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In the opening moments of Rod Lurie’s drama Nothing But the Truth, there’s an assassination attempt on the U.S. president and the government retaliates by bombing Caracas. In its final moments, the journalist who reported that the government knowingly went to war with the South American country on faulty intelligence meets her confidential source and.… Okay, I won’t spoil the ending, but let’s suffice to say that by the time we’ve reached the denouement of Lurie’s film this story of criminal foreign policy has shrunken to a depressingly conventional Hollywood tale of a mother’s idealism and sacrifice. Kate Beckinsale plays […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 10, 2008Wow — this is a surprise. We, like many others, had heard that Magnolia would be releasing this film. According to this Indiewire report, Steven Soderbergh’s Che will open theatrically in December for a one-week Oscar qualifying run and then will play in January through IFC In Theaters, its day and date platform.
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 10, 2008Nik Fackler’s Lovely, Still has garnered a bit of buzz up in Toronto. One of the most impressive elements of the film is its fantastic cinematography and production design. Fackler and his team create a gorgeous Christmas-world that dances just this side of a fairy tale. In this Filmmaker piece, the film’s d.p., Sean Kirby, discusses his approach to shooting the movie.
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 10, 2008The FilmInFocus site has just undergone what is in my opinion a very nice 2.0-ish facelift, with a much cleaner new design and better organization of articles. (I’m one of the editors of this site along with Peter Bowen and Nick Dawson.) Please check it out, and to give you a leg up, here’s some new stuff on the site that I recommend: Filmmaker‘s Jason Guerrasio explores the cult of The Big Lebowski in an interview with Will Russell and Scott Shuffitt, authors of I’m a Lebowski, You’re a Lebowski: Life, The Big Lebowski and What Have You. The “Five […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 10, 2008Paul Krik, whose Able Danger opens tomorrow in theaters in four cities, including New York’s Pioneer Theater, gave us a list of his favorite conspiracy films. Two days ago we ran his list of Hollywood conspiracy thrillers. Here is his list of independent 9/11 films. Mohammed Atta and the Venice Flying Circus – Reporter Daniel Hopsicker is on the ground in Venice, Florida, where the terrorists all trained – gumshoeing, knocking on doors, asking questions, turning over stones. His interview with Mohammed Atta’s girlfriend and the time he humped her feet while she slept is absolutely mind-blowing. To say nothing […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 10, 2008The best laid plans… despite arriving at what I thought was a suitably early time to catch the industry screening of Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler, the line halted just 20 or so people ahead of me. Whether it was the Venice win, the Fox Searchlight buy, or just the anticipation of a comeback for both Mickey Rourke and Aronofsky, The Wrestler was this afternoon’s hot showing. And later in the day, another surprise sell-out. Following what I heard was a great public screening, press and buyers packed into this afternoon’s showing of Robert Kenner’s political food doc, Food, Inc. So, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 8, 2008Paul Krik, writer/director of Able Danger, opens his independent conspiracy thriller in four cities on September 11. (In New York, you can see the film at the Pioneer Theater.) Krik was kind enough to give Filmmaker two lists of his favorite films. In this first part, he lists his favorite conspiracy movies. In the second, he’ll list his favorite films about 9/11. In general a conspiracy movie for me has to do with exposing. Chinatown – Greatest movie ever. Goebbel says, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 8, 2008I always admire the blog writings of my colleagues who are able to jump from screening to keyboard, whipping out paragraphs of incisive critical prose. I tend to need more time to mull over the films I see as my opinions will shift from day to day. Take the first picture I saw in Toronto: Finish director Anti Jussi Annila’s Sauna, which was shamelessly hyped in the program book to cine-geeks like myself as recalling both the films of Andrei Tarkovsky and Eli Roth. And while, yes, there are clear connections to the work of these two (in its bleak […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 6, 2008Yesterday walking from one theater to another at the Varsity multiplex that houses the Toronto International Film Festival’s Industry Screenings, I thought that things seemed a little quiet, missing the usual crowded hub-bub. No one seemed to agree with me, though. “This will be a rebound market,” predicted one sales agent friend, who thought that a nice flurry of sales would materialize from the screenings this week. Another shrugged at my observation. “Everybody is here,” he said. And later even I didn’t agree with myself after I wound up at two very crowded parties filled with industry players. The first […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 6, 2008The blog post, below, titled “Breaking In,” in which filmmaker Marc Maurino discussed the tensions between jobs, job security and filmmaking, inspired several responses. You can find them in the comments section to the original post, but filmmaker David Munro just wrote with a longer reply so I’m posting it here as its own entry. It’s David Munro (New Faces ’98, Full Grown Men). I read Marc Maurino’s reply to your newsletter entry. It got me thinking, too. Unlike Marc, who is just now contemplating his next move as a talented aspiring director, I drank the full jigger of indie […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 5, 2008