars," The Guardian fills in the details.

From the article by Jonathan Watts:

An unlikely coalition of pop idols, communist censors, Hong Kong police and a Catholic bishop are fighting to stifle the biggest celebrity sex scandal in the history of the Chinese internet.

They are struggling to halt the spread of thousands of lurid digital photographs apparently showing one of Hong Kong's most famous actors, Edison Chen, in bed with eight of the territory's top actresses and singers.

The images - illegally copied from the star's customised pink MacBook - have prompted a media frenzy here that has eclipsed the fixation about Britney Spears in the English-language web.

As well as crashing servers in celebrity-obsessed Hong Kong, the gossip has spread to the mainland, where one online discussion generated more than 25m page views and 140,000 comments.

Although the bulk of its article deals with the technological implications of the scandal, PC World offers an easier-to-understand synopsis of the affair for Western readers.

From PC World:

In late January, photos depicting Chen in the company of several famous Hong Kong actresses and singers began to surface on the Internet. Let me put this in context: Imagine photos of, say, Matthew McConaughey popping up on the Internet, showing him in various states of undress and sexual acts with, say, Alicia Keys, Kelly Clarkson and Kirsten Dunst.

The distribution path of the photos was apparently from Chen's hard drive (they were apparently copied when his computer was being serviced) to an anonymous uploader who has been teasing them out to various news outlets and message boards. In the process, careers are being ruined, marriages destroyed, and, some claim, violence is brewing (One blog post is titled "Edison Chen Will Die"). And, a police investigation is cracking down on those who are spreading and downloading the pictures.

More from The Guardian:

Hong Kong police have arrested eight suspects and warned that people may be prosecuted for sharing the images. This prompted a demonstration by several hundred activists, who believe the crackdown has gone too far. The daily leak of new images has continued on servers in the US and Australia, circulated through Flickr, by email and passed on by hand in the form of shared memory devices.

The gossip has spread rapidly to the mainland, even though censors remove the images almost as soon as they are put up. On the Tianya bulletin board, a single discussion string about the veracity of the pictures has attracted 25.8m page views. Visitors share tips on where to download the latest images and criticism about the behaviour of the stars.

In its piece, PC World has more about the damage:

The effect of the photos' release immediate, huge and devastating, and attempts to contain it were futile. Gillian Chung of the squeaky-clean singing duo Twins, a former girlfriend of Chen's, took the initial brunt of the media attention, as she was depicted in the early photo sets. She and Chen were also under contract to the same Hong Kong conglomerate, Emperor Entertainment Group. Twins' endorsement deals, including for a Spring Festival TV campaign for Hong Kong Disneyland, immediately came under review. It was particularly hard on Chung, who had been the focus of a nude photo scandal two years ago, when a long-lensed peeping Tom photographed her semi-nude as she changed costume at a concert in Malaysia.

Chen escaped the heat by flying to the U.S. and his native Canada, returning to Hong Kong late last week. At a news conference, he announced that he would step back from the Hong Kong entertainment industry indefinitely, although he said he would honor all of his existing commitments that list has certainly dwindled -- at least five companies that use Chen in their ads have said they would not renew his contracts.

For those interested in more detailed coverage, this website has a chronology and some redacted photos from what the Chinese web world calls "Sexy Photos Gate," and Wikipedia has an extensive page. Meanwhile, the Global Voices site has been covering the free speech implications of the Hong Kong police crackdown.

The tech issues are also explored by a blogger called Imagethief:

Edison Chen had a customized pink Macbook that broke. He took it in for repairs. I don't know if you've ever had a computer repaired before, but certainly on the mainland many such repairs are handled by spotty young men who have never had sex and have no immediate prospects of having sex. A customized pink laptop might as well be stenciled, "raid me for porn". If you didn't know otherwise you'd probably think it belonged to a chick (or an incredibly flamboyant gay man, but odds favor a chick). And that's pure temptation, because the kind of girl who would have a customized pink Macbook would probably also have vanity lingerie shots somewhere on the hard drive. You might as well hand a mirror with six lines of primo Andean nostril icing and a rolled up twenty to a Hollywood agent and say, "Dude, I'm going out to have my ass waxed. For the love of god, whatever you do, don't snort this excellent coke!"

For people who must indulge in personal porn, Imagethief offers two words: encrypted + files. It just ain't that hard, even for troglodytes.

The actor (pictured above in Infernal Affairs 2) has his own blog, and he recently posted a public apology and a plea to "stop the downloading" which I am embedding below:

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/24/2008 07:44:00 PM Comments (1)

The cinematic year of the pregnant woman continued as Juno won Best Picture, Best Actress (Ellen Page, pictured), and Best First Screenplay at the Film Independent Spirit Awards this weekend while nominee Angelina Jolie, clad in a tight-fitting black dress, made gossip page news by premiering her own baby bump at the event’s red carpet. The Spirits have always managed the tricky business of blending authentic Hollywood glamour, cheeky awards-show irreverence, and sincere salute to independent film, and this year was no exception. Winners spanned the range from mega-hits like Juno to no-budget indies like Chop Shop, and the crowd consisted of the usual indie scenesters as well as the impossibly glam Jolie/Pitt, nominees Cate Blanchett, Sienna Miller (appealingly game for the jokes Wilson threw at her), and Lust, Caution’s Tang Wei, and presenters who included Maggie Cheung, Matt Dillon, Eva Mendes, Kate Beckinsale and Dustin Hoffman. The tent on the Santa Monica beach may have sprung a few leaks (like the one over my table) during the afternoon’s light rain, but this was still a smoothly run and convivial event.

