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As the neo-cons attempt to return to the glory days of the Cold War, we’ll probably find fewer of them online blogging about the significance of Chris Nolan’s The Dark Knight. If you read my post below, Batman Fights the Neo-Cons, there’s been a back-and-forth in the blogosphere about the ideological underpinnings of the massive box-office hit. For some people, this is all just silly — Batman is nothing more than a character in a rubber suit. Some of the rest of us, though, get off on such cultural theory wonkery. So, if you are not a regular reader of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 14, 2008Just a couple of posts below I mentioned Mike Figgis’s blog on the FilmInFocus site. Over at his Movie City Indie, Ray Pride gets inspired by Figgis quotes on character and narrative in today’s filmmaking. From Figgis: I guess I’m in a period of thinking about film and filmmaking. I made a feature last year, it’s called Love Live Long but everything about [it] was far removed from the what cinema has become… I have read lots of scripts and written a couple for other people. The ones I read were not interesting and the ones I wrote all ended […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 14, 2008The New York City Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting’s new permit rules for filmmakers go into effect today. From the press release: The rules, which were published today in the City Record and will go into effect thirty days after publication on August 13, will require a permit if filmmakers use vehicles or equipment, or, in certain situations, assert exclusive use of City property. Permits will not be required for casual photographers, tourists, credentialed members of the media, or other members of the public who do not use vehicles or equipment or assert exclusive use of City property. […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 13, 2008Director Mike Figgis has been posting excellent blog entries at FilmInFocus. Here’s a piece of his latest, in which he talks about great books, the magical expression of writing, and Mad Men. A few months back I watched an episode of MAD MEN, the American TV series that is based around the advertising industry in NY in the 60’s. I was quite taken by the episode I watched, it seemed to demonstrate my feeling that the best filmmaking and writing in mainstream cinema right now is coming out of US TV. I’ve guest directed one episode of THE SOPRANOS and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 11, 2008William Patry, an attorney and author specializing in intellectual property, has been keepin a blog that covers copyright issues, but, last week, he decided to shut it down. He cited two reasons. First, since transitioning to a position as Senior Copyright Counsel at Google, he’s had a hard time expressing in the blog his own personal views without them being attributed elsewhere to him in his official capacity at the search giant. But the other reason is that he is depressed. From his post: This leads me to my final reason for closing the blog which is independent of the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 11, 2008I just caught up with Nicholas Carr’s thoughtful and resonant “Is Google Making Us Stupid” in the July/August issue of The Atlantic. His initial description of a new kind of malady will strike a chord with many who spend a good deal of time on the ‘net: Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 10, 2008Filmmakers Amy Seimetz and Kelly Parker have created a short video for the nonprofit organization Veterans in Transition. Here’s an email we received from Amy, and the video is embedded below. Kelly Parker and I made a video for a nonprofit called The VET Foundation. It is an organization that helps soldiers returning from the war transition back into civilian life. Whether you are for the war or against it, the fact is their are men and women coming back either injured physically, suffering from a traumatic brain injury and/or coping with PTSD. The government does not have and effective […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 10, 2008I was late to see Chris Nolan’s The Dark Knight, only catching up to this astonishing and unexpectedly grim film this past week. It’s probably the first action film I’ve ever seen that’s exhausted me not by the intensity of its fight sequences but by its embedding of specific moral and philosophical dilemmas in all of its significant set pieces. Because I hadn’t seen the film, I avoided reading a lot about it, which means I missed the various pieces that have either celebrated (as in Andrew Klavan’s Wall Street Journal piece) or decried (as in Dave Kehr’s review) the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 9, 2008Here’s the fourth of our catch-ups with previous “25 New Faces” filmmakers. If you’ve been on the list and haven’t sent us an update, you can still email one to editor.filmmakermagazine AT gmail.com.Laura Colella, writer/director, 2000: In 2000, I was gearing up for the Sundance Directing & Screenwriting Labs with my 2nd feature project Stay Until Tomorrow. After the amazing lab experience, I spent over a year trying in vain to get a company or established producer behind the project. Amy Geller, a great young producer, signed on. We set a date, were offered many substantial donations of equipment and […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 9, 2008…the short answer provided by Scott Kirsner at his CinemaTech blog: “It’s not easy.” Still, Kirsner lays out the options in a comprehensive blog post in which he names all the various aggregators who sell content on Apple’s market-leading download service, discusses their various terms, and provides contact info links. Essential.
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 9, 2008