Filmmaking

MICHAEL MOORE PREMIERES CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY TRAILER

Timely? Too late? Successfully satirical or else defeated by the same complexities that have befuddled the lawmakers themselves? We’ll see what happens when Moore takes his Everyman Avenger persona into the dizzying world of derivatives and credit default swaps. Embedded video from CNN Video

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 20, 2009 Filmmaking
JEREMIAH ZAGAR’S IN A DREAM ON HBO 2 TONIGHT

In our Spring, 2009 issue, Lauren Wissot interviewed In a Dream director Jeremiah Zagar as well as his longtime producer Jeremy Yaches and their executive producers Pamela Tanner Boll and Geralyn White Dreyfous. The feature, which is a fascinating look at artistic obsession and its effects on an entire Philadelphia family, receives its broadcast premiere on HBO2 tonight at 8pm with further screenings as detailed on this schedule: Wednesday, 8/19 @ 8pm – HBO2 EastWednesday, 8/19 @ 11pm – HBO2 WestMonday, 8/24 @ 6:30pm – HBO2 EastMonday, 824 @ 9:30pm – HBO2 WestFriday, 8/28 @ 1:30am – HBO2 EastFriday, 8/28 […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 19, 2009 Filmmaking
ROGER EBERT ON THE DEATH PANELS

Peter Bowen at FilmInFocus pointed me towards this striking Roger Ebert piece entitled “Death Panels: A Most Excellent Phrase.” Weighing in on the current health reform debate from the perspective of a man who has endured several life-threatening illnesses and operations in recent years, Ebert illustrates his article with images and film clips from a movie that shows us what a real death panel would actually be like. From Carl Theodor Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc:

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 19, 2009 Filmmaking
ROBERT MCKEE ON REWRITING

When I used to be script reader for one of the mini-majors, I remember all of the executives taking Robert McKee’s Story seminars. Invariably they all came back extolling its praises, even the ones who kind of dismissed it going in. When he issued his seminar in book form, Story, I got around to reading it, and, like everything, there’s plenty to take away from it even if you choose not to focus on some of his broader dictums. (I especially like McKee for his discussion of the expectations of genre.) Anyway, so too his interviews. There’s a lot of […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 19, 2009 Filmmaking
"25 NEW FACE" IAN OLDS’ FIXER ON HBO TONIGHT

With his partner, the late Garrett Scott, Ian Olds made the excellent Iraq war doc, Occupation: Dreamland. This year Olds completed his first solo doc, Fixer, a riveting story of the capture and execution by the Taliban of Ajmal Nadshbandi, whose job was to aid foreign journalists in their attempts to capture what’s going on in Afghanistan and make sense of it for us. The film not only captures the human tragedy of Nadshbandi’s killing but also its global dimension, showing us how governments decide how to value the lives of their citizens. On the basis of this film as […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 17, 2009 Filmmaking
WERNER HERZOG ON HIS BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS

BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS – Werner Herzog Interview from Millennium Films on Vimeo. Hat tip: Movie City Indie.

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 16, 2009 Filmmaking
THE SELLING OF THE DUDE

With the movie namechecked in many of the reviews for Thomas Pynchon’s new novel and a cult audience that shows no signs of abating, I suppose it’s time that the Coen Brothers’ The Big Lebowski is evoked in an advertisement.

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 16, 2009 Filmmaking
THE ADRIENNE SHELLY MEMORIAL GARDEN OPENS IN THE WEST VILLAGE

Earlier this month a memorial garden dedicated to the life and work of director and actress Adrienne Shelly was unveiled in Manhattan’s West Village. Filmmaker intern Melissa Silvestri was there for the opening and files this report. Nearly three years ago this November, actress/writer/director Adrienne Shelly’s life was cut short by a brutal act of violence. Her unique and indelible spirit is sorely missed, as evidenced by her most recent film, Waitress, which she wrote, directed, and co-starred in as the shy but sweet waitress named Dawn, looking for love. Since then, her husband, Andrew Ostroy, has carried on his […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 16, 2009 Filmmaking
PARSING THE MEANINGS OF NEIL BLOMKAMP’S DISTRICT 9

Unlike many critics, I liked the $30 million South African-shot sci-fi feature District 9 better as it went along, finding the apartheid metaphor set-up a little awkward and unrewarding. The more I thought about it, the more I found some of the movie’s strategies kind of contradictory to its implied social conscience. But the film works as a straight-out action film, which why its is looking like this week’s box-office winner. It’s easy to get off on the movie’s pulp-y energy and a vibe that reminded me of Robocop and the first Terminator movie. For a discussion of the metaphors […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 15, 2009 Filmmaking
FROM ROBERT FRANK TO JEM COHEN TO… GOOGLE

After seeing Jem Cohen’s excellent historical reverie/political essay/performance documentary/poetic image symphony Empires of Tin at the IFC Center the other night, I’ve been thinking about street photography. Cohen’s practice has always involved a vaguely melancholy and Sebaldian filmic extension of the work of great street photographers like Robert Frank. In Empires of Tin, the kind of people typically captured by the street photographer (more, perhaps, Cartier-Bresson than a skeptic like Frank) are less caught in meaningfully decisive moments as they are announced as anonymous everymen, markers of history or, perhaps, poetic ciphers. Wall Street workers drifting down those sad streets […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 13, 2009 Filmmaking

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