Open | Filmmaker Magazine

WAR SONGS

Jane Hamsher’s Firedoglake links to one of the oddest anti-war songs going at the moment: a remix by Lou Reed of his “Walk on the Wild Side” that adds a verse about a soldier headed to Iraq in order to feed his family to the song’s litany of Warhol scenesters hustling their way through the streets of New York in the ’70s. The song is in support of Blue America PAC. Strangely, it’s not the first NYC rock revival Gulf War 2 statement I’ve heard this week. I caught Suicide’s Alan Vega out at P.S. 1 this Sunday as he […]

by Scott Macaulay on Nov 2, 2006

THE FUTURE OF HORROR

While SAW 3 slays at the box office this weekend, check out this excellent dialogue between Scott Tobias and Noel Murray over at The Onion‘s A.V. Club on contemporary horror. Here’s an excerpt from Tobias’s comments: So where is horror going? It seems to me that the genre has hit a crisis point creatively: J-horror is dying off, Hollywood is running out of ’70s and ’80s horror staples to remake, and surely at some point, the Saw and Final Destination franchises will lose their novelty. (Though maybe I’m giving audiences too much credit on that last one.) At the same […]

by Scott Macaulay on Oct 28, 2006

HOPE AT THE HAMPTONS

Ted Hope was honored tonight out at the Hamptons International Film Festival with its annual Hamptons/Indiewire Industry Toast. The producer of over 50 movies (and an old and good friend), Hope was given this mid-career honor for producing a body of work that, so far, includes films by, among many others, Ang Lee, Nicole Holofcener, Michel Gondry, Ed Burns, Hal Hartley, and Todd Solondz; the creation of pioneering production companies (Good Machine and now This is That); leading several industry initiatives, including the indie battle against the MPAA screener ban; and, as James Schamus quite eloquently summarized at the evening’s […]

by Scott Macaulay on Oct 20, 2006

FAMILY VALUES

Doug Block’s doc 51 Birch Street opens this week at the Cinema Village in New York. Here’s what Paul Harrill at Self-Reliant Film had to say about it: The film is being billed, not incorrectly, as a documentary mystery: Just a few months after Doug’s mother dies, Doug’s father suddenly announces that he’s engaged to his former secretary. It’s not long before Doug finds himself at their wedding, awkwardly toasting the new couple. At the reception his father, the groom, is a different man. What’s the story? Was his father unfaithful? Was his parents’ seemingly happy marriage a sham? Doug […]

by Scott Macaulay on Oct 18, 2006

EARLY WARNING

Over at his blog Sit Down Man, You’re a Bloody Tragedy,, Owen Hatherley writes about Todd Haynes’s Safe and recognizes its foreshadowing of our contemporary urban situation: From it’s opening sex scene onwards- the grim treadmill behind the neon-lit Southern California cityscape of the generic erotic thriller- Todd Haynes’ Safe is a depiction of the most important city of the early 1990s. The edge of apocalypse you can hear in the synth whines of Dr Dre’s The Chronic, the fire and brimstone of Amerikkka’s Most Wanted, Mike Davis’ City of Quartz and of course the LA Riots: in all this […]

by Scott Macaulay on Oct 17, 2006

KINKED OUT

There’s a film festival this weekend taking place at a decadent playground where the idle rich enact scenes of ritual perversion. And for those who won’t be heading out to the Hamptons Film Festival, there’s Cinekink, which bills itself as the “true alternative film festival.” The fest opens tonight at Bacchus with a live performance by the Wet Spots and then bases itself at the Anthology Film Archives for its screenings and panels. Highlights include a panel discussion on Saturday, October 21st at 4:30pm entitled “The State of Smut,” which features NYC filmmakers Audacia Ray/Waking Vixen Productions, Tony Comstock/Comstock Films, […]

by Scott Macaulay on Oct 17, 2006

THE REELER REBORN

Today our friend S.T. Van Airsdale premieres the relaunch of The Reeler, his blog/website devoted to New York City cinema and cinephilia. Stu is now on his own and he’s enlarged the site by adding two new blogs, film reviews and other news to a now bustling main page. From today’s editor’s letter: As mentioned previously, nothing much has changed except that I have accrued extra piles of crap that I will never get done. But it all still pertains to the sphere of New York cinema that you have (hopefully) been following here for a while now, where the […]

by Scott Macaulay on Sep 29, 2006

JANE, YOU IGNORANT SLUT!

There’s a great point/counterpoint going on over at The Onion’s A.V. Club Blog having to do with whether or not Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy and Andrew Bujalski’s Mutual Appreciation (pictured) are the future of independent cinema. Or, actually, whether we should be scolded for not ensuring that they are considered as such. First Scott Tobias’s original post, which is entitled “Mutual Appreciation, Old Joy and the Current State of American Independent Film.” An excerpt: …If you care at all about American independent films, you’re required to see these movies…. Watching these movies in short succession was a pretty bracing experience […]

by Scott Macaulay on Sep 25, 2006

THE WORD OF GOD

Over on the main page Annie Nocenti interviews the directors of Jesus Camp,, the incredibly fascinating documentary that opened this weekend from Magnolia Pictures. In the piece, co-director Heidi Ewing discusses Magnolia’s strategy to position the film as something of interest to both Christian evangelical audiences and godless hipsters in the big city: Ewing: Eamonn wants to bring the film to Christian strongholds before it hits L.A. or New York. Colorado Springs, Kansas City — they get the movie first. Magnolia is withholding the film from the secular world for one or two weeks. The Evangelicals have time to embrace […]

by Scott Macaulay on Sep 24, 2006

ON THE MAIN PAGE…

If you’re in the habit of just bookmarking this blog page, check out the main page for two new online features of films opening this weekend: American Hardcore and Jesus Camp.

by Scott Macaulay on Sep 23, 2006

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