Filmmaking

SCOTT WALKER RETURNS

An issue or so ago I put Scott Walker in our “Super 8” column, anticipating his new album, his first in ten years. Now it’s got a title — The Drift — and the musician Momus has an early review on his blog: Fuck me, this is terrifying! I’ve come by The Drift, the new Scott Walker album. Don’t ask me how. It’s on 4AD. I used to be on 4AD, but that’s by the by the by the by. But the thing is, this isn’t a pop record, it’s a nightmare. It’s a horror film, part Cocteau, part Jodorowsky. […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 7, 2006 Filmmaking
POSTER MADNESS

This has been a good year so far for cool movie posters (I haven’t seen V for Vendetta yet but I loved the marketing campaign). And now comes these amazing new posters for Christoph Gans’s upcoming Silent Hill, which looks from the trailer like it might actually be good. (The one to the right is titled “The Nurses.”)

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 6, 2006 Filmmaking
VENGEANCE TRAILER

The U.S. red-band trailer for Park Chan-wook’s Sympathy for Lady Vengeance is here.

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 6, 2006 Filmmaking
LEM PODCAST

A few posts below I noted the death of Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem. Benjamin Walker has just posted a podcast devoted to Lem and his work.

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 6, 2006 Filmmaking
PEN PALS, PART TWO

The debate playing out at Caveh Zahedi’s blog over, specifically, Landmark’s backing out of screening his I Am a Sex Addict gets more and more fascinating as Zahedi and Mark Cuban go back and forth in a increasingly long series of blog entries. At the very least, it’s a more interesting and thorough debate of the whole “day and date” releasing strategy than we’ve seen in the trades as it deals with the inevitable conflicts that will arise between competing alliances of theater chains, cable providers and theatrical distributors. After a seemingly futile letter to Steven Soderbergh to intervene, Zahedi […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 6, 2006 Filmmaking
DISTRIBUTION NOW… DISTRIBUTION HOW?

I’ll be moderating an IFP-sponsored panel this coming Monday on the challenges of the current distribution environment for indies, focusing on filmmakers who have persisted despite initial adversity to see their films out in the marketplace. It’s linked to the New York opening of Caveh Zahedi’s I Am a Sex Addict and tickets cost ten bucks, but $8 of the ticket price goes back to the theater screening Caveh’s film and you get a voucher enabling you to see the movie during the first week. We’re doing it, obviously, to help Caveh’s grosses in the first week as these are […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 6, 2006 Filmmaking
NOIR REDUX

If you arrive at this blog through a bookmarked page, you’ll occasionally miss our various online-only features. Up now, for example, is Jason Guerrasio’s “Hammett Goes to High School,” a great interview with Brick writer-director Rian Johnson. Focus had an amazing opening for this film last week, grossing over $40,000 per screen, and from audience response it could be the next cult youth movie after Donnie Darko. From the piece: Filmmaker: You’ve said high school was a perfect setting because it took away from the noir world of fedoras and trench coats. Johnson: And saying that, I don’t mean to […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 5, 2006 Filmmaking
DARKO OBSESSION

Over at the music blog The Torture Garden (a website which appears to have little to do with Octave Mirbeau’s Sadeian 1899 novel), Daniel Hernandez has posted an obsessive listing of 88 Reasons to Watch Donnie Darko Again, catalogued by theme. Some excerpts: 01. [numbers] The movie takes place in 1988. Frank tells Donnie the world will end in 28 days, 06 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds. If you add these numbers, the sum is 88. 08. [numbers] Donnie Darko was released on October 26, 2001. The Director’s Cut of the film was released on July 23, 2004, exactly […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 4, 2006 Filmmaking
PEN PALS

There’s a fascinating back-and-forth going on over at Caveh Zahedi’s blog over an unusual development that’s occurred just days before the release of Zahedi’s feature I am a Sex Addict. The film has been caught in the middle of corporate politics involving IFC (the film’s distributor), Comcast (its video-on-demand supplier), HDNet (Mark Cuban’s production and distribution company), and Landmark Theaters (the theater chain also owned by Cuban). It starts with Zahedi explaining the situation: I got a phone call today from IFC. Apparently, Mr. Mark Cuban (the very wealthy owner of the Dallas Mavericks) has decided to pull our movie […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 3, 2006 Filmmaking
PARTYING LIKE ITS 1994

In the beginning days of Filmmaker, Kevin Smith’s Clerks was one of our big topics, a movie that really connected to our readership and helped define the whole indie movie DIY thing. And now, 12 years later, Smith has made a sequel. Somehow, the timing feels right…

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 3, 2006 Filmmaking

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