The last time I linked to the Cyan Pictures Web site it was to make fun of founder Josh Newman’s constant posting of new film sales and starts that never seem to quite happen. So it’s only fair that I eat some crow and link to the site again now that a new film, a doc called More than a Game has gone into production. From the site: “Late this may, B’nei Sakhnin became the first Arab-led soccer team to win the Israeli national cup. Now the team heads off to Europe to represent Israel on the world stage of […]
Filmmaker Alison Murray emailed to say that she’s launched her new Web site, The Hellhound, which contains a trailer from her forthcoming debut feature Mouth to Mouth as well as short films and other info. Says the Web site, Mouth to Mouth, executive produced by Atom Egoyan, “features Alison’s signature choreographic style, woven into a powerful narrative about a search for belonging. Sherry, a teenage goth, runs away with a bizarre collective called SPARK (Street People Armed with Radical Knowledge) losing her lip ring, her virginity and her family in one road trip. Cast include Natasha Wightman (Gosford Park), Eric […]
I received sad news from my friend Claire Best today. Geraldine Peroni, one of New York’s top film editors, died unexpectedly at her home yesterday. Peroni has long been associated with the films of Robert Altman — she cut The Player, Short Cuts, Pret-a-Porter, Kansas City, Dr. T and the Women, and The Company — but she also contributed her considerable skills to a number of other great independent films by a wide range of directors. She cut Alison Maclean’s Jesus’ Son, Rose Troche’s The Safety of Objects, Tom DiCillo’s Johnny Suede, and Sande Zeig’s The Girl, among others. At […]
Via Pitchfork Media comes this news blurb about The Guatemalan Handshake, an indie film currently shooting in Eastern Pennsylvania starring musician Will Oldham (Palace, Bonnie “Prince” Billy) and directed by Todd Rohal. Previously, Rohal designed the DVD packaging for Dianne Bellino’s short Slitch and, in the process, met Oldham, who starred in that film as well. Writes Pitchfork: “The Guatemalan Handshake — which bears no apparent relation to The Dirty Sanchez, as far as our sources can tell– is presently in production, and follows a 10 year-old boy named Turkeylegs as he searches for his friend Donald (played by Oldham), […]
Filmmaker has a longstanding policy of not covering projects in which its staff members are involved — which is why you have never read in the pages of the magazine about Tom Noonan’s What Happened Was or The Wife, Harmony Korine’s Gummo or Julien Donkey-Boy, Jesse Peretz’s First Love, Last Rights or The Chateau, Peter Sollet’s Raising Victor Vargas and John Leguizamo’s Undefeated, among numerous other films — each of which was produced by Filmmaker editor Scott Macaulay and his partner at Forensic Films, Robin O’Hara. However, we’ve been chomping at the bit to spill the beans about Scott and […]
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 […]
Back in 1999, the first film I ever worked on was Raul Ruiz’s The Golden Boat (James Schamus’s first production), and, using some grant money that I raised at my job at The Kitchen, I got my friend John Zorn to do the score. (I ran into Zorn on the street a while ago and he told me he’d score another film of mine if I asked — “But you know the drill,” he said. “I’ll do it, fast, cheap, but I get complete creative control!” Anyway, John did amazing work for not much money, and one of the score’s […]
When I was a teenager growing up in Washington, D.C., I was held briefly in the thrall of an amazing radio station, WGTB. I say “briefly” because the station, a fixture in the D.C. alternative/punk/progressive/radical politics communities, was shut down by its patron, the Jesuit-owned Georgetown University, over an abortion rights program only a couple of months after I had discovered it. But during that time, the programming (the closest comparison for New Yorker’s is WFMU) had a big impact on me, and bands and musicians I discovered on its airwaves shaped my tastes forever. One of the things WGTB […]
Filmmaker‘s blog, which we are having fun doing, hasn’t either ascended or descended, according to your point of view, into the realm of the purely personal yet. I have to say, while most of my favorite blogs are either link-oriented (like the great Greencine Daily) or else a mixture of links and commentary (like my favorite political blog, the Whisky Bar), I do admire those who lay their lives out on the web, updating the world on their business and/or personal adventures. There aren’t a huge number of working filmmakers who are doing this, but there are a few. Writer/director […]
Most producers I know have their favorite teamster captains and are skilled at figuring out whose personality will mesh best with the particular needs of production. But the “teamster casting” process takes a new twist according to day’s Variety, which notes that 500 New York and L.A. casting directors are formally seeking to be represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. “The casting directors and associates cite lack of health care coverage, late pay and performing uncompensated work as key issues that have driven the organizing effort,” Variety writes. The Variety article goes on to suggest that casting directors may […]