Rainn Wilson took over hosting duties this year from Sarah Silverman and while I went in doubting that he’d top her, he did a great job. A series of pre-taped pieces – one in which he “got indie” by being pimped out as a tranny hooker by Dennis Hopper and the other in which he ineptly auditioned for the lead roles in the various nominated Best Films – were hilarious. There was no Ally Sheedy on-stage winner meltdown this year, but a number of the nominees got off great lines. Best First Screenplay winner Tamara Jenkins (The Savages) quipped that “half the room” had passed on her script and that her first draft was so long that agent Bart Walker suggested pitching it to HBO as a mini-series, while Philip Seymour Hoffman, winning Best Actor for the same film, said that while he normally moves right on to the next job after finishing a film he felt he gained “two sisters” on this one in director Jenkins and co-star Laura Linney. A special award, the Robert Altman Award, was given to I’m Not There’s Todd Haynes, casting director Laura Rosenthal and the actors who played Dylan in its ensemble cast. Haynes used a portion of his speech to remember Heath Ledger and was particularly moving when noting Ledger’s nascent directorial career, describing his music videos and the feature script he had only recently sent to his first two collaborators: Rosenthal and I’m Not There d.p. Ed Lachman.

The great Janusz Kaminski won Best Cinematography for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and both my and the other producer at my table’s ears went up when he described how he cut his rate to $3,000/week in order to accommodate the film’s budget. Good to know… Winning Best Director for the same film, Julian Schnabel faced no drunken audience heckling at this event, although he did oddly try to pay a tribute of some kind to the popularity of Juno by inviting director Jason Reitman on stage to share the award. Schnabel went on to acknowledge the importance to him of producer Jon Kilik (“I don’t make a movie without Jon Kilik,” he said,”) and then ended by saying, “This is a nice community of people who've been very, very generous to me, and I appreciate that.”

Neil Kopp (Old Joy, Paranoid Park), who won the Producer Award, also spoke of crew rates, saluting the crews who had worked for him for deferrals or minimum wage. And it was great to see Ellen Page, who we picked for our “25 New Faces” in 2005, win Best Actress. Ditto the Mr. Mudd producing team behind Juno. On stage producer Liane Halfon quipped that the picture was something new for them: a movie with a happy ending.

Like any collision between the big-time world of indie-film sponsorship and the often small-time world of actually making independent cinema, the Spirits have been known to produce a few off-key moments, but if there were any egregious ones on stage this year, I missed them. I did overhear talk of one such moment in line for the restroom, however, as Rocket Science director Jeffrey Blitz described one of his TV red-carpet interviews. “You directed Rocket Science, I really loved it,” the interviewer said. “So tell me, what was it liked directing a documentary this year?”

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/24/2008 04:28:00 PM Comments (0)

Juno was the big winner of the Spirit Awards, which just wrapped up on a soggy afternoon in Santa Monica, CA. The film walked away with Best Feature, Best Female Lead for Ellen Page and Best First Screenplay for Diablo Cody. The complete list of winners is below.

BEST FEATURE
Juno

BEST DIRECTOR
Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

BEST MALE LEAD
Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Savages

BEST FEMALE LEAD
Ellen Page, Juno

BEST SUPPORTING MALE
Chiwetel Ejiofor, Talk To Me

BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE
Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There

BEST SCREENPLAY
Tamara Jenkins, The Savages

BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY
Diablo Cody, Juno

BEST DOCUMENTARY
Crazy Love, Director: Dan Klores

BEST FOREIGN FILM
Once, Director: John Carney

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Janusz Kaminski, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

BEST FIRST FEATURE
The Lookout, Director: Scott Frank

JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD
August Evening, Writer-Director: Chris Eska

ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD
I'm Not There, Director: Todd Haynes
Casting Director: Laura Rosenthal
Ensemble Cast: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bruce Greenwood, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Ben Whishaw

IFC/ACURA SOMEONE TO WATCH AWARD
Ramin Bahrani, Chop Shop

TRUER THAT FICTION AWARDS
The Unforseen, Director: Laura Dunn

PIAGET PRODUCERS AWARD
Neil Kopp (Paranoid Park, Old Joy)

# posted by Jason Guerrasio @ 2/23/2008 07:28:00 PM Comments (0)

On the heels of Toshiba's announcement this past weekend that it will fall on its sword in the long-winded battle for hi-def DVD supremacy making Blu-ray the victor (guess I backed the wrong horse, anybody want Goodfellas on HD DVD?), David Pogue writes in the New York Times today that even though there's more options to watch movies online, in the immediate future, DVDs are still your best choice as he gives a report card on the Internet movie boxes (Apple TV, TiVo/Amazon Unbox, Xbox 360 and Vudu).

Pogue also makes a good point about the absent-minded thinking of the companies. An excerpt:

"Finally, today’s movie-download services bear the greasy policy fingerprints of the movie studio executives — and when it comes to the new age of digital movies, these people are not, ahem, known for their vision.

For example, no matter which movie-download service you choose, you’ll find yourself facing the same confusing, ridiculous time limits for viewing. You have to start watching the movie you’ve rented within 30 days, and once you start, you have to finish it within 24 hours.

Where’s the logic? They’ve got your money, so why should they care if you start watching on the 30th day or the 31st?

