Filmmaking

THE ABSENT PRESENT

In The New York Times, Felicia Lee reports on artist Chris Moukarbel, whose art riff on Oliver Stone’s 9/11 film got him sued by Paramount Pictures, as we have blogged about extensively below. Moukarbel currently has a related artwork up this month at Chelsea’s Wallspace Gallery (the new artwork uses no materials appropriated from Stone’s work) and, the article says, is hopefully near a settlement. From the piece: After a temporary restraining order was placed on the distribution and showing of his video (part of a thesis project for his Master of Fine Arts at Yale), Mr. Moukarbel went ahead […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 13, 2006 Filmmaking
THE BEST MUSIC IN A TRAILER AWARD GOES TO…

… the new trailer for Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette/. It starts off with a lovely non-beat-oriented track from Aphex Twin’s underrated Drukqs album before cutting to an essential track by the Gang of Four, “Natural’s Not in It,” that announces the film’s themes in its brilliant lyrics: “The problems of leisure/What to do for pleasure… This heaven gives me migraine!” It then concludes in quite with “Ceremony,” the first single by New Order that was penned as a Joy Division track and which functions as a epitaph to Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, who committed suicide shortly after recording demo […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 7, 2006 Filmmaking
THE OTHER HOLLYWOOD

There’s a trailer up for Allan Coulter’s debut feature, Hollywoodland, and it looks pretty great. The film seems to be a noir detective story based on the real-life mystery surrounding actor George Reeves, best known for playing Superman in the tv series, and his mysterious death. Ben Affleck plays Reeves, and he looks really good as does Adrian Brody, Diane Lane, and the rest of a great cast. Coulter is best known for directing many episodes of The Sopranos and he’s been a hot name on various director lists for years.

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 5, 2006 Filmmaking
FAST TRACK CONGRATULATIONS

Congrats to director Robert Crary and writer/star Jennifer Westfeldt (pictured) whose Ira and Abby won one of two L.A. Film Festival Audience Awards. The film was one of the three selected in 2003 by the L.A. Film Festival and Filmmaker to become part of our “Fast Track” program.

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 5, 2006 Filmmaking
RETURN TO THE DESERT

Filmmaker and journalist Daniel Nemet-Nejat took a short break from his blog 40 Years in the Desert but he’s back now with two posts that riff on the ways new distribution technologies can enable new and successful independent film content. In the first, “HIgh Tech Hams,”, he describes his experience reporting on XM Radio for a magazine piece and muses on what filmmakers might learn from the satellite network. In the piece directly below it, Excuse Me While I Howl at the Moon, Nemet-Nejat begins to describe the business and artistic imperatives behind the construction of an “internet aesthetic” when […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 5, 2006 Filmmaking
EXPLOSIVE CINEMA

The new issue of Film Comment isn’t online yet, but a friend emailed me this excerpt from Gavin Smith’s Cannes review in which he singles out for praise Julia Loktev’s mysteriously compelling American independent film Day Night Day Night: “In the end, it was the Directors’ Fortnight that served up the festival’s single most riveting work, Julia Loktev’s unforeseen tour de force Day Night Day Night. The film’s cool, uninflected observation of a young woman being prepared for and then setting about executing a suicide bomb attack in the middle of Times Square obviously courts controversy, even thought the Russian-born […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 5, 2006 Filmmaking
HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Ain’t It Cool News is ten years old today, and they’ve got a great, low-key birthday feature up: they’ve asked their various contributors to pick ten films “that best sum up America.” The lists are really interesting, and the capsule blurbs about the films are full of the genuine enthusiasm for film that has distinguished the site over the years. All the Presidents Men, Taxi Driver, Nashville and, um Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle all make an appearance on the list. Check it out and, AICN, happy birthday!

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 3, 2006 Filmmaking
THE WET LOOK

Over at his blog, Anthony Kaufman rounds up some news on David Lynch and his upcoming Inland Empire, which reportedly will screen in Venice. He links to this YouTube clip entitled “David Lynch Experimenting with Digital Video.” There’s no real solid info to confirm whether it’s truly by Lynch or not, but it certainly feels like something of his. He also links to Lynch’s blog, which consists of short questions on various topics, many related to 9/11, that Lynch throws out for his readers to respond to. Also, here’s an interview from Business Week in which Lynch talks about his […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 2, 2006 Filmmaking
ANXIETY OF INFLUENCE

Caroline Bermudez over at Pitchfork chats via email with Scott Crary whose Kill your Idols opens on July 7th at the Cinema Village in New York and comes to DVD this fall. The doc, which Crary says he made for $300 (okay, I know these bands aren’t the Rolling Stones, but I’d hope they got more than $3 each for their music rights) looks at the late ’70s/early ’80s New York No Wave — folks like Arto Lindsay and DNA, Glenn Branca, Sonic Youth, Lydia Lunch — and the current musicians (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Liars, A.R.E. Weapons, etc.) they have […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 1, 2006 Filmmaking
MOST WATCHED

Slate has a Summer Movies Week going, and this interesting feature is part of it: a survey as to which film various directors and actors watch the most. Here’s Neil LaBute’s reply: Outside of perennial holiday fare like The Wizard of Oz, It’s a Wonderful Life, or Salo, I think I’ve watched Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon more times than any other movie I can remember. (Warren Beatty’s Reds would give it a run for its money—I saw that 14 times in the theater!) For me, Barry Lyndon is the most distinctive and beautiful re-creation of period on film, bar none, […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 1, 2006 Filmmaking

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