Authors — Scott Macaulay

RE-SHOOTING THE BLADE RUNNER SHOOT-OUT

Merrick over at Aint It Cool News posted a very fun piece of geek-out film news: Ridley Scott has completed reshoots of the Joanna Cassidy replicant shootout scene for the upcoming DVD final “director’s cut” of Blade Runner. He links to Film Ick, which provides details: The shots are for the sequence in which Cassidy’s character Zhora is chased through the streets. In the original film, the chase shows Zhora in flat boots but previously we saw her put on heels – the reshoots feature heels; the control wires for the squib that released Zhora’s blood was previously visible – […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 27, 2007
JOE SALEH, 1934 – 2007

I received this email of an obituary that Jackie Raynal wrote for Joe Saleh, who died at 73 last week of complications from a stroke in Paris. Saleh produced many Merchant-Ivory movies and also founded the Angelika movie theater. Joseph J.M. Saleh who produced many of the Ivory-Merchant movies, created and founded the famous Angelika movie theater multiplex in New York, died in Paris last wek. Saleh financed the documentary STREETWISE which received the 1985 Academy Awards Nomination. He was also resposible for the developing the first network election night forecasting system in 1964. He was born January 18th,1934 in […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 26, 2007
JAMAN BRINGS TRIBECA TO YOUR DESKTOP

Adam Dawtrey in Variety has a piece up today noting that digital download service Jaman is offering for free download six films screening at the Tribeca Film Festival. From the piece: Under the pact with Tribeca, six films screening at this year’s fest, which opens Wednesday, will be offered simultaneously for free download by users anywhere in the world for a period of seven days. Deal is believed to mark the first time a major festival will have given online exposure to part of its full-length feature program at the same time the movies unspool at the fest…. The six […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 26, 2007
LIFE, ART, AND JIM LYONS ON THE CRAFT OF EDITING

In the comments section of my post on the passing of Jim Lyons, Josh Apter notes a podcast he’s put up of Lyons at the website for the Manhattan Edit Workshop. Click over to the site and into the section on Jim and you can download a podcast of him discussing the craft of editing. And here’s what Apter wrote in his post: Jim’s viewpoint and candor were always refreshing, and his commitment to process had a devilish enthusiasm. Whether screening an ancient 16mm copy of Jean Genet’s Un Chant d’Amour or deconstructing Roland Barthes’ essay on Greta Garbo’s face, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 25, 2007
LET ME THINK ABOUT THAT…

The problem with our sound-bite culture is that stuff that’s not a sound bit rarely makes it onto a news. But as any good film director can tell you, sometimes a person saying nothing can communicate so much more than an actor delivering the most eloquently written monologue. Over at The Huffington Post, director Alex Gibney blogs about his new doc, Taxi to the Dark Side, and, more specifically, Alberto Gonzalez. He poses the question, “Is Alberto Gonzalez stupid?” and wonders whether the Attorney General’s testimony last week is truly as hapless at it appeared or whether there was a […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 25, 2007
MORE CRISIS

In 2005 Filmmaker selected Rachel Boynton as one of our “25 New Faces of Independent Film” based on the advance knowledge we had on her completely excellent doc Our Brand is Crisis, which was successfully released in theaters last year. Today came more great news for Boynton and her doc. Pamela McClintock and Adam Dawtrey report in Variety that Warner Brothers has picked up feature remake rights to the doc for George Clooney and his Smoke House production company. According the trade paper, the film will be “reimagined as a dark comedy,” which is not much of a stretch if […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 23, 2007
A MESSAGE FROM BLACKSBURG

There’s been so much in the mainstream media in the last week about the horrible tragedy at Virginia Tech — much of it rather soul deadening in its own right — that I hate to direct you to one more story. But if you’ve been following the MSM coverage you’ve probably come across a quote from or reference to Paul Harrill, an independent filmmaker who teaches film at the school. Harrill was the one who discovered a similarity between the images in Park Chan-wook’s Old Boy and the homemade videos of the killer. On his blog, which I’ve linked to […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 23, 2007
ROUGH CUT WISDOM FROM THE BOOK OF CALEB

Below I posted about the upcoming IFP Rough Cut Lab I’m teaching with Gretchen McGowan and a group of fantastic advisors in June. The deadline is April 27 (find more info here) so we’re in the final rounds of accepting and looking at material. But if you have a project and have been on the fence about submitting it, here’s an email I received from Matt Manahan, who went through the lab last year with his feature The Book of Caleb (pictured). It might help you decide if the process is one that can help you and your film. The […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 20, 2007
WAITING FOR THE DIRECTORS

In The Guardian, John Patterson wonders if auteurs are all they are cracked up to be. An excerpt: The auteur theory, I’ve finally decided, can kiss my ass. I’m done with it. It bores me. I flee in great haste from the mere mention of its name. It’s a cult of personality. It’s a marketing scheme. It’s become a misleading umbrella-term falsely uniting a diverse body of collectively created work under a single name. And it just encourages the tacky, egomaniacal film-school cult of the writer-director as lone presiding genius…. The “auteurs” are still out there, but most of them […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 19, 2007
CANNES AT 60

The Cannes official selection (i.e., Competition and Un Certain Regard) line-up has been announced and as always there’s a lot to salivate over. (Here it is at Indiewire.) Wong Kar Wai’s Blueberry Nights (pictured) is the Opening Night, and the fest includes films by some of my other favorite directors, including Fatih Akin, Carlos Reygados, Joel and Ethan Coen, Gus Van Sant, Olivier Assayas, Abel Ferrara, Bela Tarr, Mark Pellington, Barbet Schroeder and Harmony Korine (whose Mister Lonely is pictured below), to name a few. The Competition: “My Blueberry Nights,” directed by Wong Kar-Wai “Auf Der Anderen Siete,” directed by […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 19, 2007

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