Then there is the 24-hour limit. Suppose you typically do not start a movie until 7:30 p.m., after dinner and the homework have been put away. If you do not have time to finish the movie in one sitting, you cannot resume at 7:30 tomorrow night; at that point, the download will have self-destructed.

What would the studios lose by offering a 27-hour rental period? Or three days, or even a week? Nothing. In fact, they’d attract millions more customers. (At the very least, instead of just deleting itself, the movie should say: “Would you like another 24-hour period for an additional $1?”)"

# posted by Jason Guerrasio @ 2/21/2008 11:05:00 AM Comments (0)

Interesting trend article by Dan Frost in the New York Times about "co-working," in which various freelancers all share a common office space while still doing their own projects.

From the piece:

While coworking has evolved since Mr. Neuberg’s epiphany in 2005, dozens of places around the country and increasingly around the world now offer such arrangements, where someone sets up an office and rents out desks, creating a community of people who have different jobs but who want to share ideas.

“It’s nourishing on a fundamental level,” said John Vlahides, the executive editor of 71miles.com, a travel site covering Northern California, who rents a desk for $175 a month at one of Mr. Neuberg’s original sites, the Hat Factory. “And if you’re not nourished, how can you be creative?”...

The coworkers, armed with Wi-Fi laptops and cellphones, are in some ways offering a techie twist on the age-old practice of artists or writers teaming up to rent studio space.

Most coworkers say they were drawn to the spaces for the same reasons that inspired Mr. Neuberg: they like working independently, but they are less effective when sitting home alone.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/20/2008 10:40:00 AM Comments (0)

I've just posted an interview with Stefan Ruzowitzky, the director of The Counterfeiters, one of the films up for the Best Foreign Language Film award at the Oscars on Sunday. For a while I've been meaning to write something about this particular category of the Academy Awards, as it has taken a lot of flak this year.

Firstly, there was the controversy surrounding the disqualification of The Band's Visit, something which generated a huge number of column inches. There was much anger aimed at the producers of Beaufort — who were the people who first pointed out to the Israeli Academy that The Band's Visit had over 50% English and was therefore not eligible — especially when Beaufort replaced it as Israel's selection. This grievance was understandable, but what I did not agree with was the criticism that was aimed at AMPAS, the body that runs the Academy Awards. They were slammed for disqualifying The Band's Visit because their rules state that for a film to be eligible it must contain no more than 50% English dialogue. Despite people regularly calling this award "Best Foreign Film," it is in fact called the Best Foreign Language Film and all that happened was that the rules were adhered to. People seemed to overlook this nuance, and felt because The Band's Visit was such a good film that this made its disqualification particularly unjust. Unfortunately, a film's merits do not affect straightforward regulations. (Interestingly, there was no such uproar when Alvin and the Chipmunks was similarly disqualified from Oscar's animated category for being 70% live action and only 30% cartoon...)

When AMPAS announced the shortlist of nine foreign language films from which the five nominees would be chosen, there was once again widespread unrest. In this case, it was because films like Persepolis, Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days and The Orphanage had not been selected. And this is where my feelings on AMPAS diverge from the majority. As I see it, the foreign language category is the most democratic of them all on Oscar night — and that can only be a good thing. Persepolis, Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days and The Orphanage were denied a shot at the Oscar, yet by that stage all three were already internationally acclaimed movies with U.S. distribution deals.

Beaufort, distributed in the U.S. by Kino, is another of the nominees on Sunday night. Last year, I interviewed its director, Joseph Cedar, as well as Eran Kolirin, the director of The Band's Visit. (You can read the piece here.) After the interview was over, Cedar and I chatted for 15 minutes or so and he asked me whether I thought Beaufort had a chance of being chosen from the 60-odd international selections to be one of the five nominees. I had to tell him that he had a chance because Beaufort is such an excellent film, but that every year it's a crap shoot.

The selection panel for the foreign language Oscar are often characterized as old and out of touch, yet whether or not this is true every year the five films chosen as nominees are, without fail, a total surprise. It is the one category where people watching the films seem to judge them based purely on their reaction, rather than being swayed by a film's percentage rating on Rotten Tomatoes, box office takings or, most significantly, huge billboards or ads in Variety shouting "For Your Consideration." As a result, films with U.S. distribution deals are chosen alongside movies dismissed as too "small" or too risky by distributors. And, for the most part, those films then magically get U.S. distribution. Knowing they can put the words "Oscar" and "Nominated" in big letters on the poster is seemingly sufficient for distributors to change their mind about those previously shunned movies. As a result, this year Oscar has all but guaranteed us the new films from Nikita Mikhalkov, Andrzej Wajda and Sergei Bodrov – three undeniably great directors — in addition to films like Persepolis, Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days and The Orphanage.

Variety recently reported that producer Mark Johnson, currently the chairman of AMPAS' foreign language branch, is lobbying for its reform, exactly because of the omission of films like Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days. "I feel the committee doesn't reflect the Academy at large and I have to do something to effect that,” Johnson said. “We can change things so we can incorporate some different voices.” I personally feel that what the current system offers is exactly that – different voices – and hope that will continue to be the case for the foreseeable future.

# posted by Nick Dawson @ 2/19/2008 10:47:00 PM Comments (0)

The French writer and film director Alain Robbe-Grillet died on Monday in Normandy at the age of 85. GreenCine has a round-up of various news reports and commentary here.

