Authors — Scott Macaulay
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Fassbinder and his Friends: Everett Lewis
Entering its final weekend, “Fassbinder: Romantic Anarchist” is part one of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s massive survey of the work of the late, great Rainer Werner Fassbinder — a madly prolific, protean figure of the German New Wave. Marrying social commentary with emotional melodrama and, sometimes, genre entertainment, Fassbinder cranked out four and five movies a year, drawing from a repertory group of actors, exploring themes of love and obsession, and building a sustained critique of post-war capitalism that still penetrates today. In 1997, the Museum of Modern Art programmed a Fassbinder retrospective, and we asked several directors […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 30, 2014 -
Thunder Funder Talks its New Independent Film Financing and Production Venture
Thunder Funder is the recently announced film production arm of Thunder Studios, a Long Beach, California soundstage and production house, and it’s making a bold play for independent projects. Rodric David, founder and CEO of both Thunder Funder and Thunder Studios, has announced $12 million in annual investment and partnerships with several other companies — post-production services vendor Pace Pictures, Red Digital Cinema and, to handle distribution, indie vet Cassian Elwes of Elevated Film Sales — to bring to independents “all the tools required to present audiences with a film that is truly the best it can be.” A dive […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 28, 2014 -
Cannes 2014: Mr. Turner, Salt of the Earth, Force Majeure and the Art of First Impressions
“What’s your elevator pitch?” people ask — the same people who’d recoil backwards, their body language flashing danger signals, if you actually collared them in an actual elevator and launched into a pitch of your movie. Indeed, it’s a paradox of the film business that the smooth-talking hustler is held up as some kind of model when most film industry types would prefer an approach by someone genuine — personable, even — who understands both the cultural and the transactional nature of their business. I watched one exec from an established production and distribution company last week at the 2014 […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 26, 2014 -
Winter Sleep, The Wonder, Dolan and Godard Take Top Prizes at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival
Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan won the Palme d’Or at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival today for, Winter Sleep, his discursive tale of ethics, love and relationships set in and around a small inn in central Anatolia. The prize was awarded by Quentin Tarantino and Uma Thurman in a ceremony that saw nearly all of the most critically-praised films emerge with some award or another. (Interestingly, this was the second year in a row Cannes awarded its top prize to a film over three hours in length.) Earlier in the week, Winter Sleep was also awarded the FIPRESCI prize for […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 24, 2014 -
Futurestates Launches Final Season with Seven Films and One Immersive Storyworld
Launching today is the fifth and final season of ITVS’s online series, Futurestates — short films by independent filmmakers “exploring the visions and various challenges of what life might look like in an America of the not so distant future, where automation and artificial intelligence is becoming an even more dominant force in people’s day to day lives.” The series has a different form this year, with the seven shorts all part of one immersive storyworld that is expressed not just through the films but through social media and a striking website by New York interactive specialists Murmur. Comments series […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 14, 2014 -
Help Support Rooftop Films 2014 Season!
Temperature rise can mean crumbling Antarctica glaciers, but, in New York at least, it also means the arrival of Rooftop Films. Now, this essential screening series is crowdsourcing a membership drive on Indiegogo that will support what is a killer 2014 line-up. Join by Wednesday at midnight and receive, in addition to tickets and season passes, bonus gifts including mugs, posters, DVDs and admission to VIP events. Check out this year’s lineup (which includes, this Saturday, our current cover film, Obvious Child) at the Rooftop site and consider joining — in the next day! — at the Indiegogo page.
by Scott Macaulay on May 13, 2014 -
“Constraint as Liberation”: Nicholas Rombes Publishes 10/40/70
Nicholas Rombes’s “10/40/70” series is one of the freshest, most boundary-pushing bouts of film criticism in years, a collection of essays on films analyzing only the content of single frames occurring at the ten, 40 and 70-minute marks. Originally published, at The Rumpus, they are now published in 10/40/70: Constraint as Liberation in the Era of Digital Film Theory, an essential collection from Zero Books. The book is prefaced with an apt quote from Jean Baudrillard: “As for ideas, everyone has them. What counts is the poetic singularity of the analysis.” That singularity is here in ample supply, as Rombes’s […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 13, 2014 -
Reviews and an NSFW Trailer for Abel Ferrara’s Welcome to New York
Abel Ferrara’s Welcome to New York is set to screen in the Cannes market on the 17th — the same day it will be released on VOD in France. No word yet on the date of the U.S. IFC release, but our appetite is whetted by a new, very NSFW trailer found on Italian television that beats the rather prosaic one that dropped online a few days ago. Watch it below. The trade reviews are out too, which suggest the film revisits the intensity of Ferrara’s classic Bad Lieutenant even as it also explores the actor/role psychodrama of Dangerous Game. […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 13, 2014 -
The Angry Video Game Nerd Goes from Web Series to Film
Talk to an independent filmmaker these tales and at some point in the conversation you’ll find out they are working on a web series. (Or, at least that’s been the case for me when I bumped into a recent 25 New Face here in New York and a filmmaker colleague in San Francisco last week.) But the web series/feature film continuum can work in reverse too. “The Angry Video Game Nerd” web series has been covering the world of video games since 2006, with its host Cinemassacre YouTube channel having almost 1.5 million subscribers. For the last two years, AVGN […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 12, 2014 -
Paid Friends, Empathy, Inequality, True Detective, Garry Winogrand and the Impossible Stairwell: Sunday Morning Links
Here’s some of what I’ve been reading this week for your Sunday perusing pleasure. At Vulture, producer Gavin Polone has developed into an excellent essayist. Here he is discussing the emotional complexities of a particularly Hollywood-type of relationship, the paid friendship: While I’m sure that paid friends exist in many walks of life, I doubt they are as common anywhere else as they are in the entertainment industry. I’ve encountered many big-deal stars and directors with an entourage of assistants and development executives who have crossed the business-personal line. Some were friends before they were employees. Others drifted the other […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 11, 2014
