Here’s the new red-band trailer for David Gordon Green’s Judd-Apatow-produced comedy Pineapple Express.
Sent “in the spirit of Valentine’s Day,” Filmmaker 2007 25 New Face filmmakers Brian Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky passed along this excerpt from The Patron Saints, their doc-in-progress about “faith, uncertainty and sainthood.” For more about their work and their project, visit their blog, Pigeon Droppings and their company website, Pigeon Projects.
Here’s “Flashing Lights,” a strange and violent video for the Kanye West song directed by West and Spike Jonze.
Ninety-nine percent of interviews with directors and cast members about working on a film fall into the “everyone was so wonderful, it was like a family, I had such a great time” mold. But the opposite can sometimes be a better sell, or, at least, can more effectively cut through marketplace noise. And sometimes filmmakers don’t have a choice — if they want to promote a film that seems like it’s in trouble, they’ve got to spill the beans about what went wrong. A case in point is this article by Missy Schwartz in Entertainment Weekly about the straight-to-video release […]
Indiewire and Daily Motion cover the premiere of Filth and Wisdom, Madonna’s directorial debut which has just unspooled in Berlin. From the Indiewire report by Brian Brooks and Eugene Hernandez: Her first feature may have been made relatively under the radar — at least for a woman of her stature — but iconic actress/author and all around uber pop star, now turned filmmaker, Madonna nevertheless made quite a splash in Berlin today. She landed on the cover of local tabloids ahead of the world premiere of her directorial debut Filth & Wisdom at the Berlinale tonight and huge crowds gathered […]
One of NYC’s most enjoyable screening series returns this week with what looks like a great line-up of films. Film Comment selects begins tomorrow at the Walter Reade theater, and The House Next Door has an exhaustive preview compiled by no less than four critics. (Thanks to GreenCine for the links.) Head over to the Film Comment link and mark U.S. premieres by Grant Gee, Olivier Assayas, Lucas Moodysson (whose Container is pictured) and others in your datebook.
Anthony Kaufman has a very nice piece in the current Village Voice about producer Paul Mezey, who was involved with two acclaimed Sundance films — Azazel Jacobs’ Momma’s Man, and Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s Sugar (picture). Kaufman calls the group of directors who orbit around Mezey, a group that also includes Joshua Marston and Jim McKay, a “filmmaking family,” and includes some quotes from the producer about the challenges of making “new American realism” within the current climate. It’s really nice to see a producer singled out in the Voice for his great work.
According to Variety, the 100-day strike which began back on Nov. 5 has ended with 92.5 percent of the guild voting in favor of putting down their picket signs and returning to work immediately. Read the full story here.
Though Michel Gondry‘s latest highly imaginative film Be Kind Rewind, which is the cover story of our current issue, isn’t out in theaters for another two weeks, beginning this weekend you can be like Mos Def and Jack Black in the film and create home videos of some of your favorite films (or as they call it “swede”) when Deitch Projects in New York City brings the video store from the film to their gallery. Here’s more from their press release: For the exhibition, Michel Gondry will be recreating the video store in the gallery, complete with a back lot […]
Variety reports today on the expected launch of The Auteurs, a new online film distributor. From the story by John Hopewell and Charles Newbery: Film producer Eduardo Costantini and computer scientist Efe Cakarel are launching the Auteurs, a Silicon Valley-based global online cinematheque that will stream high-definition independent and classic films. The Auteurs’ main content provider is Celluloid Dreams…. The site will be curated by established programmers: the Latin America section, for example, is curated by Peter Schumann, recipient of the Berlinale Camera, who worked for the Berlinale for 35 years. In consumer terms, the Auteurs will deliver feature-length films […]