Robbe-Grillet was best known for his literary manifesto "For a New Novel," his screenplay for Alain Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad, and his various novels -- The Erasers, Jealousy, The Voyeur -- that formed part of the Nouveau Roman movement. As a director, his films include L'Immortelle and Trans-Europe Express. La Belle Captive was recently released in the States by Koch Lorber.

When I was in college, Robbe-Grillet's early novels and the essays that comprised "For a New Novel" were, for all their severity, extremely seductive texts. Robbe-Grillet's works were ostensibly anti-psychological and opposed to conventional notions of character and metaphor. His books were concerned not with feelings or "the inside" but rather surfaces and exteriors, and his essays comprised a dismissive broadside against what we believed then to still be the corrosive sway of the bourgois novel. There was something thrilling about encountering Jealousy for the first time and hitting that famous sequence in which the narrator, whose wife may be cheating on him, obsessively counts every tree in a banana forest for page after page.

At the time I first read his work, Robbe-Grillet was a visiting professor at NYU, and wile he was in New York the Mudd Club devoted a special evening to him. We showed up at the club and were blindfolded and led onto a bus which took us to what later became the East Village nightclub The World. When we arrived it was decorated like on the decaying mansions that might be found in one of his films. In the upstairs space both L'Immortelle and Last Year at Marienbad screened. I met Robbe-Grillet briefly that night and later with a friend interviewed him for the Columbia literary magazine. He claimed not to speak English so my friend, who was a French major, asked all the questions. She found him quite intimidating, though, and at one point tripped over her words. "In English," he snapped, and she started to ask the question again. After a moment he cut her off -- "Your English is worse than your French," he said.

Robbe-Grillet's work lost one kind of severity in later decades but gained another of sorts. He abandoned some of the conceptual rigor found in the early books but picked up an increasing fascination with kink and sado-masochism. And with his autobiography Ghosts in the Machine, he seemed to accept the notion of the psychologically defined narrative subject his earlier novels dismissed. When asked if his novels were all disguised autobiography, he told Bookforum in 2003:

It's true for all writers. Faulkner is in all his novels. So is Flaubert. My novel Jealousy is absolutely autobiographical. I lived in that house. I have photographs of that house. I was one of the three characters in the novel. What's strange is that this was received by critics as a novel without an author, as the most abstract of all novels. The Voyeur is set in Brittany, where I was born. The chief difference is that I did not murder a young girl. Yet the idea of doing such a thing was in me. A very famous psychoanalyst told me, "It's a good thing that you wrote that novel, because it was your psychoanalyst couch. If you hadn't, you might have murdered a young woman."

A number of tributes have appeared today throughout the blogosphere. Cinebeats has this short post that includes this YouTube clip from his little-seen 1970 film Eden and After.



Glenn Kenney has an excellent post at his blog that includes this passage:

Both his novels and his films got, for lack of a better word, kinkier over the years, with plenty of bondage and fluids involved; the hideous sex murders-as-peep-shows in his novel Project for a Revolution in New York do play as violent pornography—exquisitely written violent pornography. Were Robbe-Grillet's convoluted narrative strategies merely subterfuges to excuse what the literary critic Roger Sale called (when writing of another controversial novelist, John Hawkes) a "vile imagination"?

Over at Esotika Erotica Psychotica, Mike pens a brief poston the man and his films. Recently he wrote a longer appreciation of La Belle Captive (pictured).

I'll leave you with one final YouTube clip -- the trailer for Last Year at Marienbad.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/18/2008 10:07:00 PM Comments (0)

Over at his Cinema Echo Chamber, Brandon Harris has a go at Richard Corliss's list for Time Magazine of the "25 Most Important Films about Race."

From Corliss's intro:

To celebrate Black History Month, we've chosen 25 movies to honor the artistry, appeal and determination of African Americans on and behind the screen. The films span nine decades, and reveal a legacy that was tragic before it was triumphant. At first, blacks were invisible; when they were allowed to be seen, it was mostly as derisive comic relief. The 1950s ushered in the age of the noble Negro, in the imposing person of Sidney Poitier — the Jackie Robinson of movies. Only when Hollywood realized that a sizable black audience would pay to see films more reflective of their lives, whether funny, poignant or violent, were they given control of the means of production. Sometimes. The fact remains that of the 25 films here, chosen to cover the widest range of black films, fewer than half were directed by blacks.

While agreeing with some of his selections, Harris questions the biases behind the list: "Even in our list obsessed culture, it's hard to come across one as peculiar, clumsy and half-baked as Corliss' attempt to assign importance to 25 films on race."

More from Harris:

Clearly, by studying the list, one can deduce that the 25 most important films on race are really the 25 most important black films by directors working in America, regardless of color or national origin. The racial diversity of America (or the world for that matter) and its incalculable cinematic representations are reduced by Corliss to the a small crossection of films that toil in the rhetoric of American blackness....

Taking a closer look at the selections however, one quickly gleans that a majority of the films, even if they're protagonists or a major supporting player happen to be African-Americans, aren't really about race at all. From Corliss' earliest pick, Oscar Michaeux's 1925 Paul Robeson starrer Body and Soul, to his ludicrous final pick, Will Smith latest cash cowI Am Legend, many of the films Corliss has chosen, regardless of their quality, have very little to do with American race relations or notions of Otherness in our culture or any other.

His critique goes on at the link, and Harris also comes up with a list of black American indie films that should have been considered by the Time editors.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/17/2008 09:05:00 AM Comments (1)

Anne Thompson writes in Variety this week about the marketing challenge facing indies hoping to distribute their films online. In a piece headlined "Frustrated indies seek we distribution," Thompson looks at all the unsold films out of Sundance this year and then talks with some of the current players in the online distribution space and wonders whether the needs of the former can be met by the current powers of the latter.

