So Yong Kim‘s intimate debut feature about a young teenage Korean girl who tries to adapt to American life and the separation of her parents has been beloved by many since it premiered at Sundance in 2006 (the film caught our attention back then as well, as we named Kim one of our “25 New Faces of Independent Film” in ’06). Shot handheld on DV with no score, the film uses its guerilla mentality to put complete focus on its two main characters, Aimie (Jiseon Kim) and her friend Tran (Taegu Andy Kang), a Korean teen who’s a little more […]
If you’ve been following the WGA strike, you’ve probably realized that a lot of people on the WGA side are blogging it. There is, of course, United Hollywood, a blog that reports from the WGA side. But there are also several blogs run by active screenwriters. One is John August’s blog where the veteran screenwriter (Go, Big Fish, Charlies Angels) is offering a very personal view of life on the picket line. His daily reports are full of humor, well-crafted observation, and even bits of industry news. Here’s an excerpt of his November 15 entry in which he describes meeting […]
NICOLE KIDMAN IN DIRECTOR NOAH BAUMBACH’S MARGOT AT THE WEDDING. COURTESY PARAMOUNT VANTAGE. If you believe what you read, Noah Baumbach’s films — sharp, witty, poignant and sometimes devastating — are drawn directly from his life. The son of Village Voice film critic Georgia Brown and novelist and film critic Jonathan Baumbach, Baumbach debuted as a writer-director in 1995 with his acclaimed Kicking and Screaming, the first of a number of films made during his twenties about New Yorkers in their twenties. After his second film, Mr Jealousy (1997), Baumbach admits that he got “derailed” and ended up making Highball […]
If you haven’t been over to the Filmmaker Videos section this week, click here to check out the nominees for this year’s Best Film Not Playing At A Theater Near You (special thanks to the IFP for putting the video together). The filmmakers will be present for a series of screenings this weekend at MoMA. Q&A’s will be conducted by the editors of Filmmaker and other members of the selection committee. Get screening times here. The winner, chosen by Filmmaker and the MoMA dept. of film, will be announced at the Gotham Awards Nov. 27. And if you want a […]
If you’ve attended a screening of Frownland (and a couple are coming up this week at MOMA), then you know that writer/director Ronnie Bronstein does a mean Q&A. Hannah Takes the Stairs director Joe Swanberg realized this too and cast Bronstein as the private investigator protagonist of his new web series, Butterknife. It’s being presented by Spout, and there’s a blog and trailer up now. (The series launches in January.) Here’s how Spout describes the project: Forced to deal with the ugly side of people and relationships all day, an unnamed private investigator can’t wait to get home and hang […]
Kudos to Reid Rosefelt who just sent me this email about the ASF‘s inaugural Ebay auction. On November 12th the Adrienne Shelly Foundation (ASF), a tax-exempt, non-profit organization dedicated to the memory of writer/director/actor Adrienne Shelly, launched its inaugural EBAY auction to raise funds for its various initiatives which support women filmmakers. It’s a little known fact that Adrienne was an EBAY POWER SELLER, an elite status reserved for only the most active sellers of merchandise. Operating under the name BUNNYSVINTAGE, Adrienne in her spare time bought and sold over 1900 vintage clothing items. We’ve taken that same passion and […]
At her Deadline Hollywood Daily, Nikke Finke says “everyone in Hollywood is talking about” this YouTube video put together by the folks at United Hollywood.
In a post entitled ‘Rebuilding Hollywood in Silicon Valley’s Image,” Netscape founder Marc Andreessen wonders whether the current WGA strike will alienate the current television viewing audience and hasten their flight towards new forms of mostly internet-distributed entertainment. (Thanks to Ted Hope for the link.) From the piece: I think the TV and movie industry is at a turning point where things could go either way — they could repeat the critical error of the music industry and permanently alienate their customer base; or they could get it together and create viable models for the future that make consumers happy […]
The mumblecore-haters may be out in force these days but, hey, it’s not like they got a word into the New Oxford American Dictionary. As reported on the Oxford University Press blog, “mumblecore” is a runner-up 2007 “word of the year.” The OAD defines mumblecore as: “an independent film movement featuring low-budget production, non-professional actors, and largely improvised dialogue.” As a word, mumblecore faced stiffed competition. Some of its challengers included “upcycling” (“the transformation of waste materials into something more useful or valuable”); “previvor” (” a person who has not been diagnosed with a form of cancer but has survived […]
Because it’s laid out at the bottom of the home page, you may have missed Rak Razam’s interview with French director Jan Kounen. Razam’s was a fascinating over-the-transom submission that explains what the talented Gallic director has been up to the last few years. I first came across Kounen’s filmmaking many years ago when I saw his short Vibraboy. A friend and aesthetic colleague of directors like Gaspar Noe and Marc Caro, Kounen attracted international buzz with the film and then went on to make a hyperviolent and stylish crime movie, Dobermann, that starred Vincent Cassell and Monica Bellucci. The […]