Filmmaking

GLORIOUS GLORY

One of the hits of this year’s SXSW was the 25-minute short, Glory at Sea. Set in a magically real, emotionally honest post-Katrina New Orleans, the film is something of a mini-epic, a grand tale of outsized, heartbreaking ambition set against both a devastated city and the boundlessness of the open waters. The story of Ben Zeitlin’s film, unfortunately, did not end with its triumphant Austin premiere. Zeitlin and members of his crew were injured in a serious car accident on the way to a screening. The uninsured Zeitlin broke his hip and pelvis and has two sprained ankles. So, […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 23, 2008 Filmmaking
CANNES ’08 LINE UP ANNOUNCED

As you can see from the list below, the 61st Festival de Cannes is filled with many familiar names including Steven Soderbergh, who brings his pair of Che films, and works from Clint Eastwood, Atom Egoyan, Wim Wenders, Woody Allen and Charlie Kaufman‘s directorial debut, Synecdoche, New York. The festival takes place May 14-25. IN COMPETITION24 City, directed by Jia ZhangkeAdoration, directed by Atom EgoyanChangeling, directed by Clint EastwoodChe (The Argentine, Guerrilla), directed by Steven SoderberghUn Conte de noel, directed by Arnaud DesplechinDelta, directed by Kornel MundruczoIl Divo, directed by Paolo SorrentinoGomorrah, directed by Matteo GarroneLa Frontiere de l’aube, directed […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Apr 23, 2008 Filmmaking
WHACKING THE WACKNESS

Over at Ain’t It Cool News, Quint calls the trailer for Jonathan Levine’s The Wackness “an okay trailer for a great movie” and “a little clunky.” At Hollywood Elsewhere, Jeffrey Wells thinks star Josh Peck “is basically Leo Gorcey” and is not likely to ever play “anything other than a what-up homie who sells tabs of ecstasy and dilaudid in Tompkins Square Park” while one of his readers, Hallick, calls the clip “the dullest trailer of 2008” and asks, “What the hell are they trying their hardest not to sell here?” Yep, the trailer’s underwhelming, but it does set you […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 22, 2008 Filmmaking
HACKING THE CRM

At his CinemaTech blog, Scott Kirsner follows up an earlier post announcing Cinetic Media’s hiring of Matt Dentler to its new digital rights division, Cinetic Rights Management, with a conversation with three of the company’s key players: Christopher Horton, COO Janet Brown, and Dentler. (If you haven’t heard, John Sloss’s Cinetic Media has set up a new company that will represent digital media rights for independent films. They are currently contacting many indie filmmakers and producers and signing for representation films that will presumably be leveraged into digital distribution platforms ranging from internet downloads to new delivery devices like mobile […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 22, 2008 Filmmaking
TAKING NOTES ON VAN

Phillip Van, who was one of our “25 New Faces” last year (and who is photographed here by Richard Koek), is taking part in the Tribeca All Access program and is interviewed by the Film Panel Notetaker. He discusses And She Stares Longingly at What She Has Lost, the short film he made as part of the Little Minx project. He talks about his TAA project Darkland, Carl Jung, Richard Nixon, and his short, High Maintenance. An excerpt: I made High Maintenance to touch upon behaviors that I see in excess today among friends and in society; things like rampant […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 22, 2008 Filmmaking
WAITING FOR CHARLIE

Over at his blog, Jonathan Taplin calls “Charlie Rose by Samuel Beckett” the “most creative video mash-up of the year.”

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 22, 2008 Filmmaking
THE BLOG NEXT DOOR

The FilmInFocus series “Behind the Blog” continues this week with a new entry: Matt Zoller Seitz and his “The House Next Door.” An excerpt: HOW HAS YOUR LIFE CHANGED BECAUSE OF YOUR BLOG? HAS IT GONE IN ANY NEW DIRECTIONS BECAUSE OF YOUR NEWFOUND PROMINENCE? Throughout my career, I always took my work seriously, but I also had a skeptical or even cynical attitude about it — that it was just something people read at breakfast or on the bus to kill time. But since I started the blog I’ve been contacted by a lot of people who have been […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 22, 2008 Filmmaking
SHAMBERG’S TURTLE ARRIVES IN NEW YORK

When Filmmaker last caught up with director and cultural impresario Michael Shamberg (pictured), he had just finished collecting the various New Order music videos he produced into a compilation. One of those videos, by Leos Carax, we wrote about separately and linked to not only the clip but also Shamberg’s Kinoteca website, which is now re-energized with several new pieces. All of this is to introduce Shamberg and his global artist “anarchic salon,” Turtle, which arrives in New York this weekend at The Tank. Running this Sunday, April 27, from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m., the event is described like […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 21, 2008 Filmmaking
MICHAEL TIMES FIVE

Over at Videogum, Gabe anticipates Harmony Korine’s Mister Lonely, which is Filmmaker‘s cover this issue, by rounding up his top five Michael Jackson impersonator clips. Here’s his intro: And now, I’m going to do the classic blogger trick of praising a movie and then completely missing the point (an introspective look into how people struggle with identity and the need for acceptance) by posting a superficially related Top 5 List of Michael Jackson Impersonators. I’ve posted below one of his top five, which he dubs “Midget Michael Jackson.”

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 21, 2008 Filmmaking
BENTEN ON WINGO

Benten Films has a splendid, newly redesigned website that has launched alongside its latest release — Todd Rohal’s wonderful Guatemalan Handshake. The release is top-shelf all the way — the two-disk set includes six of Rohal’s short films, an essay by David Gordon Green, and numerous other extras, like casting tapes and other behind-the-scenes material. Also on the Benten site: an interview with composer David Wingo, who has scored Green’s and Rohal’s films and who also plays in the band Ola Podrida. From the interview: How different is the creative process when lyrics are involved, such as your Ola Podrida […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 21, 2008 Filmmaking

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