Authors — Scott Macaulay

ANIMAL RESCUE

Over at the Wholphin blog, Mike Plante has started a great, occasional series entitled “Lost Pets.” It’s his rescue-by-blog of worthy films from the last ten years that have drifted out of the public and industry consciousness. In his most recent entry he discusses Jennifer Shainin and Randy Walker’s Apart from That: As I think about those accolades for past films, I think about APART FROM THAT from just last year. I think about it as great American cinema, made by enthusiastic filmmakers and actors and crew. I think about how it looks and sounds great, not about how much […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 19, 2007
DANIEL ROBERT EPSTEIN, R.I.P.

I didn’t know Daniel Robert Epstein personally, but I read and admired the smart, cinephilic and always entertaining interviews he’d do with film directors over at the Suicide Girls site and would often link to them here. Now, Epstein is reportedly dead at 31. There are few details, but click on the link for some remembrances from Missy Suicide and, at current count, over 300 other posters. And here is another appreciation from Edward Douglas at Coming Soon. Here’s an excerpt from one of Epstein’s favorite interviews — Alejandro Jodorowsky: Epstein: El Topo became a seminal movie after its release […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 18, 2007
PETER BRODERICK ON NEW MEDIA AND DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION

Scott Kirsner just passed along a few links that aren’t yet up on his great CinemaTech blog. The three clips linked below are Kirsner’s interview with indie film consultant (and sometime Filmmaker contributor) Peter Broderick just after the Cannes Film Festival. In part one Broderick and Kirsner discuss film and new technology. In part two they talk about the changing world of film financing. And part three is all about marketing and audience building. Peter has always been a thoughtful, ahead-of-the-curve commentator on independent film distribution, so I suggest you check these out on Google Video.
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 16, 2007
THE TRIAL OF JT LEROY

Metafiction collided with the law in a New York court this week as Antidote Films, the production company of producer Jeff Levy-Hinte (Thirteen, Laurel Canyon), sued Laura Albert, the woman behind the fictitious author JT Leroy and the novel Sarah, for fraud. Reports Alan Feuer in The New York Times: This intricate game of hide-and-seek with its interlocking issues of identity, fame, money and the healing power of art has now leapt from the media to what is arguably the culture’s second most obsessive arena: the courts. A film production company has sued Ms. Albert for fraud, saying that a […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 16, 2007
BLOOD ON THE TRACKS

The Paul Thomas Anderson fansite Cigarettes and Red Vines has just posted the first trailer for Anderson’s latest, There Will Be Blood. It looks completely stunning and just the kind of change-up I want to see from Anderson right now. Can’t wait till this is released.
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 16, 2007
IN DREAMS

In the Village Voice, Robert Shuster reports on artist Christian Tomaszweski, who has spent three years creating a series of installations directly inspired by David Lynch’s Blue Velvet. According to the article, they remake “the movie’s spaces, props, and moods, including the hallways outside Isabella Rossellini’s apartment, a scale-model view from the closet where naked Kyle MacLachlan witnesses gas-sucking Dennis Hopper commit a brutal rape, and that notorious severed ear.” According to a press release issued by New York’s The Sculpture Center, which is exhibiting the work through July 29: Since 2004, Christian Tomaszewski has been plunging into the entrails […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 13, 2007
INTO THE BLACK

Over at Movie City News, Larry Gross posts one of his occasional and quite brilliant critical essays, this time on those eight seconds of black at the end of The Sopranos. And although Gross sees in Sopranos creator David Chase echos of Tolstoy and Balzac and not the Joyce or Kafka of The Prisoner creator Patrick McGoohan, it’s occurred to me that the conclusion of Chase’s series has inspired the same level of audience vexation that the famous final episode of The Prisoner caused back in the ’60s. Gross’s article is long and fascinating in its consideration of the aesthetic […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 13, 2007
BABY STEPS

At the Filmmaker office we’ve been researching the emerging online indie film market for an upcoming story about how independents are selling their work through digital download services. But perhaps I should just keep a running link to Scott Kirsner’s Cinematech blog as he’s made this field his beat for the last several months. This week he posted “For Indie Filmmakers: How to Sell DVDs Online”, a recounting of a conversation he had with Jamie Chvotkin, founder of FilmBaby.com, a site that assists filmmakers in the marketing and promotion of their DVDs. (More info here.) What’s interesting about the post […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 6, 2007
JUDD APATOW, FOREVER YOUNG

Over on the main page Nick Dawson interviews Knocked Up‘s writer/director, Judd Apatow. Here’s Apatow on what he considers to be his defining trait, awkwardness: It’s true, I’m a very awkward person. It’s hard to shake. Some people are wired for drug abuse or alcoholism or smoking; on some level, I’m wired to always feel like a goofball. No matter how well things go, I feel like I’m 15 years old. So when I’m out at a restaurant with my wife, I always feel like I’m on a first date and she might run at any moment. And it’s very […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 2, 2007
THE INTERNET KILLED THE ADULT MOVIE STAR?

Matt Richtel in The New York Times today looks at how the internet is transforming the adult entertainment industry. As the porn business has always been something of a trendsetter when it comes to adoption of new technologies and viewing patterns — the adult biz was instrumental in popularizing home video in the ’80s, for example — the article is worth reading for independent filmmakers. It discusses how the ‘net is now beginning to inflict record-industry-scale losses on the porn industry while also noting how the porn companies are responding to the threat. From the piece: After years of essentially […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 2, 2007

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