Authors — Scott Macaulay
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“I’m Passing the Torch to You”: Lee Daniels Delivers Commencement Speech at Savannah College of Art and Design
Precious and Lee Daniels’ The Butler director Lee Daniels spoke recently at the Savannah College of Art and Design, where he received an honorary degree. Towards the end of the clip, Daniels talks about his reasons for making the latter film, which he describes as a father-son love story, and what his own teenaged son thought of it.
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 23, 2013 -
Trailer Watch: Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac
The use of Rammstein in a trailer is most often a very bad sign, but somehow it works here in the first — and very NSFW — full-length trailer for Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac. Previously, as Sarah Salovaara noted on this site, Von Trier and co. created a new form of trailer through the staggered release of clips. Today’s release is the more traditional — and to my mind, more effective — one. Abrupt changes in music and tone, a mixture of shooting formats and fantastic moments with Charlotte Gainsbourg create a vibe that’s not unlike a punk version of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 22, 2013 -
Survival Prayer Voted Audience Favorite at Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You Screening Series
Benjamin Greené’s documentary Survival Prayer was voted Audience Favorite at the just concluded 8th Annual “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You” Screening Series, which took place November 15-18 at The Museum of Modern Art. The series, presented by MoMA in partnership with Filmmaker Magazine and IFP, is a curated showcase of outstanding films from the film festival circuit that are currently not available in U.S. theatrical distribution. This was the first year that audience members attending the series were able to fill out ballots noting their response to each film. Survival Prayer, a meditative portrait of aspects […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 22, 2013 -
Trailer Watch: Ms. 45
Hobo With A Shotgun director Jason Eisener cut this fantastic trailer for Abel Ferrara’s 1981 revenge thriller, Ms. 45, which is being re-released December 13 with VOD following March 25. Check out Drafthouse Films’ fantastic remastering job as evidenced by the clips here. Ms. 45 stars the late great Zoë Lund as a shy seamstress who, after multiple assaults in one 24-hour period, goes on a killing rampage against all the men in New York. For more details on the release, with nationwide theatrical dates, visit the film’s page at Drafthouse Films.
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 21, 2013 -
Independent Film and the Reshoot
If you ask me what’s the biggest difference between studio and independent productions, I wouldn’t answer the length of the shooting schedule or luxuriousness of the craft service. No, I’d say it’s the ability to do reshoots. While studio films can hone their stories through test screenings and additional photography, changing endings (Fatal Attraction) and even entire third acts (World War Z), too many independents wind up with depleted contingencies and unwilling investors when additional photography needs arise in post. Producer Rob Cowan wrote about reshoots today at Hollywood Journal, correctly regarding them not as signs of weakness but as […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 20, 2013 -
Must-Watch Music Video: Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone”
Credit Bob Dylan and a 48-year-old song for the best music video of the moment. In “Like a Rolling Stone,” Dylan and co. create a channel-hopping interactive experience in which no two viewings are the same. Click through 16 different channels to watch various TV presenters, reality-show folk, celebrities and, oh yeah, Dylan himself, lip-sync to the song. From the press release: Nearly a half-century later, a groundbreaking interactive project has been created for the song, allowing fans to experience the classic recording in unprecedented ways. Celebrities and reality stars are featured throughout the various channels including cameos by Drew […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 19, 2013 -
Code: Laura Hanna and Matana Roberts on NYC Stop and Frisk
Filmmaker and media activist Laura Hanna — a co-founder of the production company HiddenDriver and director of docs Gattis, James and Hammer — has directed this short documentary about composer and sound artist Matana Roberts’ recent “stop and frisk” encounter on the Williamsburg bridge. Produced by Creative Time Reports and found on their site, it is introduced thusly: As the composer, saxophone player and sound artist Matana Roberts walked across the Williamsburg Bridge one night in May, she asked herself a familiar question: “How am I going to survive as an artist in this town?” It was too enchanting an […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 19, 2013 -
Remembering Syd Field, 1935 – 2013
“I don’t even really understand the second act,” a filmmaker said to me just last week. He obviously hadn’t read Syd Field’s Screenplay, which is nothing if not about act structure: the first, second and third acts, but also the inciting incident, pinch one, plot point one, midpoint, pinch two, plot point two and resolution. When I started reading scripts — both as a professional gig and as a producer — Field’s was the book to have on your shelf, and, setting aside Aristotle, was the one that ratified a storytelling paradigm that exists to this day. As a script […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 18, 2013 -
10 Picks for the DOC NYC Film Festival
In only its fourth year, DOC NYC feels like an institution. Nestled in the calendar alongside the concluding CPH:DOX (where I’m writing this from Copenhagen) and Amsterdam’s mammoth IDFA, this edition of DOC NYC, under the usual steady hand of artistic director Thom Powers, boasts an even more impressive blend of world and New York-premieres, Gotham-centric special events and panels for both audience and industry. Here are 10 picks, some films I’m excited about seeing along with one I have seen and can highly recommend. Is the Man Who is Tall Happy? In the former category is the world-premiering collaboration […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 14, 2013 -
Five Questions for I Learn America‘s Jean-Michel Dissard and Gitte Peng
The coming-of-age tale is a durable independent film genre, but it takes on added political and personal dimensions in I Learn America, Jean-Michel Dissard and Gitte Peng’s documentary about five new teenage immigrants within New York’s public school system. Dissard, a dual citizen who immigrated himself from France when he was a teenager (and with whom I worked with on Raising Victor Vargas), and Peng, an education reform expert who worked in the Bloomberg administration, embrace within the film the emotional complexity of their subjects’ lives while an exhaustive outreach campaign amplifies its various messages and policy implications. I Learn […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 13, 2013
