BOMB. This article is part of Filmmaker’s Sundance 2007 Special Coverage. It isn’t easy to glean a sense of Ian Olds’ identity from his films — they’re too diverse, too global. From Occupation: Dreamland (short-listed for an Academy Award), a breathtaking documentary that avoids simple political interpretation by opting to tell the story of the Iraq War from the perspective of the entire city of Fallujah — including both native Iraqis and U.S. troops — to Bomb, his most recent film, which explores teenage heartache against the backdrop of a decrepit bombing range and junkie malaise, Olds seems to be […]
BITCH. This article is part of Filmmaker’s Sundance 2007 Special Coverage. Bitch, the kinetic, black-and-white, Harold Lloyd-meets-Jello Biafra love story, is one of the most visually sophisticated and stylized films to emerge from that Sundance short film-factory, Columbia University’s MFA Film Program (eight shorts screening at the festival this year!). The film’s director, Lilah Vanderburgh, is obsessed with skater culture, punk-rock, underground comics, and displays the hip film literacy of another director with an encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture. (Is it taboo to compare a young director to Tarantino? Who cares — in this case, it’s deserved). This film will […]
It’s finally here. And Filmmaker is on the scene at the Sundance Film Festival to report on all the films we can possible see and everything else that goes on outside of the screenings. Along with dedicating this blog to our coverage, as an added bonus this year we’ve created a seperate page to the festival. Click here to check it out.
Jason Silverman over at the Wired blog previews the Sundance Film Festival by scouting out some cool films and animations that employ technology in interesting ways. Here’s its take on some of the stuff in the New Frontier section, including one project that seeks to inspire a strange nostalgia amongst boomer heterosexual males: “As digital tools grow cheaper and more plentiful, artists are discovering a galaxy of new ways to mess around with cinematic form. Sundance’s foray into the world of 3-D cinema – the kind of stuff usually relegated to swank galleries — comes in the form of eight […]
Though most of my time will be spent watching films at Sundance next week, for those going to Slamdance I highly recommend seeing Casey Suchan and Denis Henry Hennelly’s amazing doc Rock The Bells. Since its premiere at Tribeca last year the film has gained great reviews on the festival circuit and I hope their good fortune continues next week as it will be in competition for Best Doc. Chronicling the Rock The Bells festival that took place in San Bernardino, California in 2004 that boasted the reuniting of the complete 9-member rap group, The Wu-Tang Clan, we are given […]
Well, since I produced a musical in 2006 I’ll take the high road and not debate Grady Hendrix’s claim that Rich Wong’s indie no-budget Colma: The Musical is the best musical of 2006. But, personal allegiances aside, I do like Colma a lot. In fact, it’s one of Filmmaker‘s “Best Film Not Playing in a Theater Near You” nominees for the year. Here’s what Variety‘s Hendrix just wrote about it: This isn’t a perfect movie, the flaws almost balance the virtues, but it’s a fresh, funny, unexpected flick that makes almost every musical out from Hollywood in the last few […]
From the Hollywood Reporter: FBI memo to Hollywood: If it’s not too much trouble, could you please portray our counterterrorism efforts with a bit more realism? Hoping for an answer in the affirmative, the FBI hosted its first workshop for screenwriters Wednesday at the Federal Building in Westwood. “FBI — Crime Essential for Writers” played well with the standing-room-only audience of executives and writers from several major and minor studios. Enthusiastic attendees had more questions than time allowed answers for, and few if any left the four-hour event early. The FBI, more so than even the Department of Homeland Security, […]
Boing Boing has been covering this week the controversy surrounding the Slamdance Film Festival’s rejection of a video game, Super Columbine Massacre, from its interactive competition, the Slamdance Guerrilla Gamemaker Competition. Here is Slamdance’s official statement: The Super Columbine Massacre RPG game has been withdrawn from Slamdance ’07. While understanding the different positions people have already taken with the game, we want to express the struggle we had with ours. On one hand, a jury selected a game they believed merited programming, a decision that always leads to our organization supporting the creator’s independent vision and freedom of expression. On […]
The new Apple iPhone. It’s a widescreen iPod (but, um, at only up to 8 gigs? What gives?); OS X powered; a full version of Safari; WiFi and Bluetooth. Looks very cool. I’m officially very up on this and will be over-the-moon about it when it upgrades to a larger hard disk.
As you may have read below, Filmmaker is hosting an evening with animator and artist Brent Green this coming Wednesday. I think his work is really great and hope you can come and check it out. If you want to learn more about him, check out this essay on the Creative Capital website. Green is a Creative Capital fellow, and their support helped him realize his new Paulina Hollers, which we’ll screen on Wednesday before its Sundance screening next week. An excerpt from the Creative Capital page: Picture this: a Santa Claus who’s a skinny, irritable old cuss who guzzles […]