Filmmaking

“MY HOPE IS GRANDCHILDREN”

The ubiquitous but broke boyfriend-and-girlfriend filmmakers behind Four-Eyed Monsters get another jolt of publicity today as they become the poster children for Charles Lyons in his New York Times piece on the personal financial perils of indie-film financing. From the piece: “[Arin] Crumley and [Susan] Buice spoke about their 14-month ordeal making Four Eyed Monsters, which dramatizes how they met online, and in which they co-star. The movie was well received at its Slamdance Film Festival premiere in January and screened at 16 other festivals. But like so many independent labors of love, it has yet to attract a theatrical […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 20, 2005 Filmmaking
KATE MOSS, TOPLESS

I flew back from London this weekend and, at the airport, picked up the new issue of the U.K. magazine Dazed and Confused. It’s typically full of interesting and very of-the-moment stuff, including a piece about photographer Nick Knight and his Showstudio, a website intending to bring the “‘tech hippie’ world of the internet into fashion,” according to the magazine’s Lauren Cochrane. Through December Showstudio is presenting on its site “Moving Fashion,” a commissioned series of very short films — 30 seconds or so — by leading names in the fashion world. The films all incorporate items from the Autumn/Winter […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 20, 2005 Filmmaking
“A MUST-SEE FOR THINKING AUDIENCES”

I am very excited to see Steve Gaghan’s Syriana, which we tried to nab an early screening of for Matt Ross’s piece on George Clooney in the current issue of Filmmaker. But, they were editing down to the wire so we were simply intrigued and hopeful by the trailer like everyone else. Now, Todd McCarthy promisingly weighs in in the subscription-only Variety: “Those complaining that Hollywood never turns out films of topical or political substance are likely to embrace Syriana, a weighty and deeply intriguing look at the many-tentacled beast that is the international oil industry. Wide-ranging and restlessly probing, […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 20, 2005 Filmmaking
FONDA LOOKS BACK

One of the most startling images in David Zeiger’s Sir! No Sir!, a documentary about the G.I. anti-war movement during the Viet Nam era that Filmmaker selected as one of its “Best Films Not Playing in a Theater Near You” this year, is that of Jane Fonda. Sitting regally in the amber-hued foyer of her luxurious home, coiffed to perfection and expertly lit, Fonda’s sheer visual splendor is surprising within the context of the film — most of the film’s other interviewees still visibly bear the painful hurts of the period — as well as within today’s entertainment world. With […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 20, 2005 Filmmaking
I SPY

While at the Creative Capital retreat this summer I met the L.A.-based French artist Marie Sester, who does fascinating work dealing with technology and the interstice of the individual and the social. From her website: “I was trained as an architect, then chose the visual and multimedia fields to examine the way that a civilization originates and creates its forms. These forms are both tangible — such as signals, buildings, and cities — and intangible, such as the aspects of values, laws and culture. My work questions the perspective of the West, and the meta-state of a New World Order. […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 19, 2005 Filmmaking
WILD POSTING

Via the very clever people at Coudal Partners, whose design-oriented website always has lots of film-related stuff, this link to a database of Polish movie posters. At right: Robert Altman’s 3 Women. Says Tom Kuznar, the site’s proprietor, “Although my goal is to (eventually) provide all available information on all Polish film posters ever printed and every artist who ever designed one, back here on planet Earth my emphasis is on the best period of the mid 50s to early 70s. Since the Polish poster practically ceased to exist at the end of the 80s (and stopped being great long […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 14, 2005 Filmmaking
ALUMNI REPORT

A couple of emails arrived this week announcing new online work from folks who have appeared here or in the print magazine. I wrote about NYU student filmmaker Sam Goetz on this blog when he took to the internet to fundraise for his student short, “Bruno.” “Breaking a record at the school’s production center for most check-outs in one semester, this film was not the easiest to get into the can,” he writes. “Fortunately, everyone put in 110% and bore through the 30+ days of shooting with a champion’s spirit.” He’s got a teaser up on the web now for […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 13, 2005 Filmmaking
ATTRACTIONS FROM FAR AWAY

This year Filmmaker partnered with the IFP to create a new award to be given out in a few weeks at this year’s Gotham Awards. Titled Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You, the award is designed to highlight worthy films that have fallen beneath the theatrical radar. We asked 18 festival programmers to each nominate two films from their festival. From this list, our editors — myself, Matt Ross, Peter Bowen, Mary Glucksman and Ray Pride — narrowed it down to five nominees and, eventually one winner. It was an interesting exercise. The films nominated by the […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 13, 2005 Filmmaking
NETFLIX FINDS ITS SPIRIT

The clock is ticking on a promotion offered by Netflix and Film Independent (FIND, formerly the IFP Los Angeles) and having to do with this year’s Spirit Awards. Only FIND members are allowed to vote for the Spirit Awards, and, this year, FIND members will receive a free three-month Netflix membership and a special code allowing them to rent all the nominated films. To take advantage of this, you need to join FIND (if you’re not a member) by November 15.

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 13, 2005 Filmmaking
DOWN AND OUT… WITH NO MUSIC

Sony/BMG’s debacle over the “rootkit” copy protection on their music CDs has gotten a lot of hilarious press in the last few days. If you haven’t been following the story, the digital rights management software contained on Sony music CDs burrows deep into your operating system where it does Many Bad Things, including act as Trojan horse for a lot of malware and bad viruses. As documented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, however, Sony/BMG has added insult to injury by concocting a draconian end-user license agreement that treats a CD-buyer like some sort of pauper out of a Dickens’ novel. […]

By Scott Macaulay on Nov 13, 2005 Filmmaking

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