Filmmaking

SUBTERRANEAN HOMESICK BLUES

Perhaps because Gross doesn’t write for a daily outlet but more likely because the erudition of his criticism is genuinely thrilling, the occasional essays on film by screenwriter Larry Gross pack a punch within our metacritic’d, tomato-splattered blogosphere. Here he is with an early appreciation of Todd Haynes’s I’m Not There that’s just gone online at Film Comment. “How can a work not give us politics and yet be so political?” he asks in a piece that opens by quoting Jean-Godard, and Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari and ends by considering how Haynes’s film fits into a moment signified by […]

By Scott Macaulay on Sep 4, 2007 Filmmaking
Jeff Garlin on I Want Someone To Eat Cheese With

Jeff Garlin may be best known as Larry David’s right hand man on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, but there’s more to this Second City alum than his deadpan humor. Along with doing stand up and developing new TV shows when Curb isn’t taping, he’s also been trying to get his feature films made. His first is I Want Someone To Eat Cheese With, which premiered at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival to rave reviews and then suddenly lost its momentum and collected dust for over a year until finding distribution through IFC Film’s First Take banner and The Weinstein Company. […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Sep 4, 2007 Directing
TRACKS OF MY TEARS

Okay, here’s a link to an Ain’t It Cool News report that links to the trailer of a film I’m really excited about seeing in Toronto: Dario Argento’s Mother of Tears, the conclusion of the trilogy that began with the brilliant Suspira and Inferno. The early word on the film, which stars Asia Argento, Udo Kier, Daria Nicolodi, among others, is good. For those who don’t know the first film in the series (and since the Mother of Tears trailer is not able to be embedded), here, below, is the charmingly old school U.S. trailer for

By Scott Macaulay on Sep 2, 2007 Filmmaking
THE SECOND TIME, WITH MEANING

John August wants you to see his new movie, The Nines… twice. At his blog, he’s posted a downloadable commentary track which you can listen to on your iPod as the movie unspools. (It’s too distracting to do on your first viewing, he says.) He writes: One of my favorite moments of the Sundance premiere was listening as progressive waves of audience members realized that a story Hope Davis begins telling in Part One is, in fact, not a story at all. Hearing the little gasps, those who hadn’t yet caught on became more vigilant, wondering what they were missing. […]

By Scott Macaulay on Sep 2, 2007 Filmmaking
THINGS TO DO IN DENVER

One of my favorite websites, Boing Boing, has just undertaken a re-design. The site is a lot cleaner and easier on the eyes now, all the better to scope out eccentric pieces like this article in the Denver Westword News about the historical end date of the Mayan calendar, Freemason conspiracy theory, the New World Order… and the Denver airport? It’s all knitted together by a filmmaker — producer Nick Weidner, who, with his partner Sharron Rose, made 2012: The Odyssey. Westword’s Jared Jacang Maher, who writes about Weidner’s appearance on KHOW’s Coast to Coast, explains: Weidner, a filmmaker and […]

By Scott Macaulay on Sep 1, 2007 Filmmaking
ALL THERE

Over at his Hot Blog, David Poland has excited early words about Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There at Telluride. An excerpt: I also think this movie is a classic example of one where the first viewing is really just a toe in the water. If ever there was a movie made for the DVD era, this is it. (I wouldn’t bother to try to watch any longer clip than four minutes on an iPod… even the larger screen version due this Christmas.) Haynes & Moverman find a richness in this 10 year sliver of Dylan’s life – again, a conventional […]

By Scott Macaulay on Sep 1, 2007 Filmmaking
SECURE POSITION

Women in Film and General Motors have launched Traction, a new website “for and ‘by’ women in the industry.” There’s already a ton of stuff on the site, including a great interview with Boys Don’t Cry director Kimberly Pierce by filmmaker Kirby Dick, a blog by the “Two Kids in the Balcony” (Jessica Silver-Greenberg and AJ Strasser), and a column entitled “The Virtual Mentor” which offers industry advice. In its debut, Film Finances Senior V.P. Marion Spiegelman discusses the process of bonding a picture.

By Scott Macaulay on Sep 1, 2007 Filmmaking
TAGGED

Over at his increasingly essential Workbook Project, Lance weiler posts an audio podcast with Bomb It director Jon Reiss. I liked Reiss’s film, which starts off as a straightforward doc on the origins of urban graffitti art and then, as it globetrots to five countries, subtly morphs into a compelling essay on the changing nature of public space. Hear what Reiss has to say at the link above.

By Scott Macaulay on Sep 1, 2007 Filmmaking
THE NBC/iTUNES SKIRMISH

Louis Hau has a solid piece in Forbes on the current skirmish between GE/NBC/Universal and Apple’s iTunes. If you’re not up on it, NBC has notified Aplle that it will no longer sell its television shows over the iTunes store. (It has also announced its own streaming and download site, Hulu.) Hau notes that NBC’s notice of termination occurs while negotiations are continuing and that, in the end, a deal may be worked out even as the network’s long-term strategy may be away from the pay-to-download model: Apple wants as much video content as it can get to continue driving […]

By Scott Macaulay on Sep 1, 2007 Filmmaking
SMILE LIKE YOU MEAN IT

I want to thank David Lowery for contributing the great interview with Ronnie Bronstein that’s up on the main page right now. I love Bronstein’s film Frownland and am really happy to be hosting a special screening of it with director Lodge Kerrigan at the IFC Center next Wednesday at 7:30 pm. Lowery is right when he calls Frownland “one of the most confrontational and uncompromising visions to emerge from the American independent scene in recent memory,” and I hope that a lot of you come to this special edition of Filmmaker‘s series at the IFC. Here’s a taste of […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 30, 2007 Filmmaking

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