Filmmaking

THE VIDEOGAMER KILLED THE INDIE FILM STAR

I don’t know what’s funnier in Karina Longworth’s very amusing blog post at Spout, “Five Indie Films that Should Be Video Games” — the five titles or the purportedly real news that Juno is in the process of being turned into a game. The five films are Gummo, Happiness, Redacted, The Brown Bunny and Mutual Appreciation, of which Lombard writes: Think Guitar Hero meets The Legend of Zelda. After every performance, instead of moving on to the next song, you have to wander around Brooklyn, battling your way through awkward encounters with girls and weird older dudes who are friends […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 8, 2008 Filmmaking
The Mountain and the Music

Leading up to the Oscars on Feb. 24, we will be highlighting the nominated films that have appeared in the magazine or on the Website in the last year. Nick Dawson interviewed Beaufort co-writer-director Joseph Cedar for our Web Exclusives section of the Website. Beaufort is nominated for Best Foreign Language Film. This was a particularly exceptional year for Israeli cinema. Dror Shaul’s Sweet Mud won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize at Sundance; Shira Geffen and Etgar Keret’s Jellyfish took away two prizes, including the coveted Caméra d’Or, at Cannes; and Eytan Fox’s The Bubble played to great acclaim […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Feb 8, 2008 Directing
Speak, Memory

Leading up to the Oscars on Feb. 24, we will be highlighting the nominated films that have appeared in the magazine or on the Website in the last year. Scott Macaulay interviewed Away From Her director Sarah Polley for the Spring ’07 issue. Away From Her is nominated for Best Lead Actress (Julie Christie) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Sarah Polley). Whether it is as the paralyzed survivor in Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter or the zombie apocalypse heroine in Zack Snyder’s remake of Dawn of the Dead, Sarah Polley brings something fascinating yet almost indescribable to all of her roles. […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Feb 8, 2008 Directing
Senior Moments

Leading up to the Oscars on Feb. 24, we will be highlighting the nominated films that have appeared in the magazine or on the Website in the last year. Ray Pride interviewed The Savages writer-director Tamara Jenkins for the Fall ’07 issue. The Savages is nominated for Best Lead Actress (Laura Linney) and Best Original Screenplay (Tamara Jenkins). Note-perfect, Tamara Jenkins’s The Savages was one of Sundance 2007’s stellar surprises. Where another unlikely gem from the festival, Once, was bittersweet in its simple romance, Jenkins’s long-in-coming sophomore directorial entry (after 1998’s Slums of Beverly Hills) is a complex mesh of […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Feb 8, 2008 Directing
New Beginnings

Leading up to the Oscars on Feb. 24, we will be highlighting the nominated films that have appeared in the magazine or on the Website in the last year. Jason Guerrasio interviewed The Kite Runner director Marc Forster for our Web Exclusives section of the Website. The Kite Runner is nominated for Best Original Score (Alberto Iglesias). When Khaled Hosseini sat down to write his first novel he imagined a story that would shed light on the culture, beauty and history of his home country and have people see it in a different light than its usual portrayal on the […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Feb 8, 2008 Directing
The Inside Man

Leading up to the Oscars on Feb. 24, we will be highlighting the nominated films that have appeared in the magazine or on the Website in the last year. Scott Macaulay interviewed The Diving Bell and the Butterfly director Julian Schnabel for the Fall ’07 issue. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is nominated for Best Director (Julian Schnabel), Adapted Screenplay (Ronald Harwood), Editing (Juliette Welfling) and Best Cinematography (Janusz Kaminski). Most films draw us in with some promise of possibility. Buy a ticket, sit back and have your world expanded for a couple of hours. Be someone new and […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Feb 8, 2008 Directing
The Doctor Is In

Leading up to the Oscars on Feb. 24, we will be highlighting the nominated films that have appeared in the magazine or on the Website in the last year. Howard Feinstein interviewed Sicko director Michael Moore for our Web Exclusives section of the Website. Sicko is nominated for Best Feature Documentary. Timely is the release of Michael Moore’s long-gestating Sicko, an exposé of the U.S. health insurance industry, especially its efforts to withhold benefits to subscribers. Americans rank health insurance as their number two concern after the war in Iraq. Democratic presidential candidates are whipping up health care plans; so […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Feb 8, 2008 Directing
CINEKINK ANNOUNCES LINE-UP

The New York-based film festival CineKink has announced their line-up for this year’s event, which runs from February 26 to March 2. From the press release: Billing itself as “the really alternative film festival,” the event will run February 26-March 2, 2008. Presented by CineKink, an organization dedicated to the recognition and encouragement of sex-positive and kink-friendly depictions in film and television, works presented at CineKink NYC will range from documentary to drama, mildly spicy to quite explicit – and everything in between. “It seems our programming theme for this year was ‘No mercy!’” says Lisa Vandever, CineKink’s co-founder and […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 7, 2008 Filmmaking
DEALIPEDIA SUGGESTS NEW INDIE FILM RESOURCE MODEL

Over at Wired.com, Megan McCarthy has an article about Dealipedia, a new start-up from Michael Robertson, who previously founded MP3.com, which he sold to Vivendi in 2001. From the piece: Michael Robertson, who made $115 million when he sold his startup MP3.com to Vivendi in 2001, wants every other entrepreneur to tell the world how much, or little, they pocketed during their business deals. His new site, the recently launched Dealipedia, aims to become a hub of information about mergers, investments, acquisitions, and other business deals by encouraging the people in on the deals to upload information to its public […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 7, 2008 Filmmaking
BEASTIE BOY STARTS DISTRIBUTOR WITH THINK EXEC

Interesting news via Pitchfork Media: Beastie Boy Adam Yauch has launched Oscilloscope Pictures, a new independent distributor, with former Think Film V.P. David Fenkel and former Think employee Dan Berger. The Pitchfork article quotes this Reuters/Hollywood Reporter piece, which gives more details. From the Gregg Goldstein piece: Yauch and Fenkel plan to acquire narrative and documentary features from festivals for release in the U.S. and provide funds to complete and release unfinished films. The pair, who worked on Yauch’s Beastie Boys documentary “Awesome! I F***in’ Shot That!” at ThinkFilm, will oversee postproduction and marketing work at Oscilloscope Laboratories’ downtown Manhattan […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 6, 2008 Filmmaking

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