Authors — Scott Macaulay

THE BROKEN WINDOW THEORY

Anne Thompson’s column this week in the Hollywood Reporter is essential reading for anyone interested in the future of specialty film distribution. She interviews folks like IFC’s Jonathan Sehring and Picturehouse’s Dennis O’Connor about what she says is the inevitable collapse of the theatrical/home video/pay cable distribution window system. IFC’s Sehring, whose IFC Center opens this week in New York, is particularly forthright: “While he has no plans to ‘expand beyond one facility,’ says Sehring, he sees other changes ahead. ‘We’re going to alter our business plans over the next six to eight months. We feel strongly about video-on-demand as […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 4, 2005
JUNE 13 — ANOTHER DAY ON EARTH

The release of a new vocal album of songs by Brian Eno — his first such solo “non-ambient” recording since 1977’s Before and After Science (I’m not including albums that mixed songs with instrumental pieces like 1997’s Nerve Net) — would be significant enough to post about on this film blog even if Eno wasn’t an artist whose work has been massively influential to filmmakers. But from the glam rock art songs of his that appeared on the Velvet Goldmine soundtrack to instrumental pieces that have played significant roles in films like 28 Days Later and Heat to his video […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 3, 2005
JULY IN JUNE

Realizing that it’s been over two weeks since we’ve posted anything here about Miranda July, whose new blog for her film Me and You and Everyone We Know contains pictures of her receiving the Camera d’Or at Cannes from the once-in-a-lifetime pairing of Abbas Kiorastami and Milla Jovovich, I took notice of an email from Cloverfield Press. July’s new book, The Boy from Lam Kien, is now available from Cloverfield, the small press started by film producer and Sundance Lab programmer Matthew Greenfield and writer Laurence Dumortier. The book is described as “a strange and lovely story about an agoraphobe’s […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 2, 2005
VAUGHN LEAVES X-MEN 3

Though I was never a big fan of the comic books, for me, the X-Men films were some of the best of recent big-budget superhero movies. Director Bryan Singer kept the focus on the characters and their relationships while also engaging in the de rigeur FX spectacle. X-Men 3 has been underway and after a prolonged search Layer Cake director Matthew Vaughn was hired to helm the film. However, Moriarty over at Ain’t It Cool News has the scoop that Vaughn is no longer on the picture due to his having to deal with personal issues. The film is still […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 31, 2005
PIRATE SATELLITE

Via Movie City News comes this link to McSweeney’s and a piece by J. Chris Rock and John Leary titled Reviews of DVDs that May or May Not be Pirated but Were Definitely Bought on the Street in Shanghai for About a Dollar. Here’s an excerpt: “The Clearing Obtained: Wulumuqi Street, just past the #830 bus stopPrice: 7 RMB One of the worst releases this year, in terms of DVDs bought out of a cardboard box on the street. The colors are so blown out, we can’t see the pockmarks on either Willem Dafoe’s or Robert Redford’s face. The sound […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 31, 2005
CATHEDRAL IN THE SKY

While in Europe recently I heard about a documentary Martin Scorsese was making about Airbus, the European consortium of British, French, Spanish and German aircraft manufacturers formed in 1970 to rival the dominant American companies like Boeing. Of course, Scorsese recently memorialized an American aerospace pioneer with The Aviator. Today via Variety comes more details about the new project: “Scorsese will team with Spanish docu producer-director Jose Luis Lopez-Linares (Un instante en la vida ajena, Strangers to Themselves), who will take a co-director credit. Per Spanish monthly movie magazine Fotogramas, the doc will establish a parallel between the creation of […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 31, 2005
COUNTING DOWN THE DAYS…

There are websites that have counted down the days to Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. And then there are fansites that are collectively anticipating Chris Nolan’s new Batman Begins. At Filmmaker, we are counting down the days to Rubber Johnny. The six-minute Chris Cunningham video will be released by Warp Films on June 6 in the form of a DVD and accompanying 40-page book. In the meantime, however, there’s this review and interview over at Pixelsurgeon. Synopsizing the film, the site writes: “The titular Johnny is a mutant kid stuck in a wheelchair who is shut in the dark […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 30, 2005
ADAM’S DA BOMB

Adam Bhala Lough is one of our 25 New Faces alumni, and his feature Bomb the System opened in New York this weekend. Here are quotes from an interview with him in the Gothamist. On the difficult of making sympathic graffiti artist characters: “…anyone who’s walked up to their apartment in NY and saw a fresh tag on their door, literally dripping because it just went up, and got pissed off, they’re going to bring that hatred to the movie. A lot of people even asked me, ‘why did you even bother making a movie about graffiti writers? They’re horrible […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 28, 2005
THE STARS ALIGN

Via Variety comes more details about the long-awaited June 17 opening of IFC Film Center in Manhattan at the site of the old Waverly Theaters. The IFC has assembled a high-powered advisory board to lend its clout to the venture. Writes Willa Paskin in the trade, “Helmers Steven Soderbergh, Alfonso Cuaron, Richard Linklater, Kevin Smith, Errol Morris, John Sayles, Rebecca Miller and Gary Winick will be among those serving on the center’s advisory board. Nonhelmers Noah Cowan, Cynthia Swartz and Dan Talbot also are members. “According to IFC prexy Jonathan Sehring, board members will mainly be involved with programming, ‘be […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 25, 2005
OUT OF THE ’80S

As I sit here working my CD changer has just slid over to the Mysterious Skin soundtrack, which has not left the platter since I received a promotional copy about a week ago. From its first seesawing notes, Robin Guthrie and Harold Budd’s distinctive style, echoing their classic The Moon and the Melodies, evokes the 4AD and Budd ambient releases that provided a dreamy backdrop to many of our adolescences years ago. Writes Skin director Gregg Araki, “I have been a huge fan of Robin Guthrie and Harold Budd since the glory days of the 80s when 4AD, the Cocteau […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 19, 2005

Cookie	Duration	Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional	11 months	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy	11 months	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.

Cookie	Duration	Description
cfmrk_cic		Used by Cloudflare to route user traffic for this Site.
sparrow_id		Installed by Cloudflare. Used to identify individual clients behind a shared IP address and apply security settings on a per-client basis. It does not store any personal identifiable information.

Cookie	Duration	Description
OAGEO		Installed by the Revive Ad Server. Used to cache geolocation (session, deleted when closing the browser)
OAID		Installed by the Revive Ad Server to distinguish users.