| Filmmaker Magazine

I AM CURIOUS, "YELLOW"

Via Coolhunting comes the latest in Adidas’s short-film series, Yellow, directed by Neill Blomkamp. The shorts have all been commissioned by the sneaker company to introduce new colors in its line, and, I have to confess, I find the shorts kind of confusing in their strange lack of relationship to the product coupled with their general inability to stand on their own as short films. A while back I linked to the first in the series, a mixture of animation and Jenna Jameson. (Thanks, Jenna, for spiking our traffic by linking to us from your MySpace page!) This new film […]

by Scott Macaulay on May 7, 2006

SPIRITS RISING

In his weekend report, Len Klady over at Movie City News cites the solid box-office performance of Courtney Solomon’s An American Haunting this weekend: The frame’s other national freshmen targeted horror and family fans to varying effect. An American Haunting, based on the historic Bell Witch incident, ranked fourth with good response that should pave the way for very good ancillary exploitation. Depending on who you quote, the film grossed between $5.9 and $6.4 million this weekend, and it opened against Mission Impossible 3. What’s really interesting, though, is that An American Haunting isn’t a studio release but an independent […]

by Scott Macaulay on May 7, 2006

MORE ROOM

A while back I blogged about Tommy Wisseau’s The Room, which for years has screened monthly in L.A. in screenings organized by the filmmaker. Now, NPR has picked up on the story: The consensus is that the movie is so bad it’s actually painfully funny to watch. What makes the experience so much fun are the hundred or so fans that routinely show up for screenings. During the movie, audience members shout out their own commentary about the dialogue, the sets — and notably, the framed photograph of a spoon that inexplicably reappears. Each time this happens, plastic spoons are […]

by Scott Macaulay on May 6, 2006

TRUTH IN PACKAGING

Screenwriter turned director Jessica Bendinger (Stick) interviewed on Box Office Mojo discussing the issue of writing credits and multiple writers on a single picture: Bring It On is the only original movie I’ve written. On First Daughter, I was the 15th of 17 writers and we all know what happens when you write by committee. I think the [writer’s union] and movie studios need to get real. I’m not opposed to truth in labeling. If you have so many writers, I think it should be required to say how many wrote it and then people wouldn’t go see it. Certain […]

by Scott Macaulay on May 6, 2006

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

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

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

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

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

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

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