Filmmaking

MIAMI VICE QUOTE OF THE DAY

I’ll probably see it tomorrow, but to tide me over, here’s Ray Pride’s unexpected summing up of the film: …The HD process is exploited mostly for a painterly scumble of vivid digital grain in the hardly illuminated night, but in simple summary, Miami Vice is Mann’s foreseeable triangulation of Friedrich Nietzsche, linen-edge designers like Ozwald Boateng and distinguished painters of geometric abstraction, like the great Richard Diebenkorn. Also, Green Cine asked Pride one of their summertime questions: “If you hadn’t become a film critic, what would you have done instead?” Here’s an excerpt from his response: “One night, young, I […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 29, 2006 Filmmaking
"TOTALLY UNCOOL!"

Here’s a look at the work of one of three sets of brothers who appear in our upcoming Filmmaker “25 New Faces” feature. Matt Ross wrote about the Neistat Brothers, who are currently in the (Fox) News for punking the network and causing the on-air reporter to flip out. Guys, next time, work on the blood effects and make the reaction a bit more convincing.

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 29, 2006 Filmmaking
SHORT STORY

I’m really excited about Brian De Palma’s upcoming adaptation of James Ellroy’s classic noir novel The Black Dahlia. I remember discovering Ellroy for the first time with this book, and the read was like a dark fever dream. If De Palma is truly on form, he stands a chance of getting some of Ellroy’s obsessional memory piece on screen with its perversities intact. It’s hard to tell from the trailer, but I have my hopes up.

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 27, 2006 Filmmaking
THE CHECK IS NOT IN THE MAIL

Sharon Waxman in The New York Times has a piece up on another conflict arising about the film Crash — its lack of payments so far to its profit participants. As anyone who works in the film business knows, this is almost par for the course, but in the Crash case, the system’s inequities are highlighted by the film’s extraordinary success. In addition to winning the Academy Award, the $7.5 million film has “taken in” $180 million around the world. The movie’s co-writer and director, Paul Haggis, has so far made less than $300,000 on the film, a pittance by […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 26, 2006 Filmmaking
COMMERCIAL CENSORSHIP AND TRAILER FATIGUE

Now that Caveh Zahedi’s I am a Sex Addict is out of New York, I need to keep reminding myself to continue to go to Zahedi’s blog, which he is keeping up with great posts on any number of topics. Here he is at the Wellington Film festival recounting his thoughts following a meeting with the great Iranian director Jafar Panahi: We are exactly the same age. His English isn’t very good, and my Persian is even worse, so we communicated by means of a translator (note to self: learn Persian). But it was fascinating to hear him talk about […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 26, 2006 Filmmaking
"A SERIES OF TUBES"

Over at Talking Points Memo Cafe, Art Brodsky has a broad-strokes summary of the situation facing the net neutrality bill currently pending in the Senate. Net neutrality is a complicated issue that I’ve been erratic in blogging about, but Brodsky’s piece does bring the issue back down to its core roots. Here’s Brodksy on the political situation: That leads us to the first number today, 60. That’s how many votes Stevens needs to round up before he can bring his bill to the floor. Senate rules require 60 votes to cut off debate on legislation. Otherwise, practically speaking, the bill […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 26, 2006 Filmmaking
COUNTRY LIFE

Over at his blog, Mark K-Punk riffs on Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley books, their filmed versions, and glam — specifically, Roxy Music: Significantly, Highsmith wrote the first Ripley novel in 1955 and only returned to the character in 1970. Tom Ripley was not a character that could fit into the rock and roll era, with its emphasis on teen desire, social disruption and Dionysiac excess. But Ripley’s‘hedonic conservatism’, his snobbery and his facility with masks and disguise, mean that he would be perfectly at home in the Marienbad-like country estate of Glam. If Sixties rock was characterized, on the one hand, […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 23, 2006 Filmmaking
THE MAIN PURPOSE OF FICTION

Okay, it’s not film related, but… Blog of a Bookslut notes that the new Thomas Pynchon novel, Against the Day, is scheduled to be released by Penguin on December 6. Pynchon himself has penned the description on the book’s Amazon.com page: “Spanning the period between the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 and the years just after World War I, this novel moves from the labor troubles in Colorado to turn-of-the-century New York, to London and Gottingen, Venice and Vienna, the Balkans, Central Asia, Siberia at the time of the mysterious Tunguska Event, Mexico during the Revolution, postwar Paris, silent-era Hollywood, […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 23, 2006 Filmmaking
RED DESERT

Chuck Tryon’s The Chutry Experiment points to an interesting and, if my own behavior is any indication, accurate article in The Wall Street Journal Online on how Netflix is changing people’s DVD viewing habits. Specifically, the article talks about how the service’s easy access to great movies encourages those movies to stay sealed in their little red envelopes unwatched for weeks and even months at a time. From the article: Netflix Inc., which boasts nearly five million members, often trumpets how its all-you-can-eat rental model is changing the way people are watching movies. But Netflix may also be changing the […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 23, 2006 Filmmaking
HEY LUKE!

Screenwriting inspiration can come from anywhere, even, if Donald Fagen and Walter Becker can be believed, from their Steely Dan song “Cousin Dupree.” In a letter on their website they ask Luke Wilson to do them a solid by speaking to his brother Owen about a matter that’s on their minds — the storyline of You, Me and Dupree, which they, with tongue partially in cheek (or at least I hope so, otherwise the bit at the end about the Russian bodyguard becomes not so funny), say seems inspired by their song. The lyrics in question: Well I’ve kicked around […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 23, 2006 Filmmaking

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