A passage:

The key question is, when will an alternative distribution outlet for indie films emerge -- an outlet that can interest enough viewers to bring in meaningful returns?

The film industry is rife with eager alternative distributors pitching their wares -- but making money isn't usually part of the equation.

"The long-range outlook for specialty film is to move more to home markets. But the marketing challenge is enormous," says Netflix's Ted Sarandos.

She's talked to a lot of people for the piece, and without spelling it out, the clear subtext is that the traditional Sundance film -- the indie drama -- is the type least-served by the current online options. Her best-case examples of films making a go of it online are mostly political docs, genre films, and sports docs. Those are the types of films that can launch into existing communities that not driven primarily by the major media. Films that require marketplace definition, that need to be formally introduced to the more general movie-loving consumer or to have their identities created and enhanced by critical support, are not finding the online distribution model to be a viable one at the moment.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/15/2008 08:13:00 AM Comments (0)

Since this seems to have been a blog day of embeds and videos, I'll add one more: this link to Kate Stables' piece in The Guardian providing links to six online videos all themed for Valentine's Day. There's work by Duane Hopkins, Anastasia Kirillova and others, and you'll find the sweet and romantic as well as the brooding and unexpected. (Hat tip: GreenCine.)

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/14/2008 06:05:00 PM Comments (0)

Here's the new red-band trailer for David Gordon Green's Judd-Apatow-produced comedy Pineapple Express.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/14/2008 02:08:00 PM Comments (0)

Sent "in the spirit of Valentine's Day," Filmmaker 2007 25 New Face filmmakers Brian Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky passed along this excerpt from The Patron Saints, their doc-in-progress about "faith, uncertainty and sainthood."

For more about their work and their project, visit their blog, Pigeon Droppings and their company website, Pigeon Projects.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/14/2008 01:23:00 PM Comments (0)

Here's "Flashing Lights," a strange and violent video for the Kanye West song directed by West and Spike Jonze.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/14/2008 01:20:00 PM Comments (0)

Ninety-nine percent of interviews with directors and cast members about working on a film fall into the "everyone was so wonderful, it was like a family, I had such a great time" mold. But the opposite can sometimes be a better sell, or, at least, can more effectively cut through marketplace noise. And sometimes filmmakers don't have a choice -- if they want to promote a film that seems like it's in trouble, they've got to spill the beans about what went wrong.

A case in point is this article by Missy Schwartz in Entertainment Weekly about the straight-to-video release of I Could Never Be Your Woman, a comedy directed by Amy Heckerling and starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Paul Rudd. It's a heartbreaker, a tale of how bad business deals and a neophyte new-money financier/distributor (Bauer Martinez) led to bad feelings all around.

From the piece:

We're all familiar with the story of the $200 million blockbuster that weathers misfortune on its way to the multiplex. Woman, however, is something of a subcultural curio. It's a modestly budgeted indie that, while far from perfect, never got the chance it deserved, hitting every speed bump and knocking over every traffic cone along the way. The experience has been one of the most frustrating of Heckerling's 26-year career — and, incidentally, coincided with the illness of both her parents, whom she was nursing through heart ailments and chemotherapy. The director has yet to wrap her head around it all. ''I don't know what to say because I don't have all the information. I don't know what goes on behind my back.... I always feel like, if you don't have anything good to say, then don't say anything.'' She sighs. ''Bitterness is so ugly. I don't want to go there.''

I haven't seen the film -- it's on my Netflix cue -- but I'm a fan of all involved and can't believe the film doesn't deserve better.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/13/2008 07:12:00 PM Comments (0)

Indiewire and Daily Motion cover the premiere of Filth and Wisdom, Madonna's directorial debut which has just unspooled in Berlin.

From the Indiewire report by Brian Brooks and Eugene Hernandez:

Her first feature may have been made relatively under the radar -- at least for a woman of her stature -- but iconic actress/author and all around uber pop star, now turned filmmaker, Madonna nevertheless made quite a splash in Berlin today. She landed on the cover of local tabloids ahead of the world premiere of her directorial debut Filth & Wisdom at the Berlinale tonight and huge crowds gathered wherever she went in public, from throngs of journalists at a press conference, a mob around the big screen TV broadcasting the live Q &A, a sea of fans outside the Berlin fest headquarters and later at the Zoo Palast theater. indieWIRE spent some quieter moments with Madonna during one of the few one-on-one interviews she gave earlier today.

Set in London, the film, which Madonna said was originally envisioned as a short, ultimately evolved into an 85-minute movie. It revolves around three friends desperate to better their lot in life, who must duel with the reality of their circumstances. While causing a stir at the Berlinale, the film is screening in the fest's more artsy and understated Panorama section, alongside many other films from first-timers. Early word after today's press screening seemed positive among those who caught the showing, with some saying that it exceeded their expectations.

