Michael Fleming has a noteworthy story in Variety today reporting that a dozen screenwriters with strong commercial track records have joined together in a collective called Writing Partners which is making a deal at Fox. Offering a stark contrast to the cliche of the abused Hollywood writer, the Fox deal offers the scribes real incentives to bring spec projects to the studio. From the piece: The writers, who’ll take small upfront payments and will only get their usual fees on films that go into production, will also be guaranteed input as producers, and protection from being rewritten without their permission. […]
Pitchfork Media reports today on the soundtrack for Todd Haynes’s upcoming I’m Not There. The film is now slated for release on November 21 and the soundtrack will be release three weeks earlier, on October 30. Artists who will cover Dylan on what sounds like a fantastic disk include Karen O., the Hold Steady, Sonic Youth, Tom Verlaine, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Yo La Tengo, Antony and the Johnsons and many, many more. A complete track listing can be found at the link.
Over at Boing Boing, Cory Doctorow reports on the Mission:Impossible-like self-destruction of videos legally purchased from the Google Video Store. He quotes this letter from Google sent to the purchaser of a Star Trek episode: As a valued Google user, we’re contacting you with some important information about the videos you’ve purchased or rented from Google Video. In an effort to improve all Google services, we will no longer offer the ability to buy or rent videos for download from Google Video, ending the DTO/DTR (download-to-own/rent) program. This change will be effective August 15, 2007. To fully account for the […]
The uplifting documentary, Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars, follows a talented group of Sierra Leonean musicians who cope with the decade-long civil war ragging in their country by forming a band and touring to the neighboring camps to help their fellow West Africans forget their problems. Directed by Zach Niles and Banker White (and executive produced by Ice Cube), the doc was well received on the fest circuit and was awarded the Documentary Award at the AFI Fest. And last June it aired on PBS’ P.O.V. Through the doc the filmmakers follow the band, who have a Western-influenced R&B/Reggae style […]
JULIE DELPY AND ADAM GOLDBERG IN 2 DAYS IN PARIS. COURTESY SAMUEL GOLDWYN FILMS. It is difficult to write about Julie Delpy’s career without rhapsodizing about the multi-talented Frenchwoman. At just 14, she got her breakthrough in Jean-Luc Godard’s Detective, and while still in her teens she worked with such celebrated European auteurs as Leos Carax, Bertrand Tavernier, Carlos Saura, Agnieszka Holland and Volker Schlöndorff. In the early 1990s, Delpy established herself as one of the most promising actresses around with her work in both arthouse successes (Krysztof Kie?lowski’s White and Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise) and more commercial fare like […]
The IFP’s Filmmaker Conference has announced the names of some of the panelists who will be taking the stage at the Puck Building in New York City next month from Sept. 16 – 21. Filmmaker Magazine’s Managing Editor Jason Guerrasio and I will be moderating a number of conversations, including those with producer Jon Kilik (Julian Schnabel’s upcoming The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Babel), former Artisan co-founder Bill Block of QED Intl., an LA-based financing, sales and production company, and former tech investor and entrepreneur Tony Liano of Cracker Content, a streaming entertainment network. Over the course of the […]
Over at the website for his film, Tom DeCillo is posting a very funny series of video podcasts in which he parodies the insanity involved in promoting an independent film — in his case, Delirious, which opens August 15th. Here DiCillo is at an early marketing meeting… and what’s scary is that I’ve been at marketing meetings only slightly less crazy than this one. And here’s the latest, in which DiCillo tries to get star Gina Gershon to do some viral marketing in a clip with the Google-friendly name of “Gina Gershon Sex Tape.”
Pierre and Jean are two pilgrims who journey from Paris to Santiago de Campostella in Spain to visit the religious shrine of Saint James. What ostensibly begins as a religious road trip becomes a scathing critique of Catholicism as told through the surreal eyes of Luis Buñuel. The Milky Way is as strong today as it was when first released in 1969 and the newly released Criterion Collection DVD will divide film viewers into two camps: those who see it as hysterical satire or those who will view it as hateful anti-clericalism and indeed, the film is filled with images […]
Over at his Indiewire blog, Matt Dentler posts about the planning for next year’s panels at SXSW and includes this link to a stream of the 2007 panel, “Building an Online Fan Base.” I attended this panel, which featured Lance Weiler (Head Trauma), moderator Scott Kirsner (CinemaTech), David Straus (Without A Box), Ian Schafer (Deep Focus), Scilla Andreen (IndieFlix), and thought it was a great and stimulating discussion on challenges and solutions for indies in the internet marketing space.
Jamie Stuart’s newest short created for Filmmaker as a test drive of Apple’s new Final Cut Studio 2. Approximate running time: 4:24. Click here to read Jamie’s review of Final Cut Studio 2. Download the short here by right clicking and choosing Save Target or Save Link. (50M) Please visit Jamie’s site at www.mutinycompany.com.