Authors — Scott Macaulay

UP IN THE AIR’s JASON REITMAN ON OUR LAYOFF ECONOMY

Although as I write this its Tomatometer is at 89%, Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air is something of a Rorschach test for critics, with some finding the film to be both canny and empathetic, a Hollywood picture calibrated for the emotional temperature of a country with a 10% unemployment rate. Others see its Hollywood sheen and evocation of the family as obviating the economic reality it is set against. (J. Hoberman of the Village Voice writes: “… a satire unsullied by anger, Up in the Air floats above the pain.” I am solidly in the “pro” camp, feeling that […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 3, 2009
FIRST-HAND SUNDANCE ADVICE FROM A FESTIVAL VET

Paul Rachman, whose feature documentary American Hardcore, premiered at Sundance in 2006 and then was sold to Sony Classics, penned a 17-page chapter of Chris Gore’s Ultimate Film Festival Survival Guide. Here are some of the tips listed in the chapter: – Your festival preparation starts the day you find out you have been accepted. If you are not working nonstop from that moment until your World Premiere, then you are most likely leaving important things undone. – The most important thing about your major festival world premiere is to keep it that way—a premiere. Do not start sending the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 3, 2009
VARIETY REVIEWS GOTHAM WINNER YOU WON’T MISS ME

Alone among our Gotham “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You” nominees was the winner, You Won’t Miss Me, because it was the sole film not to have received a Variety review. That was nicely remedied tied its win, as Ronnie Scheib caught up with the film and had this to say. Ry Russo-Young’s sophomore outing, You Won’t Miss Me, circles, tracks and finally zeroes in on Shelly (co-scripter Stella Schnabel, daughter of helmer Julian), a troubled 23-year-old Gothamite newly released from a mental institution. Quasi-experimental pic unfolds in nonchronological, unconnected moments, its heroine’s day-to-day existence lacking the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 3, 2009
HOW TO BE DISCOVERED BY HOLLYWOOD, 2009 EDITION

In the wake of District 9 and the effectiveness of its viral campaign, studios are looking for budget-conscious, effects-skilled directing talent. Reports the Heat Vision blog, Uruguayan director Fede Alvarez, who has been making shorts since 2001, posted a no-budget (reportedly less than $500) short depicting a robot attack on the town of Montevideo. The short went up in early November, the industry took notice, and the director signed with CAA and Anonymous Content just before the Thanksgiving holiday. He now has a deal with Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures to develop an original project. The short is cool and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 2, 2009
John Maringouin, Big River Man

Interview by Alicia Van Couvering Filmmaker selected John Maringouin as one of our “25 New Faces of Independent Film” in 2006 after seeing Running Stumbled, the filmmaker’s hilarious and disturbing film documenting his own reconciliation with his estranged father. This year he brought his remarkable film Big River Man to Sundance, a film several years in the making that documents the Amazon River expedition of Slovenian endurance swimmer Martin Strel. Strel’s stated mission is to bring environmental awareness to the rivers he swims, which have included some of the most polluted on Earth. Maringouin sets out to follow Strel’s expedition […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 30, 2009
FILMMAKER GETS A FACE LIFT

If you’ve reached the blog through our home page, you will have probably noticed that Filmmakermagazine.com has received a face lift. Gone is the checkerboard of boxes and in its place is a front-page carousel and three-column design that hopefully directs you to our content a lot better. On the home page you’ll now find “The Guide,” in which we point you to interesting things to read, stream or hyperlink to. There are also links to our most popular content of the month as well as regularly updated Editors’ Picks of content we don’t want you to overlook. And, of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 29, 2009
ARTHOUSE CINEMA AS A SPECTATOR SPORT

As we head into the quarter finals, it’s Italy, Russian, Germany, India, China, Iran, Africa and Japan… all competing in the Auteurs World Cup 2009. Combining two of the world’s favorite spectator sports — soccer and arthouse cinema — the good folks at The Auteurs have come up with a fun competition that focuses attention on regions as well as films. It doesn’t cost anything to participate, but you have to have seen the films. So, use this opportunity to see Chantal Akerman’s Toute une Nuit, Tarkovsky’s The Mirror, Bunuel’s Los Olvidados, or Moshen Makhmalbaf’s A Moment of Innocence.
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 28, 2009
CALLING ALL SUNDANCE FILMMAKERS

The Sundance selection will be announced this week, and we’ll have it posted here on the blog as soon as it’s released. If you are a filmmaker lucky enough to get in, please keep us at Filmmaker informed of all of your publicity and distribution outreach efforts. Many if not most of you will have publicists, and they will be in direct touch with us. But for those of you doing other things in addition to or perhaps instead of conventional publicity, let us know. Particularly, links to Twitter feeds, blogs, RSS updates, etc. are appreciated. As in previous years […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 28, 2009
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

From all of us at Filmmaker, Happy Thanksgiving to all of our readers. Hope everyone has a great holiday. The blog will be back over the weekend and next week with the Gotham Awards, the Sundance Selection, the beginnings of our Decade End surveys, and more…
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 26, 2009
GIVING AWAY NORTH BY NORTHWEST

Ask me my favorite Hitchcock film and I’ll shoot you back the obvious answer: Vertigo, the director’s cinematic and fetishistic embodiment of romantic obsession. Ask me the film I’d be most likely to pop into my DVD player and re-watch for fun and I’ve another obvious answer: North by Northwest, his smart and stylish paranoid thriller, which he made the following year. And while Vertigo inspired a whole rash of erotic thrillers in the ’90s — Basic Instinct and all its imitators — North by Northwest‘s sly take on the American security stake feels perfectly of the moment. The good […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 24, 2009

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