A clip from the film that premiered on Indiewire is embedded below.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/13/2008 07:04:00 PM Comments (0)

One of NYC's most enjoyable screening series returns this week with what looks like a great line-up of films. Film Comment selects begins tomorrow at the Walter Reade theater, and The House Next Door has an exhaustive preview compiled by no less than four critics. (Thanks to GreenCine for the links.) Head over to the Film Comment link and mark U.S. premieres by Grant Gee, Olivier Assayas, Lucas Moodysson (whose Container is pictured) and others in your datebook.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/13/2008 06:10:00 PM Comments (0)

Anthony Kaufman has a very nice piece in the current Village Voice about producer Paul Mezey, who was involved with two acclaimed Sundance films -- Azazel Jacobs' Momma's Man, and Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's Sugar (picture). Kaufman calls the group of directors who orbit around Mezey, a group that also includes Joshua Marston and Jim McKay, a "filmmaking family," and includes some quotes from the producer about the challenges of making "new American realism" within the current climate. It's really nice to see a producer singled out in the Voice for his great work.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/13/2008 01:44:00 PM Comments (0)

According to Variety, the 100-day strike which began back on Nov. 5 has ended with 92.5 percent of the guild voting in favor of putting down their picket signs and returning to work immediately. Read the full story here.

# posted by Jason Guerrasio @ 2/13/2008 08:29:00 AM Comments (0)

Though Michel Gondry's latest highly imaginative film Be Kind Rewind, which is the cover story of our current issue, isn't out in theaters for another two weeks, beginning this weekend you can be like Mos Def and Jack Black in the film and create home videos of some of your favorite films (or as they call it "swede") when Deitch Projects in New York City brings the video store from the film to their gallery. Here's more from their press release:

For the exhibition, Michel Gondry will be recreating the video store in the gallery, complete with a back lot containing a variety of movie sets where visitors can make their own renditions of films. All videos created during the exhibition can be viewed in the gallery. About the project, Gondry states, “I don’t intend nor have the pretension to teach how to make films. Quite the contrary. I intend to prove that people can enjoy their time without being part of the commercial system and serving it. Ultimately, I am hoping to create a network of creativity and communication that is guaranteed to be free and independent from any commercial institution.” The exhibit ends March 22.

ONE MORE THING: The Be Kind Rewind Website is also a lot of fun. Be sure to check out the trailer and then Gondry's sweded version, you can also swede yourself into movies.

# posted by Jason Guerrasio @ 2/11/2008 01:02:00 PM Comments (0)

Whenever a viral video becomes a big success on YouTube, there are inevitably spoof versions that are quickly created. Here we see the Yes We Can video made in support of Barack Obama reworked to showcase the views of his possible November nemesis, John McCain. The original video is below it.

# posted by Nick Dawson @ 2/11/2008 11:38:00 AM Comments (0)

Variety reports today on the expected launch of The Auteurs, a new online film distributor. From the story by John Hopewell and Charles Newbery:

Film producer Eduardo Costantini and computer scientist Efe Cakarel are launching the Auteurs, a Silicon Valley-based global online cinematheque that will stream high-definition independent and classic films.

The Auteurs' main content provider is Celluloid Dreams....

The site will be curated by established programmers: the Latin America section, for example, is curated by Peter Schumann, recipient of the Berlinale Camera, who worked for the Berlinale for 35 years.

In consumer terms, the Auteurs will deliver feature-length films at a moment's notice.

"It's like YouTube but you get a two-hour, full-length full-screen film in high definition," said Cakarel.

A social site allowing interactivity, Auteurs will offer interviews and reviews.

The Auteurs' business model is "freemium," Cakarel and Costantini said. Most of the catalogue films will be offered gratis. The Auteurs will also offer paid-for premium content and the venture will be financed through advertising.

I've been a member of the site during its beta test and have played around with it a bit, although I've also had terrible internet connections in Europe recently so I'll wait until I get back to New York to explore it more thoroughly. And I'll be eager to get more news on the site and post it here. I didn't realize that after the beta test the site is going to work on what the founders call a "freemium" model, which certainly challenges some of the orthodoxies of online feature film distribution thinking at the moment. (The almost-concluded WGA strike was partly about how writers can receive remuneration from these type of models, including networks' use of free streaming as an additional distribution channel for television programs.)

For now, though you can go to The Auteurs and sign up for the private beta, which is still continuing, and if you have some thoughts on the site and its model, feel free to post them here.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/09/2008 07:09:00 AM Comments (0)

I don't know what's funnier in Karina Longworth's very amusing blog post at Spout, "Five Indie Films that Should Be Video Games" -- the five titles or the purportedly real news that Juno is in the process of being turned into a game.

The five films are Gummo, Happiness, Redacted, The Brown Bunny and Mutual Appreciation, of which Lombard writes:

Think Guitar Hero meets The Legend of Zelda. After every performance, instead of moving on to the next song, you have to wander around Brooklyn, battling your way through awkward encounters with girls and weird older dudes who are friends of your parents. Instead of a boomerang, you stun girls and enemies (well, mostly just girls) with imprecise language and inscrutable passivity. This one may do better on the European market.

Wait a second -- I think I played that recently...

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/08/2008 01:02:00 PM Comments (0)

The New York-based film festival CineKink has announced their line-up for this year's event, which runs from February 26 to March 2.

From the press release:

Billing itself as "the really alternative film festival," the event will run February 26-March 2, 2008. Presented by CineKink, an organization dedicated to the recognition and encouragement of sex-positive and kink-friendly depictions in film and television, works presented at CineKink NYC will range from documentary to drama, mildly spicy to quite explicit - and everything in between.

"It seems our programming theme for this year was 'No mercy!'" says Lisa Vandever, CineKink's co-founder and director. "It's exciting to see sex-positive filmmaking really starting to come into its own. But it's going to be a true festival marathon. Even expanding our screenings into an additional day, we had so many fantastic works entered into the festival for 2008, we've really had to pack them into every possibly available moment."

