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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Filmmaker has been on press the last week so that has meant that we’ve been slacking on the blog. But one of the things I’ve been meaning to post about is the government’s new “2257” regulations which, on the sheer basis of their audacity, should be provoking outrage in the independent world. Strangely, though, our indie sector has been quiet on this government intrusion on content creators, probably because it specifically targets adult entertainment. Anyway, this Newsday editorial does a far better job than I could have explaining why you should care about these new regulations. Here’s an excerpt: “Regardless […]
In this article in The Guardian on London’s winning Olympic bid, the newspaper gives a mini-review to a new film by Luc Besson: “Earlier, Paris had been the first to address the IOC. The French attempted to match their audience, using exclusively white middle-aged men to deliver their message, culminating in a plea from President Jacques Chirac. Even a promo film directed by Luc Besson seemed staid, featuring enough talking heads to suggest the great auteur has a future in corporate videos should the Hollywood commissions end. It was unspectacular, but many believed it still might be good enough to […]
Film Independent (formerly the IFP/Los Angeles) announced the winners of its 2005 Los Angeles Film Festival. Mark Banning won the Target Filmmaker Award for Best Narrative Feature for his Jellysmoke, and the Target Best Doc Award went to Beth Bird for Everyone Their Grain of Sand. The Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature went to Miranda July’s Me and You and Everyone We Know. David Zeiger’s Sir! No Sir! won the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature. Luc Jacquet’s March of the Penguins won the Audience Award for Best International Feature. Catherine Kellner and Ebon Moss-Bachrach of Leslie McCleave’s Road […]
The folks at Stay Free Magazine have have an informative blog entry up on the music clearance hassles of Mad Hot Ballroom. The film’s producer and writer Amy Sewell talks about the unexpected issues she faced clearing everything musical numbers to a Rocky cellphone ring tone. Here she recounts one of the more vexing moments: “When we were down shooting the boys playing foosball, Ronnie yelled out, “Everybody dance now!” Just when I think we’ve finished the film, someone points out that we have to clear that because it’s a “visual vocal cue.” So I went back to the publishers, […]
… even Elton John music, is so much better than the formulaic trailer cutting that is rampant these days. You know, the fast music, cheesey step-zooms that aren’t in the actual movie, weird whooshing sound effects on the edits, even for dramatic films, switch to slow soulful music half way kind of thing?. This clip for Cameron Crowe’s Elizabethtown, linked to first on Ain’t It Cool News, is a much better promo than what will probably come later… Check it out.
The guys over at Ain’t It Cool News have been creaming over Michael Davis’s Shoot ‘Em Up, an action pic set up at New Line starring Clive Owen. First the site’s Moriaty posted an interview with Davis in which the writer/director traces the interesting and circuitous route he took to being the town’s new go-to action guy. (Jeffrey Welles has also written about Davis in a fascinating career study that explains how a 44-year-old direct-to-video guy came to helm a big-budget A-list actioner.) And today, Moriaty links to the Latino Review which has a detailed script review and, most importantly, […]