| Filmmaker Magazine

HEATH LEDGER, R.I.P.

Sad, sad news about a great actor who meant so much to the film community. We extend our deepest condolences to his family and friends.

by Scott Macaulay on Jan 22, 2008

SUNDANCE BUSINESS AT THE MIDPOINT

It happened maybe a day later than last year, but the acquisitions floodgates have opened a bit at the Sundance Film Festival. But it wasn’t the typical first-weekend films that enthused distributors. In Variety, Ann Thompson is reporting that Focus Features has bought Andrew Fleming’s Hamlet 2, which debuted at the unsexy time of Monday at 5:30 in a deal she pegs at over $10 million for worldwide rights. The film stars Steve Coogan as an English teacher who writes a sequel to Shakespeare’s play in other to rescue the school’s theater department. Perhaps more significantly, the film is directed […]

by Scott Macaulay on Jan 22, 2008

SUNDANCE REVIEW: THE GREAT BUCK HOWARD

Sean McGinly’s debut feature The Great Buck Howard is a curious, small-scale relationship comedy/drama about an over-the-hill entertainer and his young, directionless-in-life assistant. Colin Hanks stars as the assistant, Troy, who signs up for the gig after impulsively bolting law school and the career track his dad, played by Hanks’s real-life dad Tom, is pushing him towards. A wiggy John Malkovich is the entertainer – specifically, a mentalist, whose claim to fame is having appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson 61 times (but never in the last ten years of the show, he ruefully admits as one point). […]

by Scott Macaulay on Jan 20, 2008

STONING BUSH

Michael Fleming has a surprising story up at Variety: Oliver Stone is set to make a feature about George W. Bush. Before the strike, if he can. Josh Brolin will play Bush. Here’s Stone discussing the project and the screenplay, which is written by Nixon co-scripter Stanley Weiser: “It’s a behind-the-scenes approach, similar to ‘Nixon,’ to give a sense of what it’s like to be in his skin,” Stone told Daily Variety. “But if ‘Nixon’ was a symphony, this is more like a chamber piece, and not as dark in tone. People have turned my political ideas into a cliche, […]

by Scott Macaulay on Jan 20, 2008

SUNDANCE ANNOUNCES CREATIVE PRODUCING INITIATIVE

At a lunch here at the Kimball Art Center at the base of Main Street, the Sundance Institute announced their new “Creative Producing Initiative” today. “To work effectively with filmmakers, producers need an opportunity to develop their own skills and voices. The Creative Producing Initiative is designed to develop a producer’s creative instincts in the scripting and editing stages and to evolve their communication and problem-solving skills at all stages of realizing a project,” said Michelle Satter, Director, Sundance Institute Feature Film Program. Producer Paul Mezey (Sugar, Maria Full of Grace) gave the keynote speech, and he pledged his support […]

by Scott Macaulay on Jan 20, 2008

THE GOOD BUZZ…

Before arriving at Sundance, if people asked what I thought the business climate was going to be, I told them that if they had a film with name cast and genre hooks enabling it to be sold as something other than a speciality film that the bidding would be strong. Traditional “small” speciality films might have a harder time given the poor theatrical performance of last year’s Sundance titles. So far, I don’t think my prediction is far off, although it’s too early to tell how strong the bidding will be for the larger titles. One industry vet told me […]

by Scott Macaulay on Jan 20, 2008

SUNDANCE FROM THE INSIDE

Over at the Film in Focus site, filmmaker Craig Zobel gives us five tips for making it through Sundance alive. I’m going to meditate on his tip number three — “Don’t Get All Stress Out Over the Parties” — rather than stewing over the invites I didn’t get. From Zobel: If you haven’t heard, the nightly parties at Sundance are real hard to get into. Even the fancy/rich/important have to stand in line sometimes. (For, like, two minutes. But still.) Let me go ahead and tell you what you are missing. A chocolate fondue fountain that has white chocolate on […]

by Scott Macaulay on Jan 19, 2008

THE DARK SIDE OF THE SUNDANCE…

was seen at last night’s black-out on Main Street. Over at Movie City Indie, Ray Pride has photographic documentation, like the picture of his I am posting here.

by Scott Macaulay on Jan 19, 2008

THE BUDDY SYSTEM

Filmmakers Joe Swanberg and Ronnie Bronstein are videoblogging Sundance for Spout. Here’s episode four, in which they wonder where all the filmmakers are. Sundance 4: Melee on Main StreetAdd to My Profile | More Videos

by Scott Macaulay on Jan 19, 2008

BLUNT FORCE

I ran into producer Mike Ryan, whose Choke is screening here at Sundance, and he told me about a new website he’s involved with. Hammer to Nail has just launched, with Ryan and, soon, Mike Tully filing film reviews from Sundance — reviews that are intended to be provocative conversation-starters that eschew the niceties that sometimes inhibit writing from not only the MSM but also the blogosphere. (Last year, Ryan forwarded me at Sundance his politically-outraged comments about Grace is Gone, which I posted on the blog.) He launches the new site with a review of the Sundance doc The […]

by Scott Macaulay on Jan 19, 2008

Cookie	Duration	Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional	11 months	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy	11 months	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.

Cookie	Duration	Description
cfmrk_cic		Used by Cloudflare to route user traffic for this Site.
sparrow_id		Installed by Cloudflare. Used to identify individual clients behind a shared IP address and apply security settings on a per-client basis. It does not store any personal identifiable information.

Cookie	Duration	Description
OAGEO		Installed by the Revive Ad Server. Used to cache geolocation (session, deleted when closing the browser)
OAID		Installed by the Revive Ad Server to distinguish users.

17811 Results for “”