Filmmaking

HANNAH TAKES THE STAIRS TRAILER ONLINE

IGN has just posted online the trailer for Joe Swanberg’s Hannah Takes the Stairs, which Alicia Van Couvering wrote about in Filmmaker as part of her article on the so-called “mumblecore” movement. The film is getting a release through the IFC First Take series and plays at the IFC Center in New York as part of The New Talkies: Generation DIY series beginning August 22.

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 4, 2007 Filmmaking
FILMMAKER IS 15 AND WANTS YOU!

The forthcoming fall issue of Filmmaker marks the magazine’s 15th anniversary, and, as I was having lunch the other day with Lance Weiler, he had a great idea about how you can help celebrate it with us. If you’re a long-time (or even short-time) Filmmaker reader and any particular article or interview we’ve published has helped you or informed you in any way in your filmmaking work, let us know. Write a paragraph or two about the situation and reference the original piece. We’ll edit together the best responses and run them next issue. You can send your thoughts to […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 4, 2007 Filmmaking
SLOWLY APPROACHING DARKNESS

Over at Cinemad, Nick Russell interviews filmmaker Betzy Bromberg, who is also the Director of the Film/Video Program at CalArts. Among other things Russell talks with her about her latest film, A Darkness Swallowed, which took six years to make. He describes the film as “an astrological exploration of the mind and what we call ‘memor’” as we gradually experience a slow fall, into a funnel. Using primarily close-up imagery that seems abstract at first, Bromberg creates an overall experience of distorted enclosure that lasts for days.” An excerpt: Cinemad: Do you normally give yourself plenty of time without the […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 4, 2007 Filmmaking
BREAKING NEWS — NYC REDRAFTS SHOOTING REGULATIONS

Great news for those who have been concerned about the proposed new rules regulating film shooting and photography on the streets of New York. The Mayors Office of Film and Television has announced that they will be redrafting these regulations following feedback from the community. You can read their announcement here. Here’s a key passage from the press release: Among other things, the re-drafting phase will focus on meaningfully addressing concerns that sections (b)(ii) and (b)(iii) affected individuals who were not engaged in the type of activities traditionally regulated by MOFTB. These are the sections of the proposed rules that […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 3, 2007 Filmmaking
THE LOW DOWN

Here’s the trailer for a music doc I’m excited to see — Adam Bhala Lough’s (whose Weapons I really liked at Sundance this year) and Ethan Higbee’s film on Lee Scratch Perry.

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 2, 2007 Filmmaking
IS THIS THE FUTURE OF THEATRICAL EXHIBITION?

Over at his CinemaTech blog, Scott Kirsner posts a video interview with Mark Stern, owner of Big Picture, the Seattle-based company that runs “21 and older” theaters that are more like private clubs or studio screening rooms than today’s multiplexes.

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 31, 2007 Filmmaking
MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI, 1912-2007

The great Michelangelo Antonioni, director of such films as L’Avventura, Red Desert, Blow-Up and The Passenger, died in Italy yesterday. He was 94. The New York Times in its obituary quotes Jack Nicholson’s remarks on the director when he presented him with a career Oscar: ‘In the empty, silent spaces of the world, he has found metaphors that illuminate the silent places our hearts, and found in them, too, a strange and terrible beauty: austere, elegant, enigmatic, haunting.” As they did for Ingmar Bergman, another art-house titan who, stunningly, died just a few hours before Antonioni, The Guardian has set […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 31, 2007 Filmmaking
INGMAR BERGMAN, 1918- 2007

One of the titans of 20th century cinema has passed away. Ingmar Bergman died at his home off the coast of Sweden at 89. Here’s the AP report. A growing list of links at GreenCine offers many perspectives on and remembrances of the great director, including the following passage from Mervyn Rothstein’s obituary in the New York Times: Mr. Bergman dealt with pain and torment, desire and religion, evil and love; in Mr. Bergman’s films, “this world is a place where faith is tenuous; communication, elusive; and self-knowledge, illusory,” Michiko Kakutani wrote in The New York Times Magazine in a […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 30, 2007 Filmmaking
PERSONALITY BECOMES YOUR STYLE

There’s a new issue of Sight and Sound up and now the BFI has posted selected pieces online. One is a great interview Amy Taubin did with Gus Van Sant about Van Sant’s thoughts on — and similarities to — Andy Warhol. While Taubin refers to Van Sant as “the most Warhol-like filmmaker around,” Van Sant says his original inspirations were quite different than the work of the great conceptual and Pop artist. When I started to try to make films, though, the scripts I wrote were John Cheever-esque stories about the place I came from – upper middle class, […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 28, 2007 Filmmaking
ZERO!

On the day of its opening the new Lindsay Lohan movie, I Know who Killed Me, has managed to score a big fat zero on Rotten Tomatoes. Maybe as the critics who were denied permission by Tri-Star to pre-screen the movie for reviews catch up with it the score will edge up… but, for the moment, the pic seems to have scored the unattainable. In our long-tailed world of a million and one tastes, it would seem impossible to make a film that simply nobody likes. If you believe the tomato squad, however, it’s been done. As for me, well, […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 27, 2007 Filmmaking

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