The festival opens with a "tribute screening" of John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus followed by "New York Stories," a series of short works and excerpts by directors Tony DiMarco, Venus Hottentot, Michael Lucas, Radley Metzger, Porno Jim, Audacia Ray and Candida Royalle. Also playing at the festival is Viva, Anna Biller's spirited and obsessive homage to '60s and '70s exploitation cinema; New York premieres from Maria Beatty, the New York premiere of Annie Sprinkle's Herstory of Porn and an official Opening Night with works by New York directors Richard Kimmel, Leah Mayerhoff, and Steven Speliotis.

For updates as the fest approaches -- and some choice YouTube links -- check out the CineKink blog.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/07/2008 04:19:00 PM Comments (0)

Over at Wired.com, Megan McCarthy has an article about Dealipedia, a new start-up from Michael Robertson, who previously founded MP3.com, which he sold to Vivendi in 2001.

From the piece:

Michael Robertson, who made $115 million when he sold his startup MP3.com to Vivendi in 2001, wants every other entrepreneur to tell the world how much, or little, they pocketed during their business deals.

His new site, the recently launched Dealipedia, aims to become a hub of information about mergers, investments, acquisitions, and other business deals by encouraging the people in on the deals to upload information to its public wiki. The goal is to help entrepreneurs, VCs, and other curious parties understand what goes on behind the scenes of the business world....

As for the reliability of anonymous contributions, Robertson is relying on a communal intelligence. "We're a wiki model, so we're depending on the wisdom of crowds," Robertson said. "If somebody types in that my company, MP3.com, was sold for $200 million, I'm going to say, 'Like hell it was, it was sold for $385 million!' People have a vested interest in making sure the data is accurate."

Way back in 1995, Ted Hope wrote an article for Filmmaker entitled "Indie Film is Dead," and one of his ten bullet points was the following:

The film industry, like all others, mystifies by design. All industries create their own vernacular, keeping the have-nots clouded in confusion. Variety takes this talent to an art form. The neophyte needs a class in how to read the trades, let alone understand them. Where is the information when you need it? Whether it’s a rolodex or a financial chart, good luck in getting up-to-date info. The industry promotes a paranoia and close-to-the-chest confidentiality in all its’ parishioners, whispering that if you don’t leap in, you’ll be out forever.

From the looks of various indie film business plans I occasionally review, Hope's point is still valid: solid information on the financial returns of independent films is near-impossible to get. Although the wiki model has its obvious drawbacks when it comes to accumulating business data about independent films, it also has its benefits in that the dirty laundry that would come out about deals gone wrong, missed payments, and defaulting distributors would be authored by a neutral-seeming voice.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/07/2008 08:50:00 AM Comments (0)

Interesting news via Pitchfork Media: Beastie Boy Adam Yauch has launched Oscilloscope Pictures, a new independent distributor, with former Think Film V.P. David Fenkel and former Think employee Dan Berger. The Pitchfork article quotes this Reuters/Hollywood Reporter piece, which gives more details.

From the Gregg Goldstein piece:

Yauch and Fenkel plan to acquire narrative and documentary features from festivals for release in the U.S. and provide funds to complete and release unfinished films.

The pair, who worked on Yauch's Beastie Boys documentary "Awesome! I F***in' Shot That!" at ThinkFilm, will oversee postproduction and marketing work at Oscilloscope Laboratories' downtown Manhattan production space. Fenkel's fellow ThinkFilm alumni Dan Berger is joining them in the venture.

"We're kind of winging it," said Yauch. He plans to release two to 10 films in the first year. Without any outside financial backing for the self-financed venture, he hopes to make deals in which the filmmakers share the risk.

OP will handle its own theatrical distribution and control all marketing materials in-house but likely will partner with an outside distribution company for home video releases.

Its first theatrical release, set to be announced within the next month, will hit theaters by the summer.

Fenkel said many of the company's marketing campaigns will incorporate an indie music-style, DIY approach in keeping with the Beastie Boys' way of connecting with fans.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/06/2008 02:58:00 PM Comments (1)

Looking at our coverage of films last year we realized we did a pretty good job choosing films that went on to get Oscar nominations (yes, there was much rejoicing in the office). Some appeared in Nick Dawson's Director Interviews section on the Website, others were Web Exclusives, while a good deal was in the magazine and we never got them online. So beginning tonight and going all the way to Oscar night on Feb. 24, we'll be republishing those pieces in the Oscar Preview section on the main page (except for There Will Be Blood (nominated for Best Picture, Director, Lead Actor, Cinematography, Screenplay, Editing, Sound Editing and Art Design) and Taxi To The Dark Side (nominated for Best Feature Documentary) which is already on our main page).

Currently up is the Little Miss Sunshine of this year's award season, Jason Reitman's Juno. Lisa Y. Garibay sat down with Reitman and the film's screenwriter Diablo Cody for the Fall '07 issue.

Stories will be posted on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

# posted by Jason Guerrasio @ 2/05/2008 07:04:00 PM Comments (0)

Over at the FilmInFocus site there's a five-part series beginning today in which five documentary filmmakers (or filmmaking teams) tell us their top sources for news and political reporting and commentary. The first set, picked by Jesus Camp directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, spans an "alternative news nexus" to a site that measures "hostility across the political spectrum." Their selections are at the link.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/05/2008 07:45:00 AM Comments (0)

An amazing, amazing Super Bowl with a fourth quarter for the ages. John Woods, liveblogging for The New York Times, says, "To heck with the Coen brothers. This is your best picture of the year." I just finished watching the game in Paris on France 2, where most of the late-game commentary consisted of "Incroyable!" and "Ooh, la la!" (Seriously.) Anyway, congrats to the Giants and all the fans!

