Filmmaking

PENN JILLETTE’S LONG CON

Over at his Hollywood Elsewhere (scroll down to his “Wired” section), Jeffrey Welles links to this conspiracy theory at the Slumbering Lungfish blog concerning the film The Aristocrats. Blogger Lore Sjoberg hypothesizes that the vaudeville-era dirty joke that is the sole content of the film is actually an invention of Penn Jillette: “My theory: this joke didn’t exist before circa 2001. The actual joke, really, is that they’re making up this dirty joke, having a hundred comedians tell it, and billing it as a documentary with historical significance.” I don’t know — it’s a fun theory, but Waxy.org provides a […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 2, 2005 Filmmaking
IT’S HARD OUT HERE FOR A PIMP

I don’t do much Monday-morning box-offiice opinion on this blog because too many others do it far better and far more obsessively than I’d ever be able to. That said, I’m pretty surprised that in its second week Hustle and Flow, which is our cover story this month in Filmmaker, fell out of the top ten with an estimated 50% drop to $4 million from its only okay opening of $8 million last weekend. Honestly, I had Hustle pegged as a crossover mainstream hit, and when I hung out a couple weeks ago with a studio exec friend, we made […]

By Scott Macaulay on Aug 1, 2005 Filmmaking
THE PUPPET MASTER

A few years ago I had the good fortune to be offered an amazing trip by the Italian Trade Commission. A half a dozen producers were invited to tour the Umbria region of Italy as well as Rome over the course of a week. There were great sights, great food, great hotels, great people. At one stop we were interviewed by a local paper who wanted to know our thoughts on Italian film. I riffed off my (somewhat obvious) favorites: Antonioni, Fellini, Pasolini, Argento and Leone. The latter two caused the journalist to laugh at my low-brow tastes. I was […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 30, 2005 Filmmaking
TWO WEEKS NOTICE?

In the Telegraph’s profile of Nicole Kidman, in which she talks about many things, including her involvement in Steve Shainberg’s currently lensing Fur, one paragraph stands out: “When she finishes Fur she has scheduled two weeks’ work on the drama The Lady from Shanghai in Hong Kong and has nothing else planned except a vague commitment to do a film with Crowe and Australian director Baz Luhrmann sometime in the not-too-near future.” Two weeks work on a Wong Kar Wai film? Um… I wouldn’t lay odds on it. Of the film and Kidman, the director has said, “Normally I will […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 29, 2005 Filmmaking
FINCHER’S DAY AT THE OFFICE

David Fincher’s music video for Nine Inch Nail’s “Only,” which features effects by Digital Domain, is online here.

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 28, 2005 Filmmaking
DEEP PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS

In an age in which every last Jess Franco movie is the subject of some scholarly essay or post-modern reverie, it’s refreshing to read J.R. Taylor’s interview with ’70s/’80s grindhouse icon Roberta Findlay in this week’s New York Press. And while Taylor starts with a bit of romantic nostalgia for trash-film viewing on the Forty Deuce, Findlay quickly throws some cold water on it all: “‘People who like those old movies seem to have deep psychological problems,’ she explains. ‘Under the best of circumstances, I wouldn’t call any of them art. My first budget was $5,000. That was the deal. […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 21, 2005 Filmmaking
CHIP SHOTS

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you’ll know that one topic we occasionally post about is the impending synergy between new consumer electronics devices and downloadable visual media (i.e., movies). I posted previously about Apple’s switch to the Intel processor and linked to a piece speculating that it had something to do with placing an Intel chip with digital rights management controls within a computer like the Mac mini, thereby creating a kind of Tivo-alternative. Now comes this article on the Ars Technica site which continues this thinking, claiming that what Apple is really after is getting […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 15, 2005 Filmmaking
SCENE 2257, TAKE 2

Since I don’t think readers of this blog always click through to the occasional comments linked below the entries, I thought I’d highlight here a link provided by an anonymous respondent to my blog titled “The Skin Game,” below. In it I highlighted the absurdity of the Department of Justice’s new “2257” regulations and wondered why the indie community, which marshalled a veritable army of producers-turned-activists when promotional screeners were banned, has been completely silent on this issue which involves not only de facto censorship but privacy rights, sidestepping the Fourth Amendment and more. (Currently, the Free Speech Coalition, which […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 9, 2005 Filmmaking
TO WALK NEXT TO ONE’S SHOELACES IN AN EMPTY FRIDGE

I just returned from the opening of filmmaker Chantal Akerman’s new installation, To Walk Next to One’s Shoelaces in an Empty Fridge, at the Marian Goodman Gallery on 57th St. in New York. It’s a really beautiful work, and anyone interested in the Belgian filmmaker or autobiographical media art in general should make an effort to check it out. The installation takes place in two rooms. In the first, text fragments from an autobiographical writing Akerman published last year are projected on a scrim which scrolls inward within the space like a gossamer Richard Serra sculpture. In the second, a […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 8, 2005 Filmmaking
THE END OF RENAISSANCE

Via this article in Variety comes sad news: Renaissance, the London-based sales company, has shut down, declaring bankruptcy and pinkslipping its employees. A company that mades its name as a producer of such films as The Madness of King George and Wings of a Dove, Renaissance was one of the international sales companies that took an active interest in the American independent sector. It invested production coin in films like Rose Troche’s The Safety of Objects and was sales repping such films as We Don’t Live Here Anymore, Todd Louiso’s upcoming Macbeth, Gregg Araki’s upcoming Creeeps and two 2005 Sundance […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jul 7, 2005 Filmmaking

Cookie	Duration	Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional	11 months	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy	11 months	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.

Cookie	Duration	Description
cfmrk_cic		Used by Cloudflare to route user traffic for this Site.
sparrow_id		Installed by Cloudflare. Used to identify individual clients behind a shared IP address and apply security settings on a per-client basis. It does not store any personal identifiable information.

Cookie	Duration	Description
OAGEO		Installed by the Revive Ad Server. Used to cache geolocation (session, deleted when closing the browser)
OAID		Installed by the Revive Ad Server to distinguish users.