Authors — Scott Macaulay
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Google Glass and the 21st Century Panopticon
If you’re like me, you watched the product demo for Google Glass, found its hipster-targeting — learning about a new band from a street poster? — silly and didn’t think too much more about it. I mean, don’t we need to find a way to interact with our personal computing devices less, not more? But this morning after reading Jon Evans’ TechCrunch piece, “Heads Up! This Was Google’s Apple Moment,” I’m changing my mind. As a product category, Google Glass has a lot of potential — potential that’s fascinating and scary. In the fascinating category are some immediate uses for […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 7, 2012 -
A FILMMAKER TALKS TO HIS 12-YEAR-OLD SELF
Filmmaker, Doctor Who fan and internet addict Jeremiah McDonald was rummaging around in his closet and found a VHS tape of his 12-year-old self interviewing him in the future. That tape is now the past, so McDonald has returned the favor. Watch his incredible film below and think about what you’d learn from a similar encounter.
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 6, 2012 -
MUSIC VIDEO: “EVERYTHING CHANGES,” EYTAN AND THE EMBASSY
New Brooklyn-based production company Modern Mythology has scored a viral hit with their inventive video for “Everything Changes,” from Eytan and the Embassy. As the Wall St. Journal reports, the video has nabbed the title of “most costume changes in an unedited music video” by Recordsetter.com, a site promising that everyone can be the best at something. What’s great about the video is that, unlike many clips, the costume changes aren’t just for visual variety; instead, they narrate the history of rock and pop music. From the Wall St. Journal: Filmed in Williamsburg in video director Joe Pickard’s apartment in […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 5, 2012 -
HAL HARTLEY INTERVIEWS MARTIN DONOVAN AND THE “COLLABORATOR” TEAM
Martin Donovan’s directorial debut, Collaborator, returns to the IFC Center tomorrow for a week-long run before opening Los Angeles on the 20th. It’s also available now on VOD. Here, from the June 18 IFC Center screening is the Q&A with director Hal Hartley interviewing Donovan along with executive producer Ted Hope and actors David Morse and Melissa Auf der Meur. (Hat tip: Truly Free Film.)
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 5, 2012 -
LENA DUNHAM REMEMBERS NORA EPHRON
For The New Yorker, Lena Dunham has penned a wonderful remembrance of writer/director Nora Ephron, who passed away this week of leukemia. Not surprisingly, they knew each other and, last year, had become friends. Here’s Dunham on that friendship: …I devoured her prose, her other film offerings, and became a fangirl right along with my mother, aunt, grandmother and every other intelligent woman in the tristate area. Which is why it was so momentous when, in March of 2011, I received a short, perfect e-mail from Ephron, saying she had seen and enjoyed my film and would like to take […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 28, 2012 -
On Aaron Sorkin and Listening to the Internet Girl
TV shows like Aaron Sorkin’s new The Newsroom cost tens of millions of dollars to develop and make. They assemble top-flight talent, from people like its creator to stars like Jeff Daniels to the veteran craftspeople who work below-the-line on each episode. Their marketers are expert, and they have the budgets to match the ambitions of their campaigns. So, it must be somewhat enraging to them that the military precision of the show’s roll-out can be disrupted by a young reporter’s take on a single set of less-than-artful interview responses by Sorkin. I’m referring, of course, to Sorkin’s now-famous “Look […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 27, 2012 -
Alma Har’El on her Shia LaBeouf-Starring Sigur Ros Video
Containing the same truthful fusion of fantasy and reality as found in her documentary Bombay Beach, filmmaker Alma Har’el’s latest work is a provocative and dramatically compelling short film for the Icelandic band Sigur Ros, made as part of the group’s Mystery Film Eeperiment. For the Project, the band invited a dozen filmmakers to select a track from their new album, Valtari, gave them the same modest budget, and told them to do what they saw in their heads. “The idea is to bypass the usual artistic approval process and allow people utmost creative freedom,” they wrote on their site. […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 26, 2012 -
DIRECTOR KEITH MILLER ON “WELCOME TO PINE HILL”
Keith Miller’s Welcome to Pine Hill is a totally original mixture of gritty, semi-improvised urban drama and freefloating spiritual journey. When I first saw it, I flashed back to J. Hoberman’s take on Carlos Reygadas’s Japon: “handheld Tarkovsky.” The films are very different, but I sensed a similar impulse in Miller’s story of a drug dealer (played here by a revelatory Shannon Harper) attempting to go straight while receiving catastrophic health news. The film plays tomorrow night at BAMcinemaFest. Here’s an interview I did with Miller, previously posted for the film’s Slamdance premiere.
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 22, 2012 -
Andrew Neel and Louisa Krause Talk King Kelly
While there have been many films riffing on reality tropes in the last several years, few have been as cleverly conceived and entertainingly executed as Andrew Neel’s debut fiction film, King Kelly. Set in the world of amateur webcam porn, the film depicts a monstrously fascinating Tracy Flick for our oversexualized social media age. Played ferociously by Louisa Krause, Kelly is a high-school student who runs a profitable one-woman porn empire from her suburban bedroom, with her parents none the wiser. Stripping on cam, uploading details of her everyday life and ruling over her chat room with a gonzo glee, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 20, 2012 -
THE NORTHSIDE FESTIVAL SCREENS FILMMAKER MAG FAVORITES
A number of our favorite independent films of the year are screening this week at the Northside Festival, a Brooklyn-based film and music event that gathers a number of film organizations, includuing Filmmaker, to guest curate some of its programming. Filmmaker‘s night is Wednesday, when we screen in its New York premiere Andrew Neel’s wickedly funny King Kelly (pictured) and Jeremiah Zagar & Nathan Caswell’s haunting short, Remains, but there are a number of other favorites dotted throughout the schedule. For example, tonight there’s one of the best documentaries of the year, Ashley Sabin and David Redmon’s Girl Model (presented […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 18, 2012
