Authors — Scott Macaulay
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Morning Star: Shane Carruth on Upstream Color
Nearly a decade after winning Sundance with his startlingly original Primer, SHANE CARRUTH returns with a haunting and powerful look at love and regeneration, Upstream Color.
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 24, 2013 -
The Faces and Places of the Sundance Film Festival, Part One
“Sundance is our annual tradeshow,” a friend remarked to me at one of the very crowded parties this year. Indeed, it is a place to catch up, even if that short conversation is in line at a theater or at Starbucks instead of the kind of proper sit-down you’d have at Cannes or Berlin. Here are a few of the folks I bumped into at Sundance, beginning with, above, director Jehane Noujain, snapped on Heber Street just hours before the premiere of her latest documentary, The Square. I was knocked out by the film, which is a vivid and expertly […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 24, 2013 -
Five Questions for Towheads’ Shannon Plumb
Premiering in Rotterdam, the disarming and oddly delightful Towheads is the feature debut of artist and experimental filmmaker Shannon Plumb. Exploring and extending aspects of her short-form Super-8 work within a feature context, Towheads is, on the surface, a familiar story of a bored housewife whose creative aspirations are stifled by the pressures of domesticity and the disinterest of a work-obsessed husband. But these frustrations are just the catalyst for a charmingly playful series of episodes in which Plumb’s character adopts various guises — a drag king, a pole dancer and many more — in an attempt to explore alternative […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 24, 2013 -
The Crowded Stages of the Sundance Film Festival
When I published my piece, “How To Do a Festival Q&A,” there was one word of advice from Trevor Groth that I wondered about: “#5: Don’t bring too many people onstage”: “It slows everything down and tends not to work with the vibe of a good Q&A,” says Groth about long lines of cast and crew marching to the stage after a film’s premiere. “Just bring the key actors and someone who played a crucial role — maybe a production designer or editor.” Apparently many of the Sundance filmmakers didn’t read my article — or heed Groth’s advice — because […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 23, 2013 -
Indieflix’s Scilla Andreen Announces “Royalty Pool Minutes”
Payment models in the digital film distribution world can be surprisingly confusing once you get past the simple straight cut of a Vimeo or iTunes download. Streaming in particular can raise questions. How much should a filmmaker make when his or her film is only viewed partially? Indieflix CEO Scilla Andreen proposes one answer she calls RPM — “royalty pool minutes.” It’s the new artist payment model for her site, and in an interview at Sundance, she argued for its simplicity and clarity. “We take a percentage of the overall monthly revenue coming to Indieflix,” Andreen explains. “We’ve evolved to […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 23, 2013 -
Fall to Grace Director Alexandra Pelosi
From the ascension of George Bush (in Journeys with George) to the crash-and-burn of Ted Haggard (The Trials of Ted Haggard), director Alexandra Pelosi has been fascinated with the rise and fall of the men who comprise our political and social landscape. In her latest documentary, Fall to Grace, she finds elements of both narrative arcs in the story of New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey, who simultaneously resigned his position and announced his homosexuality in 2004, midway into his term. (McGreevey revealed an affair with a man he appointed as New Jersey homeland security advisor.) Following his resignation, McGreevey divorced […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 22, 2013 -
Just Playing
ADAM LEON’s graffiti-scrawled debut film Gimme the Loot crackles with young romance and the energy of the streets.
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 21, 2013 -
Five Questions for Joy de V. Writer/Director Nadia Szold
Writer/director Nadia Szold dubs her debut feature Joy de V. “a dark Bildungsroman,” compressing as it does into a few short days a maelstrom of yearning, confusion and ultimately acceptance. As the film opens, Joy (Josephine de la Baume) abruptly walks out on her young marriage to Roman (Evan Louison), who has been living on government mental disability payments. Roman’s got another problem too, when he learns these checks are being cut off. So, while searching for his wife, Roman decides to perform “a public act of lunacy” that will demonstrate to the world his craziness. Roman crisscrosses the five […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 20, 2013 -
The Outlaw Pleasures of Escape from Tomorrow
Children have no conception of copyright. The words “intellectual property” mean nothing to them. There is just the world, the people and places and things in front of them, and the imprint these things make on their young minds. But as adults, we realize that we don’t own these things that have imprinted themselves on our brains. That’s okay, though. When it comes to the totems of childhood fantasy, we can pay to experience them again — or, more accurately, pay to experience them vicariously through our children. The Walt Disney Corporation has made such a cross-generational feedback loop into […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 19, 2013 -
The Basement Tapes
It’s easy to imagine movies now as mutable data shuffled endlessly between clouds and hard drives — and for some movies, this is at least sort of the case. But the enduring value of original physical media — prints, expensive video masters and even physical screenplays — is being demonstrated in a dispute that is roiling the experimental film and video world. For the last two years, filmmaker Mark Rappaport has been unsuccessfully attempting — via private correspondence, public pleas and a court case — to retrieve needed archival materials he left for safekeeping with film critic and Boston University […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 17, 2013
