If you are in Chicago this next month — or, perhaps, if you’ve got frequent flier miles or simple wanderlust — then I highly recommend checking out Enter Dream, a photo show by writer, photographer and critic Ray Pride, whose work is well known to readers of Filmmaker as well as those of his own Movie City Indie blog. Ray’s evocative photos are visually stunning and haunted by the idea of cinema — they contain potent traces of storytelling, whiffs of dramatic atmosphere, and suggestions of character. Here’s the official spam: The photographs in “Enter Dream” anatomize the geography of […]
Over at Stream, Eric Kohn has a good write-up of the “Where Film and Internet Collide” event we hosted at the IFC Center last week with the IFP and IndieGoGo. He does a great job of summarizing the interviews with the creators of the various works we screened. Another good report is by the Film Panel Notetaker. Click on the links and read — between the two of them you’ll feel like you were there.
FilmInFocus is running a four-part series on exhibition, from the ultra-small-scale screenings of the microcinema movement to the shape of things to come for blockbuster moviegoing. The first part, Ed Halter’s take on microcinema, is up now.
The Sundance Director’s Lab is underway, and one of the participants, John Magary (pictured at right with Sundance Lab advisor Gyula Gazdag), has agreed to blog it for Filmmaker. Here’s the first of his posts. SUNDANCE, EPOCH 1 Day One smelled like chicken. Day Three smells like farts. I’m not talking about the Lab — haven’t gotten there yet. One can be coaxed out of a crippling fear of flying—it is irrational, after all—but heights is another matter. With heights, all you can say is, “Oh, stop being so scared.” (Hot tip: saying things like that to a phobic isn’t […]
A couple of new writers have been added to the Spout Blog, and one, Lauren Wissot, has her first post up today. Wissot is a filmmaker and writer who has written for her own blog, Beyond the Green Door, as well as The House Next Door. Her debut piece for Spout is entitled “Dial S/M for Marnie” and it looks at Hitchcock’s film through the lens of kink: An excerpt: What neither the feminists nor cinephiles seem to appreciate is that Marnie is one of the greatest bondage and discipline (B&D in sadomasochistic parlance) pics of all time. Artfully disguised […]
Michael Fleming and Dave McNary have a piece in Variety on SAG’s granting of waivers to independent productions allowing them to proceed with their shoots undeterred by the possible upcoming strike. From the piece: The stars and studios are nonetheless gearing up for the worst possible scenario. The current number of waivers is triple what SAG had signed three months ago — and an indication there will be a modicum of feature shooting in the coming months. Even if there’s no SAG strike, the major studios will probably need a few months to slot in production starts, so indie projects […]
Nikke Finke at her Deadline Hollywood Daily is reporting that the marketing, distribution and physical production departments of Paramount Vantage are being folded into its parent company, Paramount. Here’s the official press release: Paramount Pictures and Paramount Vantage today announced the consolidation of its marketing, distribution and physical production departments, which will serve both entities. The merged marketing department will be lead by Gerry Rich (President, Worldwide Motion Picture Marketing). Megan Colligan and Josh Greenstein who were promoted to Co-Presidents of Domestic Marketing, will report to Mr. Rich. The consolidated distribution department will be lead by Jim Tharp (President, Domestic […]
A lot of political bloggers (which I’ve been reading to check out the responses to tonight’s amazing but also surreal evening of politics, which included not only the speeches by the three major candidates but also Terry McCauliffe’s bizarre, would-be comedy act on The Daily Show) have been linking to “101 Movies to Avoid Watching Before You Die” on the Crooked Timber site. The point of the post is self-evident; it’s a riff on those lists like The Guardian’s “1000 Films to Watch Before You Die.” And as an independent film champion, I’m startled by a lot of the responses […]
Thursday, June 5, Filmmaker, the IFC, IndieGoGo and the IFP are hosting an evening at the IFC Center that is part of Internet Week New York. It’s called “Where Film and Internet Collide,” and it’s one of three events going under this name that are dedicated to the merging of filmic and web sensibilities when it comes to creating new work. At the IFC we’ll be screening a number of interesting works created for the web and then will be discussing these works and web production in general with their creators. There will be plenty of time for questions, so […]
Sidney Pollack, director of such films at Tootsie, Out of Africa, Sketches of Frank Gehry, and Three Days of the Condor died today of cancer. He was 73. In addition to directing, Pollack was an active producer (credits include Michael Clayton, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and Cold Mountain) as well as an actor, appearing in such films as Eyes Wide Shut, Husbands and Wives, and, recently Clooney’s Michael Clayton. Within the world of big-budget Hollywood moviemaking, Pollack brought intelligence, political awareness, and solid craftsmanship to projects in a variety of genres and subject matters. He was also one of the […]