Susannah Breslin has a positively surreal interview at Radar Online with Ira Isaacs, the 57-year-old L.A.-based director currently awaiting trial on obscenity charges for his, um… scat videos. Kudos to the photo editor at Radar for the two improbable shots that run with the piece — one of Marcel Duchamp’s famous urinal (voted in 2004 by a group of art critics as the most influential piece of art of all time), and the other of Martha Stewart. On her own Reverse Cowgirl blog, Breslin had previously written about Isaacs and the novel defense he’s mounting against the charges that his […]
There’s nothing like a film getting the Criterion treatment. And having this job I get the privilege of finding out before many what they have next up their sleeves. But the latest announcement doesn’t have to do with a film but of the company adapting to new technology. The Criterion Collection is preparing to put several of their titles on Blu-ray. Read below. The time has arrived! Several titles from the Criterion Collection are set for Blu-ray treatment beginning in October. These new editions will feature glorious high-definition picture and sound, all the supplemental content of the DVD releases, and […]
In a move that has been rumored for months, Variety reports today that Rainbow Media (which also owns AMC and Independent Film Channel) has acquired the Sundance Channel for $496 million. According to the story: Rainbow Media will exchange about 12.7 million shares it owns in GE, tax-free, with a cash adjustment based on the value of the GE shares in relation to the total purchase price. GE will get all of the GE shares, and CBS and [Robert] Redford’s entities will get cash for their stakes.
ERIC MEHALACOPOULOUS IN DIRECTOR NICK BROOMFIELD’S BATTLE FOR HADITHA. COURTESY NICK BROOMFIELD. Immediately distinguishable by his understated good looks, laid-back, drawling English voice and, of course, the boom mike seemingly always in his hands, Nick Broomfield is an iconic figure in documentary filmmaking, as well as one of the form’s most talented artists. The son of English photographer Maurice Broomfield and a Czech refugee, Broomfield went to a Quaker boarding school before studying law at Cardiff University, political science at Essex University and finally film at the National Film School in his hometown of London. Combining his interest in sociopolitical […]
(Hat tips: GreenCine and Coudal Partners.)
Winner of the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival in 2006 followed by an impressive festival circuit run, Mexican director Alejandro Gomez Monteverde‘s moving debut feature follows the events that occur during one day in New York City to a former soccer star turned Mexican restaurant cook (Eduardo Verástegui) and a fired waitress (Tammy Blanchard), who recently learned she’s pregnant. The two take a trip to the burbs that reveals how the events of the past have made them who they are today. A spotlight on Mexican family and commentary on Latino stereotypes as much as a touching […]
Over at his CinemaTech blog, Scott Kirsner writes about the new Seattle-based IndieShares, which is another one of those “democratize the process” companies that has sprung up around some aspect of the film business. Democracy, of course, is (mostly) good. Filmmaker‘s mission statement even includes the goal of democratizing the production process for beginning filmmakers. And last week I interviewed Lance Weiler and learned more about his From Here to Awesome festival (which I’ve concluded is a really cool and good thing, and I’m not just saying that because I know Lance and he’s a writer for the magazine), and […]
With the demise of New Line — one of the two partners behind the creation of Picturehouse (HBO is the other) — speculation has arisen over what’s going to happen to the specialty shingle now that it, like New Line, has been absorbed into Warner Brothers. Warner, you remember, has Warner Independent already on its lot. Anne Thompson penned a piece in Variety stating that WIP head Polly Cohen and Picturehouse head Bob Berney “are likely to accept a bicoastal co-head arrangement.” Stu Van Airsdale at Defamer ran his own story, saying that there are rumors that Berney will be […]
The Hollywood Reporter hosts a roundtable on the economics of independent production with five noted players: Newsweek film critic David Ansen; Kirk D’Amico, president and CEO of Myriad Pictures, a production and sales company; Cassian Elwes, co-head of William Morris Independent; Mark Gill, CEO of finance and production company the Film Department; and Avi Lerner, co-chairman and CEO of Nu Image/Millennium Films. Stephen Galloway leads a conversation that, by my read, offers a pretty accurate and succinct take on the American independent film market at the moment. They discuss overproduction, the demise of New Line, foreign markets, the plight of […]
WILL POULTER AND BILL MILNER IN DIRECTOR GARTH JENNINGS’ SON OF RAMBOW. COURTESY PARAMOUNT VANTAGE. When you meet Garth Jennings, it is immediately apparent where much of the energy, enthusiasm and imagination in his films comes from. The effervescent Jennings, born in Essex, England in 1972, attended the Central St. Martin’s College of Art & Design in London where he met Nick Goldsmith with whom he formed the creative partnership Hammer & Tongs. Though the pair have always collaborated closely on everything, over time Goldsmith has taken on production duties while Jennings now directs. The pair are most famous for […]