Filmmaking

THE BLUTARSKY DOCTRINE

Over at The Huffington Post, producer Sean Daniel (the Mummy, Dazed and Confused) looks at one legacy of John Landis’s comedy Animal House: its misuse as a comparison point for current political disasters. Here’s how he begins, but click to the link above and read the whole piece: It has happened again and it has to end. The use of the term “Animal House” to represent foul political behavior or historical events gone very badly has got to be stopped. This time the misuse is by the usually very wise Robert Borosage in his recent post on the Huffington Post […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 1, 2007 Filmmaking
BLADE RUNNER CONTINUES TO DAZZLE

2007 is the 25th anniversary of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, and in Popular Mechanics special effects technician Adam Savage discusses why its FX are still better than much of what’s on screens right now. An excerpt: You have to remember, Blade Runner was made years before digital effects became common. Today, CGI [computer-generated imagery] is becoming a mature art form, but even now there are times you just can’t beat doing some effects like these “in camera.” Most of these cityscapes are a combination of models and traditional matte paintings. For the aerial shots they used a set about 12 […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 1, 2007 Filmmaking
UNANNOUNCED iPHONE FEATURES

Magician Marco Tempest, who has made a name for himself with his series of YouTube-posted cell phone illusions, bought an iPhone and within 30 minutes posted this video featuring some unexpected uses for the device:

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 1, 2007 Filmmaking
EBERT on SICKO

Everyone’s a critic, but when it comes to considering Michael Moore’s Sicko, some critical voices might be a little bit more important than others. From Roger Ebert’s positive review: I saw the movie almost a year to the day after a cartoid artery burst after surgery and I came within a breath of death. I spent the next nine months in Northwestern Memorial Hospital, the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, and the Pritikin Longevity Center, and still require the daily care of a nurse. I mention this to indicate I am pretty deeply involved in the health care system. In each […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 30, 2007 Filmmaking
DEAR MICHAEL

On the day of Sicko’s expansion to over 400 screens, John Pierson, who repped Roger and Me and namechecked Michael Moore in the title of his Spike, Mike, Slackers and Dykes, sends an open letter to the director. While citing Sicko as Moore’s best filmmaking to date, he brings up the issues about Moore raised in the doc Manufacturing Dissent and discusses the goals of political filmmaking in general. Read it over at Indiewire.

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 29, 2007 Filmmaking
iPHONE and AppleTV MUSINGS

Over at his blog, Scott Kirsner says he wants to avoid getting sucked into the iPhone media vortex but has failed. He links to two articles, , one in Variety, where he discusses Apple’s Fair Play DRM and how the company has created a “closed loop” in which it will be difficult for other content providers to sell media for the iPhone platform. Still, there’s enough in Kirsner’s article and elsewhere to make me think that the iPhone will be more successful than some think as a movie platform. In his piece Kirsner talks to Jim Flynn, chief exec of […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 29, 2007 Filmmaking
IN BETWEEN DAYS OPENS IN NYC

Last year writer/director So Yong Kim (pictured) was one of Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces of 2006, and now, her debut feature, In Between Days, is opening in New York. GreenCine rounds up links to the rave reviews, and The Reeler has an interview with Kim in which she discusses her upcoming projects, the current movie’s long march through the festival circuit and into release, and the methods by which she cast her movie.

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 27, 2007 Filmmaking
JT LEROY’S JUDGEMENT DAY

Writer Lauren Wissot emailed me after I blogged about the Antidote Films vs. JT Leroy verdict with a link to her own blog, Beyond the Green Door, where she’s posted several pieces about the case. Wissot takes the pro-Laura Albert position in two posts, beginning with: I guess I’m trying to find the humor in all this because, frankly, Laura Albert’s Kafkaesque nightmare scares the hell out of me. Though the defense lawyers have broached the subject of Albert’s psychiatric history on the stand, Albert’s mental health is irrelevant. (Though as a good friend of mine pointed out, amputees who […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 25, 2007 Filmmaking
THE DEVIL DEALS

Paranormalist Jim Callahan has created a psychologically subtle piece of interactive noir/horror in the form of a short film. He’s a contestant trying out for the Spielberg-produced On the Lot show. Check it out and see if Callahan’s magic works on you…

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 24, 2007 Filmmaking
ANTIDOTE WINS JT LEROY CASE

A jury in Manhattan this afternoon ruled for plaintiff Antidote Films International in its lawsuit charging Laura Albert, the writer behind fictitious literary star JT Leroy, with fraud. Antidote was awarded the $110,000 it paid for film options to the Leroy novel Sarah and $6,500 in punitive damages. In a blog posting below I noted the reference to coverage in the New York Times discussing the fact that the trial has had the effect of entering the story behind the creation of the Leroy material into the public record, making it fair game for filmmakers, documentarians, writers, etc. It’s this […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jun 22, 2007 Filmmaking

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