The Sundance Institute today announced the Opening Night film and complete lineup of feature films screening in the Premieres, American Spectrum, Frontier, Park City at Midnight, Special Screenings, and Sundance Collection categories of the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. According to a press release received today, “The Film Festival opens on January 20 in Park City with the World Premiere of Happy Endings, written and directed by Don Roos and starring Lisa Kudrow, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Tom Arnold. ‘A discussion of American values is at the forefront of many of the films this year, and the humor and compassion with which […]
Via Variety comes this interesting subscription-only piece announcing a new spin-off for Fox’s espionage TV series 24 which reachers viewers via cell-phone. Writes Josef Adalian, “In a first-of-its-kind deal for a U.S. TV studio, 20th Century Fox TV has greenlit production of a live-action 24 spinoff skein that will be produced exclusively for cell phone users. Dubbed 24: Conspiracy, the show — featuring original characters separate from the Fox TV skein — will unfold over 24 roughly one-minute episodes; one seg will be downloaded to subscribers’ phones every week.” Premiering in the U.K., where cell phone use and 3G technology […]
If you work in the film industry, there’s a point every year in which you scan through your Palm Pilot or Treo or old-fashioned rolodex and realize that so many of your colleagues have left the business. Some of them you know their whereabouts; you’ve gotten a cheery card announcing their latest endeavors. But so many others just fade away. Someone who hasn’t faded away is former Time Warner chief Gerald Levin according to Maria Bartiromo, whose “Closing Bell” piece on Levin and his new venture I caught while channel surfing today. Several years after the murder of his son, […]
Lawrence Lessig, in a “Guest Column” in today’s Variety writes: “Robert Greenwald’s latest film, ‘Outfoxed,’ is a political documentary about Republican bias at Fox News. It is also, as the New York Times Sunday Magazine dubbed it, a ‘guerrilla documentary.’ “In addition to interviews with former Fox employees, academic studies evaluating the ‘Fox effect’ and internal Fox memos, Greenwald has used a significant number of clips from Fox News to show the bias that the slogan ‘fair and balanced’ belies. “He had no permission to use those clips. “Fox has called Greenwald’s use stealing. It has warned other networks that […]
There’s a great lead article in Variety this week by Dana Harris and Claude Brodesser — sorry, subscription only — titled “Films Buried Alive.” And although the headline might lead you to think that the piece is about the many long-delayed films on the Miramax release shelf, it’s actually a perceptive article about the politics involved in greenlighting a studio film. It confirms in print something producers have long known: despite the importance placed by studio execs on the development process, the scripts that actually get greenlit by the studios are often the least developed ones. And if there’s one […]
On Hollywood films and also those by conscientious independents, the American Humane Association is brought in by the production to “monitor animal activity” when animals are featured on the set. But as producers know, the AHA isn’t just there to protect the lives of the animals — the organization also serves to protect the sensibilities of the performers. Case in point: John C. Reilly reportedly walked off the set of Lars von Triers’ new Mandalay in protest after the production slaughtered an “old and sick” donkey on the set. Animal slaughter is nothing new in contemporary filmmaking. Gaspar Noe’s Carne, […]
I’ve got no plans to jet down to Miami anytime soon, but if any of our readers happen to be down there, check out this gallery exhibition featuring artists like Sue de Beer (pictured) and Cameron Jamie, and shoot us an email about it. It sounds cool, and I’m sorry I missed it in New York. From the press release: “SCREAM at THE MOORE SPACE 10 artists x 10 writers x 10 scary movies Curated by: Fernanda Arruda and Michael Clifton April 8 – July 3, 2004 Opening Reception: Thursday, April 8, 2004, 7 – 10 pm THE MOORE SPACE […]
Years ago, before I worked in film, I was a curator and programmer at The Kitchen, New York’s center for contemporary performance and video. In my first year there, the organization produced a one-off TV special entitled “Two Moon July,” and in it David Byrne performed a work of solo performance art that involved the Talking Head running in giant circles through The Kitchen’s Soho loft space, chanting out the names of future movies culled from the AFM issue of Variety. It might sound a bit slim, but it was a nice piece — there is something oddly poignant and […]
With his purchase of the Landmark Theatres and Magnolia Pictures and his creation of production company 2929 and the high definition cable network HDNet, which boasts an NYC-based production arm run by Open City Films’ Jason Kliot, Dallas Maverick-owner Mark Cuban has quickly announced himself as one of indie film’s key players. For those who want to know more about Cuban, check out his weblog, which boasts regular postings about the Mavericks, Godsend, the Robert DeNiro/Rebecca Romijn-Stamos movie Cuban produced with Todd Wagner, and Mamma.com, the search engine he just picked up stock in. Regular reading might help you figure […]
Haute Tension If you’re a regular reader of Filmmaker, you’ll recognize Travis Crawford‘s byline. He’s often in our pages writing about cutting-edge genre films, Asian auteurist work, and unclassifiable Euro arthouse pics. (See his feature on Bruno Dumont’s 29 Palms in our current issue.) But when he’s not writing for Filmmaker, Crawford is, among other things, programming the Philadelphia Film Festival‘s “Danger after Dark” program, the genre-section that allows him to cherrypick the best new titles as well as the essential works that have been on the fest circuit for the past year. Crawford is the king of the long, […]