Filmmaking

Head Trip

Co-director Keith Fulton reveals how to create an unlikely filmic Frankenstein like Brothers of the Head, welding a bizarre story of conjoined rock stars onto a fake-documentary framework. HARRY TREADAWAY AND LUKE TREADAWAY IN KEITH FULTON AND LOUIS PEPE’S BROTHERS OF THE HEAD. Ever heard of Tom and Barry Howe, conjoined twin frontmen from seminal seventies punk rock band Bang Bang? Remember “Two Way Romeo,” their signature live hit, when Barry would pull up his shirt and display the shared flesh-band that forever connected them at the midsection? No recollection? Then what about the British band “Spinal Tap,” with the […]

By Jason Guerrasio on Jul 16, 2006 Directing
24 (MINUTES)

Rick Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly is the best screen capturing of the vibe and ideas of one of my all-time favorite writers, Philip K. Dick. If any of you are on the fence about seeing the movie, the folks over at Film Force have posted the first 24 minutes of the movie. Click over to the site and check it out. Elsewhere on Film Force, A Scanner Darkly producer Tommy Palotta talks about the team’s desire to do Dick right: When we initially approached the estate, we told them that we wanted to do a really faithful adaptation. You know, […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 15, 2006 Filmmaking
BACKSTAGE

The guys over at Other Music have noted the DVD re-release of Ron Dorfman and Peter Nevard’s 1970 documentary, Groupies. A rarely seen cult film on the ’60s rock scene, Groupies is now out from Cherry Red Records and is described by their catalog like this: A classic sixties documentary, “Groupies”, finally gets its release on DVD. “Groupies” is the ultimate expose of back-stage shenanigans. At times hilarious, at times almost tragic, the documentary follows the fortunes and dilemmas of various real life groupies, a supremely hedonistic bunch of rock fans, on their relentless search for a new kind of […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 15, 2006 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

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