Authors — Scott Macaulay

FILMMAKER YEAR IN REVIEW: JASON GUERRASIO

Here’s Managing Editor Jason Guerrasio’s take on ’08. I always find it difficult to put together a “Best of” list every year because no matter how many films I see I always feel I haven’t seen enough to make an honest list. This year has been even more difficult because so many titles have been pushed to the end of the year. So with that said here’s a collection of titles in no particular order that I enjoyed (most of them really loved), but I feel there are so many more I still need to watch (particularly, Frost/Nixon, Gran Torino […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 31, 2008
NOW COMING TO A COMPUTER NEAR YOU

Matt Dentler of Cinetic Rights Management sent word of two films now online that will be of interest to Filmmaker readers. The first is Randall Sharp’s fascinating indie period film Henry May Long, which Alicia Van Couvering covered here on the site in an interview with the writer/director. From Van Couvering’s interview: Filmmaker: How did the film come together? Sharp: I made up the story on a car ride to Woodstock one day. I thought, what would happen if someone was willing to do anything to get someone else to pay attention to them? What if that decision led to […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 31, 2008
DISTRIBUTING SITA SINGS THE BLUES

Moments after I posted, below, about Roger Ebert’s love for Sita Sings the Blues and a day after we shipped the new issue of Filmmaker to the printer — an issue that contains Karina Longworth’s piece on the movie — Paley has posted on her website a post that updates us all on her plans for distributing the film. Frankly, I found her plan pretty exciting in the way it hybridizes free and for-sale aspects. When we decided to award her film the Gotham “Best Film at a Theater Near You” Award, the film’s distribution woes were a topic of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 31, 2008
SCHAMUS AND SCOTT ON THE APARTMENT

I’m late catching up to some of the things that have been bouncing around the blogosphere, but here the New York Times‘ A.O. Scott has a nice video essay on Billy Wilder’s The Apartment, which is dubbed “a brilliant alternative to classic holiday films” and one that ends on New Year’s Eve. (I wish these great Times video pieces were embeddable — I get that they have to increase traffic, but I’d so love to post them.) The Apartment was also selected by producer, screenwriter and Focus Features CEO James Schamus as part of a series on the FilmInFocus site […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 31, 2008
EBERT SINGS FOR SITA

Wow — check out Roger Ebert’s love letter to “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You” Gotham winner Sita Sings the Blues on his blog this week. Here’s how he begins: It hardly ever happens this way. I get a DVD in the mail. I’m told it’s an animated film directed by “a girl from Urbana.” That’s my home town. It is titled Sita Sings the Blues. I know nothing about it, and the plot description on IMDb is not exactly a barn-burner: An animated version of the epic Indian tale of Ramayana set to the 1920’s jazz […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 31, 2008
FILMMAKER YEAR IN REVIEW: MARY GLUCKSMAN

Now that our current issue has shipped to the printer, I’m finishing these blog entries from our writers, editors and contributors on the cinematic year that is coming to a close. Here’s Mary Glucksman, who contributes our “In Focus” column each issue as well as the year-end “Hits and Misses” piece. Real life intervened and I came up woefully short on exhaustive viewing of both foreign films and docs so can I just say my top ten would surely include two Cannes ’07 foreign titles that got their nominal U.S. theatrical release this year–XXY and Tell No One. Still waiting […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 31, 2008
WHERE ARE THE VIEWERS?

In The New York Times, Michael Cieply reports on our declining box office. No, not this year, but over the last decade. The sobering conclusion of his piece is that less of us are going to see movies in theaters. Breathless box office coverage of records broken, The Dark Knight, and lines stretching around the block at midnight for Twilight are just more noise. Read his piece to discover that, when measured by the arbiter of tickets sold, Twister handily outsold Iron Man and that Sex in the City is no bigger than The First Wive’s Club. We are no […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 28, 2008
ALL THE BLOGS YOU NEED

You might want to bookmark this and come back in mid-January, when he says he’ll have finished his tally, but Sujewa Ekanayake is compiling a comprehensive list of indie film blogs. And if you have a blog yourself, let Ekanayake know by posting in his comments section.
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 27, 2008
HAROLD PINTER, R.I.P.
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 26, 2008
HOW TO BLOG

Over at Slate, Farhad Manjoo has up a nice piece entitled “How to Blog.” After noting that the very clever editors of the Huffington Post has published a book, The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging, Manjoo asks some of his own colleagues for their advice on the medium. Here’s one useful tip: Don’t worry if your posts suck a little. Unless you’re Jeffrey Goldberg, your first blog post is unlikely to be perfect. Indeed, a lot of your posts aren’t going to be as great as they could be if you spent many hours on them—and that’s OK. Felix […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 26, 2008

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