Authors — Scott Macaulay

TIME REGAINED

If you’re in New York you’ve got a few days left to catch Guy Maddin’s Brand upon the Brain, the director’s spectacular staging of his latest movie with a live chamber orchestra, castrato, three live foley artists and an assortment of guest narrators like Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson and Isabella Rossellini. Like all of Maddin’s work, the film immerses itself in the poetics of early cinema, applying the style this time to a storyline that seems a mix of Dickens and gothic horror. But what makes it a must-see is its rare event quality. When the musicians start, the foley […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 12, 2007
A GENIUS LEDE

Until such time as The Day the Clown Cried sees the light of day, we might just have to settle for… Georgia Rule.. Here’s John Anderson’s genius lede to his Variety review: No offense to either of them, but Georgia Rule suggests an Ingmar Bergman script as directed by Jerry Lewis. The subject matter is grim, the relationships are gnarled, the worldview is bleak, and, at any given moment, you suspect someone’s going to be hit with a pie.
by Scott Macaulay on May 8, 2007
COMEDIC CAMERA

Over at David Bordwell’s Website on Cinema, Bordwell has one of his great screen-grab filled comparative film essays, this time on the relationship between film framing and humor. “Can a shot be amusing in itself?” asks Bordwell before going on to talk about Tati, Barry Sonenfeld, and a sequence from Shaun of the Dead that features the two shots below: Writes Bordwell of the scene in which two groups of survivors meet in zombie-filled London, “The gag’s premise is that each survivor has a counterpart in the other line. There are two posers in brown leather jackets, two can-do girls, […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 6, 2007
THE WGA AND THE MORAL (AND FINANCIAL) RIGHTS OF THE AUTHOR

It’s long, detailed and a must-read — Dennis McDougal’s piece in the L.A. Weekly, “Double Cross at the WGA,” on the guild’s collecting and non-payment of monies issued to member and non-member writers by foreign rights societies. The piece springboards off a class-action lawsuit filed by writer William Richert (Winter Kills) against the WGA as well as whistleblower activity by a now-terminated guild administrator into a discussion of American copyright law, studio business practices and the U.S.’s complicated relationship to the Berne Convention, the international copyright agreement spearheaded by author Victor Hugo. The upshot? If you wrote a screenplay for […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 6, 2007
THE VAST RIGHT-WING BLOGOSPHERE

Via Talking Points Memo comes news of Qube, the right-wing answer to the lefty, politically correct, and conservative censoring website that is… YouTube? From their front page mission statement: Bit by bit the site is coming together. Building QubeTV in the public eye has been a both a joy and a challenge, a real chance to bring the American conservative movement together in one place – with all of you watching! Coming next: a continuation of the ongoing (and not always visible to the eye) tech improvements such as embeds and (duh!) categories, the simple basics we know you are […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 5, 2007
ORPHANS SCREENS IN MEMORY OF LILY WHEELWRIGHT

Sad news that arrived shortly after this year’s SXSW Film Festival was the sudden death of actress Lily Wheelwright, who starred in Ry Russo-Young’s Orphans. Wheelwright gave a tough and honest performance in the film, which won a Special Jury Prize at the fest. Here’s what writer/director Andrew Bujalski had to say about the movie: “A sensitive & peculiar pastoral, Orphans manages to derive as much compelling energy from its locations & spaces (of the wide open & claustrophobic variety alike) as from its two terrific lead actresses, a rarity these digital days. The film will receive a special screening […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 28, 2007
HERE’S TALKING TO YOU

Over at The Street.com, Jonathan Blum goes to NAB to discover “the future of media.” He lists three developments. The first, that Apple with its Final Cut Pro and Final Cut Studio is turning amateur filmmakers into pro-quality producers, is not so new and interesting. The second, that local broadcast television will be feeding itself to your cell phone in about a year’s time, is a little bit more newsworthy. But the third, dealing with HD radio, told me something I didn’t know. He says to forget all the news about XM and Sirius and to concentrate on the untapped […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 27, 2007
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

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