Filmmaking

DREAM MACHINE

Over at sf360.org, Tilda Swinton delivers a San Francisco International Film Festival keynote address on “the State of Cinema” in the form of a response to her eight-year-old son who asks “what people’s dreams were like before cinema was invented.” Swinton offers up a wonderful free-ranging dialogue that encompasses everything from the Communist party, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Tropical Malady, Crash, and, especially, Derek Jarman. A tiny excerpt: My boy, what do you know of changed times, you who were born in 1997 and asked if there were cars before then or only horses and carts. For […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 4, 2006 Filmmaking
FAIRY TALE ENDING WANTED

In Josh Horowitz’s preview of Richard Kelly’s new Southland Tales in the latest Filmmaker, Kelly describes his film as a “dystopian fairy tale about the apocalypse.” Jeffrey Wells has the latest on Kelly, namely that his portrayal of an emerging American police state may be more realistic than even he imagined: Southland Tales director-writer Richard Kelly ‘s passport has been stuck “under review” for the past several days in Washington, D.C., because, I’m told, there’s a guy named James Kelly on the government’s terrorist watch list. The Donnie Darko director’s full name is James Richard Kelly, hence the confusion. But […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 4, 2006 Filmmaking
WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Arianna kicks our collective asses about the poor marketing job being done on the “net neutrality” issue. An excerpt: Why are the bad guys so much better at naming things? Especially legislation. Especially bad legislation. No Child Left Behind. Healthy Forests. Clear Skies. The PATRIOT Act. They have a special gift for coming up with monikers that are easy to remember and easy to get behind. Sure, they’re deceptive, but they’re also very effective. The same can’t be said for the utterly befuddling “Net Neutrality” — the critically-important push to ensure that the Internet stays democratic and uncontrolled by the […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 4, 2006 Filmmaking
DAFT PUNK IS PLAYING IN THE HOUSE

The Hollywood Reporter has the Cannes Directors Fortnight eclectic schedule. American pics include Julian Goldberger’s The Hawk is Dying, Julia Loktev’s premiering Day Night Day Night, a William Friedkin movie starring Ashley Judd, Bug, and an American indie by M. Blash called Lying that stars Chloe Sevigny and Meryl Streep’s son Henry Gummer. Carter Smith’s short Bugcrush and James Clauer’s short Aluminum Fowl both travel to the section from Sundance. Other films include Jean-Clauge Brisseau’s in-the-news Exterminating Angels, the directing debut of French porn star HPG, We Shouldn’t Exist, and a movie directed by the two guys who make up […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 3, 2006 Filmmaking
COPYRIGHT CONTROL

I haven’t really been following this, but this this news from the Electronic Frontier Foundation seems disturbing: The U.N. World Intellectual Property Organization’s Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights Committee meets this week to discuss the latest redraft of the contentious new Broadcasting Treaty. The treaty would give broadcasters, cablecasters, and potentially webcasters, broad new 50 year rights to control transmissions over the Internet, irrespective of the copyright status of the transmitted material. It also requires countries to provide legal protection for broadcaster technological protection measures that will require Broadcast Flag-like technology mandates. As we’ve noted elsewhere, EFF believes […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 3, 2006 Filmmaking
FERGUSON’S BRIGHT SPOTLIGHT

I hate to do this because I quite like Craig Ferguson’s The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. The guy’s very intimate with the camera, generally charms the guests, and, instead of a monologue, spins out every night a piece of performance storytelling that is far cleverer and more multi-layered than anything the competing late night hosts come up with. That said, Karen Finley, Dennis Cooper and Susie Bright are cultural icons who have paid their dues. So then, I’m linking here to Bright’s open letter to Ferguson following what was apparently his condescending and clueless appearance at the LAT […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 3, 2006 Filmmaking
GILL LEAVES WARNER INDEPENDENT

Variety has the surprising news that Mark Gill is leaving his post as president of Warner Independent Pictures. According to the trade paper, Warner exec v.p. of production Polly Cohen is in talks to run the division while Gill is reported to be segueing into a production deal.

By Scott Macaulay on May 3, 2006 Filmmaking
THOMPSON BLOGS THE LAT FESTIVAL OF BOOKS

Anne Thompson has written a long post reporting on her weekend at the LAT Festival of Books. I’m grateful for her write-up because I was naturally intrigued by the idea of the “Pushing the Envelope” panel, which paired transgressive pioneers Karen Finley, Dennis Cooper, and Susie Bright with TV’s Craig Ferguson. (It was moderated by author Diana Wagman.) I had heard that Finley and Ferguson dusted it up but didn’t really know what about. Here, Thompson explains: With George and Martha, Finley said, she included illustrations showing George W. Bush and Martha Stewart having sex. “For me it’s powerful to […]

By Scott Macaulay on May 2, 2006 Filmmaking
PUFFED UP

The Duplass Brothers have launched a website for their new movie, The Puffy Chair, which was one of the films spotlighted at the DIY distribution panel I moderated a couple of weeks ago. Their film will be out this summer in a unique deal in which Netflix partnered with the filmmakers and Roadside Attractions. The film’s trailer is below.

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 30, 2006 Filmmaking
THE HARD NUMBERS

Over at The Hot Button,, David Poland, while discussing Roger Ebert’s Overlooked Film Festival, throws out some industry analysis that feels pretty dead on and which is the kind of thinking that a lot of first-time filmmakers I encounter don’t really understand when they talk about the value of their film: The new small distributors are trying a new model. 12-16 movies a year. Nothing too big. $15 million is the top. Nothing too small. A $1 million or $2 million pick-up is possible… but only if the film looks like $8 million or more. Cover most of the money […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 28, 2006 Filmmaking

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