Authors — Scott Macaulay

A SHORT FILM PRODUCER AT SUNDANCE

Writer, director and producer Edward Boyce sent us this blog post about his experience attending Sundance this year as the producer of a short film. Short. Film. Bitter. Sweet. I’m four days into my life as a Sundance anointed short film producer. I’ve felt obliged to schmooz and glad-hand so much that I feel like a reluctant student-council candidate. And good luck trying to wash off some of the weird tinsel-slime that seems to linger on the fringe of the artistic core at Sundance. (Festival resolution #12: never willingly enter a “gifting suite” again.) It’s a big deal and it’s […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 20, 2009
SLAMDANCE: “ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE UNDEAD'”S JORDAN GALLAND By Alicia Van Couvering

Up there with Snakes On A Plane in the pantheon of catchy titles, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead is a horror-comedy about Hamlet and the Holy Grail premiering in Slamdance this year. The movie stars Jake Hoffman, Devon Aoki, Jeremy Sisto, John Ventimiglia, Ralph Maccio and Waris Ahluwalia and was only the second East Coast feature film to use the Red camera. The film’s director, Jordan Galland, is a New York-bred renaissance man with deep and varied interests. At age eighteen, Jordan Galland started a band, Dopo Yume, which toured the world with Cibo Matto and Rufus Wainwright, and he […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 19, 2009
“THE MISSING PERSON”‘S NOAH BUSCHEL By Alicia Van Couvering

Noah Buschel’s The Missing Person stars Michael Shannon, last seen as the asylum-bound neighbor in Revolutionary Road, and if Sam Mendes had directed this film, he might have played it straight, disregarding the minefield of clichés to pay reverent homage to The Long Goodbye; Buschel knows what a bold move it is to make a noir in 2007, so he subverts the genre with un-ironic simplicity and a few tall guys hitting their heads on the ceiling. We meet Shannon’s character in his dungeon-like Chicago apartment. His cell phone is ringing; he’s a PI; he’s offered a lot of money […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 19, 2009
IFC ANNOUNCES SXSW PREMIERE/ON DEMAND PROGRAM

At a Sundance press breakfast this morning IFC Films announced a partnership with SXSW in which five films screening at the festival will be available simultaneously on IFC’s on-demand platform. The films include Joe Swanberg’s premiering Alexander the Last as well as our Filmmaker mag cover film Medicine for Melancholy, which will return to the festival for a special screening. Attending the event was Steven Soderbergh, who spoke about independent filmmakers’ need to “let go of the fantasy” that their film will receive a conventional theatrical release in this tough climate. He also quipped that the Festival Direct program appealed […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 19, 2009
ROCK ‘EM, SOCK ‘EM SAG

While some in the industry are at Sundance and others are preparing for the inauguration, the folks at SAG, according to a post on the Digital Media Law blog, are engaged in knock down cage fight. Check the account of the proceedings at the link.
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 19, 2009
THE TEXTUAL INSTABILITY OF BROOKLYN’S FINEST

In the first major deal of the festival, Antoine Fuqua’s cop drama Brooklyn’s Finest was sold to Senator, reports Gregg Goldstein at MovieCityNews, in a “low-to-mid seven-figure pact” with a “$10 million P&A commitment.” Senator President Mark Urman has always been good for a quote, and that’s no exception here. After noting to Mike Jones at Variety his personal connection to the material — “Being from Brooklyn, this film is important to me” — he muses on the film’s poorly-received, Hamlet-like ending with the kind of postmodernist flair I’d expect to hear in a discussion of the David Foster Wallace […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 18, 2009
CROSSING OVER: LOUIS PSIHOYOS By Alicia Van Couvering

Unlike other films playing in our three-part look at crossover artists at Sundance, The Cove is not playing in New Frontier, but in the Documentary Competition, and that’s despite its director’s non-traditional background. Louie Psihoyos was one of the world’s top-ranked photographers, a staff member at National Geographic who had traveled the world taking portraits of the world’s most famous people and abstract concepts (you try photographing “science.”) He was also an avid diver who witnessed year by year the physical destruction of the world’s oceans. He and his friend Jim Clarke, founder of Netscape and WebMD, decided to form […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 18, 2009
A QUICK TAKE ON BIG RIVER MAN

Before I head out to Strand Releasing’s 20th Anniversary dinner here at Sundance I want to quickly note John Maringouin’s eccentric and winning documentary Big River Man. It’s like an updated, black comic Aguirre, the Wrath of God with the quest for power and search for gold replaced by the subject’s environmental consciousness and love affair with both long distance swimming and the media. Briefly, it’s the tale of 52-year-old Slovenian swimmer Martin Strel, who, after swimming many of the world’s longest rivers, decides to swim the length of the Amazon to both complete his life goal but to also […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 17, 2009
HUMPDAY IS "WOW"

Last night director Lynn Shelton’s Facebook status report was “Lynn Shelton is… wow.” An appropriate indicator of her mood and well-being because, as Mike Jones reports in Variety, her well-loved Humpday is “in play,” with four distributors circling. With all the speculation about sales and acquisitions, it’s great that this true indie from the Pacific Northwest is the first major buzzed-about title here. Expect Nick Dawson’s inteview with Shelton on these pages in the next few days. (And you can also check out my take on Shelton’s previous film here.)
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 17, 2009
HOPE’S KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Courtesy of the Workbook Project, here is Ted Hope’s closing speech at the Sundance Art House Convergence confeence. From their description: This year before Sundance kicked off a number of exhibitors, bookers and filmmakers gathered for an event called Art House Convergence. During the three day conference 51 Art Houses met in Salt Lake City to discuss the major issues facing the industry and how they can work together to share resources. The following video is of producer Ted Hope’s closing keynote. Hope’s remarks present his vision of where filmmakers will be a year from now thanks to new distribution […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 17, 2009

Cookie	Duration	Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional	11 months	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy	11 months	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.

Cookie	Duration	Description
cfmrk_cic		Used by Cloudflare to route user traffic for this Site.
sparrow_id		Installed by Cloudflare. Used to identify individual clients behind a shared IP address and apply security settings on a per-client basis. It does not store any personal identifiable information.

Cookie	Duration	Description
OAGEO		Installed by the Revive Ad Server. Used to cache geolocation (session, deleted when closing the browser)
OAID		Installed by the Revive Ad Server to distinguish users.