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/03/2008 10:07:00 PM Comments (0)

The AP is reporting that four New York indie film companies -- Greenestreet Films, This is That Corporation, Killer Films and Open City Films -- have signed an interim agreement with the striking WGA, allowing them to go forward with WGA-scripted development projects and productions.

From the piece as it runs on CNN.com:

Jason Kliot and Joana Vicente, speaking for GreeneStreet, Open City and Killer films, credited the union with "thoughtfulness during the discussions."

This is that co-founders, Ted Hope and Anne Carey, said the united action by the companies to settle "clarifies our support for and solidarity with the WGA's position."

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/03/2008 08:01:00 PM Comments (0)

Brian Chirls, who was part of the Filmmaker team at Sundance this year, sat down for an interview with Scott Kirsner over at his Cinematech blog/ They talked about audience building, monetizing your web audience, and Brian's work with the Four Eyed Monsters team. I've embedded it below. And if you are not a regular visitor to Kirsner's blog, click over there for lots of other great commentary on web video, new media, and new distribution and business models.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/02/2008 08:13:00 AM Comments (0)

Given that he's just made his debut feature about the mysteries, speculations, half-truths and flights of fancy that comprise the 9/11 Truth Movement, I guess it makes sense that filmmaker Paul Krik is accustomed to finding conspiracy wherever he goes. He's travelled from Brooklyn to Rotterdam to premiere Able Danger, but when I ask him to shoot me an email about why he chose to make a movie about 9/11 conspiracy theorists, he responds by noting some suspicious activities having to do with Dutch bicycle renting:

"Indruk de en Brooklyn fietser in Rotterdam"

True Conspiracy #1;

It is illegal to buy Gazelles in the United States.

The bike rental joint tucked in behind Engels is open 'til 1am doesn't rent Gazelles, only Daaddfd -- still a fun bike -- but I might go back on Saturday and order a Gazelle off the internet and have the bike store ship it to me since, let me say it again to make the point: it's illegal to buy Gazelles in America. It's a conspiracy. Who is involved? Why is the Netherlands so superior to America in bike path city planning? Indruk; same people behind Able Danger, behind 9/11 are to blame -- to put it one way, the fossile fuel military industrial lobbyists.

According to Wikipedia, Able Danger was a "a classified military intelligence program under the command of the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM). It was created as a result of a directive from the Joint Chiefs of Staff in early October 1999 by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hugh Shelton, to develop an Information Operations Campaign Plan against transnational terrorism, 'specifically al-Qaeda.'" The story, as alleged by various journalists as well as Congressman Curt Weldon, former Vice Chairman of the Armed Services committee, is that Able Danger members identified the Mohamed Atta terrorist cell prior to 9/11 but were prevented from passing their information on to the FBI. Subsequently, Weldon claimed that 2.5 terabytes of data collected by the Able Danger group was ordered destroyed two years before the 9/11 attack. The 9/11 commission either did not consider or dismissed these allegations, and 9/11 theorists have gone on to claim that Able Danger was actually a program designed to monitor and control Atta and other "patsies" who were the fall guys for the 9/11 attacks.

Able Danger the movie takes the real-life mystery of the intelligence operation and uses it as the basis for a spirited and blackly comic neo-noir set all over Manhattan and Brooklyn. Thomas Flynn is a 9/11 theorist, author of a conspiracy expose, and manager of a coffee shop named Vox Pop. When an Eastern European femme fatale, Kasia, played by Elina Lowensohn, enters the picture, Flynn is rapidly learns just how much he is on to when he is plunged into a netherworld of shadow ops, New American Century puppeteers, and smartly-accented henchmen. Reworking classic spy movie tropes for the post-9/11 age, Krik uses flashes of dark comedy, an affection for the film noir genre and the perfect eyebrow-half-cocked attitude towards his subject matter to create a fast-paced and entertaining story. He's aided quite a bit by Aaron Nee, one of Filmmaker's "25 New Faces" of 2006, who stars here as Flynn and gives an appealing performance as the Williamsburg underground reporter who, like a character in a '60s John Frankenheimer film, knows a bit more than he should. With its black-and-white cinematography and visual imagination (the film mixes in color dream sequences and text-overwritten surveillance footage), the film is bit reminiscent of Darren Aronofsky's debut, Pi, as well as Hal Hartley's recent Fay Grim, but Krik's low-fi riff on the conspiracy thriller has a charm all its own. "In case you didn't know," Krik writes, Able Danger is based on a 'true story'...
 Vox Pop really exists, the author and the book featured in the movie really exists, Able Danger program really existed, all the 'conspiracies' mentioned in the movie are true..."

I asked Krik how he got his movie made, and he emailed, "I self financed the film. It seemed impossible to garner financing for a 9/11 conspiracy movie in black and white. This is the investor's paradigm movie NOT to invest in. That being said, I'm broke. I'm looking to sell the film and get back to working commercials -- but that's why people want to see it, because they won't see it anywhere else."

To see the film's trailer visit its website.

And for those interested in more on the real Able Danger, Kris emailed a pair of YouTube clips to check out.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 2/01/2008 01:46:00 PM Comments (2)