Authors — Scott Macaulay

OVERWORK, DEPRESSION, RADIATION

The last time I linked to Tim Lucas and his excellent Video WatchBlog Lucas was dissecting the psychological motives and emotional pitfalls of DVD collecting. Now, in a post entitled “The Trouble with Blogging,” he is similarly ruminative about the film blogging rat race, realizing that his blogging compulsion has not left him enough time to dig into the new Thomas Pynchon novel. At the very least, Lucas’s post makes me feel better about my semi-frequent blogging breaks and sometimes sloppy proofreading. From the piece: “The trouble with blogging is that, at some point, you discover that you have become […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 8, 2006
ROCKY TAKES ON JULIEN

Ain’t It Cool News is running for several days an online feature in which Sylvester Stallone, who is promoting his new Rocky Balboa, answers 200 questions from AICN readers. I was very, very surprised to read Day Five’s post in which Stallone answers a question about his favorite films by listing two: The Godfather and then a film I produced that I wouldn’t have guessed would be a pick of Rocky’s. Here’s Stallone: I like a lot of films from the 70s. I don’t like to speak specifically because sometimes people get offended. But, my taste runs from THE GODFATHER […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 8, 2006
4 MILLION AND COUNTING

Over at Wild Diner Films, Sujewa Ekanayake has a long interview up with Lance Weiler in which the filmmaker and frighteningly efficient self-distributor talks about his new movie, Head Trauma and the pleasures of releasing a film on one’s own. (Re the title of this post, apparently Head Trauma has grossed $4 million in distribution income.) An excerpt: Reality is setting in as more and more films are being made every year. The tools are accessible, which allows for a diversity of voices but the flood of work is putting a strangle hold on an already strained system. Self-distribution is […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 6, 2006
THE "A"-WORD

While reading the New York Times this morning, I was struck by Manohla Dargis’s evocation of the “a”-word when reviewing David Lynch’s new Inland Empire: “…the extraordinary, savagely uncompromised Inland Empire, his first feature in five years, his first shot in video and one of the few films I’ve seen this year that deserves to be called art. Dark as pitch, as noir, as hate, by turns beautiful and ugly, funny and horrifying, the film is also as cracked as Mad magazine, though generally more difficult to parse.” Yep, she called it Art. On the front-page of the Weekend section […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 6, 2006
PENNILESS

Larry Fine has a piece up at Reuters noting the dissolution of InDigEnt, the innovative low-budget film company created by Gary Winick and John Sloss that was behind pictures like Tadpole, Personal Velocity and Pieces of April (pictured). From the piece: “I kind of think we had our moment in time. Unfortunately there is no million-dollar film any more that actually gets in the market place and makes some money because the studios want the Capotes’ and the ‘Sideways‘ … they want the $8-million film to make a $100 million instead of the $1-million to make $10 (million). That’s the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 6, 2006
PARTY OF ONE

If you bookmark this blog and don’t regularly check out the main page, click over there for the first Filmmaker-sponsored podcast short, Jamie Stuart’s Corner Dweller, in which Stuart brings his now-patented hard-boiled persona to the pre-Gotham Awards nominees party. Here’s what David Hudson at GreenCine had to say about it: … in his latest, for Filmmaker, Corner-Dweller, set against the backdrop of the IFP Gotham Awards Nominee Reception, he’s gouged out his own niche and, even assuming Kaufmanesque self-referentiality as a given, staked out his own as-yet-uncharted ground.
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 6, 2006
SUNDANCE WATCH: TEETH

I was planning to do one big post in which I conveyed what I know about the various films at Sundance this year, but perhaps I’m going to wind up taking a piecemeal approach… To start, then, here’s a link to the official website for the Dramatic Competition entry Teeth, which is directed by Mitchell Lichtenstein, who, some years ago, starred in Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet. From the website, this synopsis: High school student Dawn works hard at suppressing her budding sexuality by being the local chastity group’s most active participant. Her task is made even more difficult by […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 2, 2006
OUT OF CONTEXT

The world of arts and criticism used to be such that one critical work published in the correct publication would ensure one’s permanent place in the culture. For George S. Trow, who wrote numerous articles and plays and who died in Naples this week at 63, that work was a 1980 New Yorker essay entitled “Within the Context of No-Context.” Its thesis, that television and celebrity culture had destroyed contemporary discourse and altered our relationship to the rhythms of history, had its echoes in Adorno,, Marcuse, Baudrillard and many others, but Trow’s stark, aphoristic prose published in a weekly magazine […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 2, 2006
PROCEED TO CHECKOUT

Gotham Tribute recipients Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban (the latter a no-show at the Gothams the other night) may have created the most buzz in the blogosphere with their multi-platform release of Soderbergh’s Bubble, but another company with equally deep pockets is conducting a window-busting experiment this weekend. Clickstar, a joint venture between chip-maker Intel and actor Morgan Freeman’s Revelations Entertainment, has partnered with THINKfilm to release Brad Silberling’s 10 Items or Less in theaters; in two weeks, on December 15, the movie will be available for digital download. Over at the Cinematech blog, Scott Kirsner tells you what to […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 2, 2006
ASK RYAN AND ANNA

If you’re wondering how filmmakers Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden made a great first feature that has racked up a ton of awards, including last night’s Gotham win, well, ask them yourself. The Daily Reel has them in their “Ask the Expert” section. Click on the link for the email address to forward your own questions about independent production.
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 30, 2006

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