Authors — Scott Macaulay

NO GAY (OR DRUNK) CHARACTERS IN THE SUNSHINE STATE…. PLEASE!

As the current Massa Meltdown demonstrates, a lot of crazy talk can come out of legislators’ mouths. (For some of that crazy talk, I will definitely be tuning into Glenn Beck tonight when Massa is on for the full hour.) So when I was forwarded this link from Think Progress about a Florida state representative, Stephen Precourt, proposing a change to Florida’s film tax incentive that would deny the credit to films espousing “non-traditional” family values, I assumed it was just one guy shooting his mouth off and that it wasn’t really worth mentioning. But, as the post as well […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 9, 2010
SXSW TRAILER WATCH: “THE LIVING ROOM OF THE NATION”

Receiving its U.S. premiere at SXSW is Jukka Karkkainen’s The Living Room of a Nation, a documentary about six Finnish living rooms. From the production company’s website: The documentary film The Living Room of the Nation opens a portrait-like view into six Finnish living rooms. A collage of everyday events, the film is a story of changes, loneliness, responsibilities and the unavoidable passing of time. The trailer is below. The film plays Saturday, March 20, at 6:15 PM at the Alamo Lamar 3.
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 9, 2010
KICKSTARTING “BALLAD OF GENESIS AND LADY JAYE”

Filmmaker Marie Losier is well known in her New York for her beguiling experimental films, which include portraits of a number of today’s most unconventional and important artists. For the last four years she has been filming Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, artist and founding member of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, among other ventures. Beginning in 1993, P-Orridge began a radical art project with his wife and artist partner, Lady Jaye, in which they both underwent plastic surgery to resemble each other, creating, they said, “an indivisible third,” a “pandrogyne.” Lady Jaye passed away in 2007, and Losier’s film will tell […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 9, 2010
THE YOUNG PERSON’S GUIDE TO KATHRYN BIGELOW

A big congratulations to Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, and the team behind The Hurt Locker for their well-deserved Academy Awards tonight. (I’m pretty sure it’s the first Filmmaker mag cover film to ever win Best Picture and Bigelow the first cover director to win Best Director.) For any newcomers to Bigelow out there, here’s a quick history courtesy of YouTube. (Missing, unfortunately, is her 20-minute Columbia University student film The Set-Up. According to the New York Times‘ Manohla Dargis, it portrays “two men […] fighting each other as the semioticians Sylvère Lotringer and Marshall Blonsky deconstruct the images in voice-over.”) […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 8, 2010
RUNNING FROM RODARTE

Here’s an eerie and visually stunning short film that’s a promo for the design house Rodarte. From Nowness, where you can find other similarly compelling fashion, art and culture-oriented material and produced by the Director’s Bureau, it’s directed by Todd Cole, shot by Shawn Kim, and scored by No Age. From Nowness: Guinevere van Seenus stars in Aanteni, a high-fashion techno-thriller from CFDA award-winning design sisters Rodarte, shot by their friend and frequent collaborator, the photographer and video artist Todd Cole. Set in the deserted grounds of Paypal founder Elon Musk’s Space X jet lab in Hawthorne, California, the film […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 7, 2010
SXSW TRAILER WATCH: “A SERBIAN FILM”

Twitch has got the goods on Srdjan Spasojevic’s button-pushing A Serbian Movie, the story of a retired porn-star lured back into the biz for that one last job with an insane director on what looks like the set of Hostel. “This is graphic, brutal, wildly transgressive stuff,” Twitch’s Todd Brown writes. “And that Spasojevic’s film has some brains to back up all the shocking imagery only serves to make it all that much more appalling.” The trailer below is over-18 and very much NSFW.
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 7, 2010
“EVE’S NECKLACE” (OR, TODD HAYNES STARTED WITH DOLLS…)

Via Harry Knowles at AICN, here’s a trailer for what looks like one of the more interestingly odd films on the indie circuit at the moment: Eve’s Necklace. It’s playing tonight in Austin at the Alamo Drafthouse Village, and while the on-screen actors may seem a little stiff, their voices are provided by John Hawkes, co-star of the Sundance Grand Prize-winning Winter’s Bone, and Cyndi Williams, lead actress in Kyle Henry’s The Room. This is director Daniel Erickson’s first movie in 20 years. He’s an Austin-based music video director whose two previous feature credits are the independent Scary Movie and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 6, 2010
“PRECIOUS” SWEEPS THE 2010 SPIRIT AWARDS

It was a big night for Lee Daniels’ Precious at the 2010 Spirit Awards. The film picked up awards for Best First Screenplay (Geoffrey Fletcher), Supporting Actress (Mo’Nique), Actress (Gabourey Sidibe), Director (Lee Daniels) and Picture. The only other film to win more than one award was Crazy Heart, which picked up Best First Screenplay and Actor (Jeff Bridges). Hosted by Eddie Izzard and presented by Film Independent, the awards were the first Spirits held in downtown L.A. on a Friday night rather than Saturday afternoon at the Santa Monica beach. The Spirits’ gently irreverent tone remained the same — […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 6, 2010
STORYTELLING AND TRIBECA’S NEW DISTRIBUTION INITIATIVE

Every Thursday I pen an Editor’s Note that goes out to subscribers of our email newsletter (you can subscribe for free here) that is usually not also posted on the blog. I’m reposting today’s newsletter below because some kind of software glitch stripped out most of the punctuation from the copy as well as certain key words. Apologies if you received it and it was less than elegant. Here it is again: The big news in the independent world this week was Tribeca Enterprise’s announcement that it would launch a “virtual film festival” alongside this Spring’s Tribeca Film Festival event. […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 4, 2010
THE ROTTERDAM FILM FESTIVAL VISITS BAM

The International Film Festival Rotterdam has always been an exciting oasis in the festival calendar, a place to see new directors, experimental programming, and to connect with new projects away from the din of more market-defined festivals and red-carpet affairs. (Full disclosure: I’m on the board of Rotterdam’s CineMart.) This year’s festival was a good one — you can read Michael Tully’s wrap-up here — and now New Yorkers have the opportunity to discover the filmmakers of the Tiger Competition. The Tigers consist of films by new filmmakers, and the gamut runs from edgy dramas to intriguing doc-fiction hybrids to […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 2, 2010

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