Best Of 2011
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DID YOU KEEP YOUR 2011 FILMMAKING NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION?
This year on January 1 I posted what become one of our best-trafficked posts of the year: a list of suggested New Year’s Resolutions for filmmakers. This year I thought I’d do a similar post… but I’m not sure I can improve upon last year’s list. So, I thought I’d ask you, our readers, to contribute. Did you make a filmmaking New Year’s Resolution for 2011, either from my list or one of your own? If so, did you keep it? If not, why? If you did, how did it work out? And, finally, do you have a New Year’s […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 17, 2011 -
LOUIS C.K. OFFERS $5 DOWNLOAD, ANSWERS QUESTIONS ON REDDIT
As one of Filmmaker‘s “Best of 2011” posts, Dan Schoenbrun hailed Louie as one of the year’s best TV shows. And now, as the year closes, the comedian has launched one of the year’s best DIY distribution and marketing efforts. As John Biggs wrote at Techcrunch, Louis CK is offering his Live at the Beacon Theater concert film for $5 as a DRM-free download or stream. And while the Hollywood studios are currently fighting piracy by borrowing a page from the firewalls of authoritarian regimes (see the SOPA legislation currently before Congress), C.K. is taking a more human approach. He […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 13, 2011 -
FANTASY FOR FANTASY’S SAKE: DEFENDING HBO’S GAME OF THRONES
Welcome to part two in a series highlighting some of the most innovative, groundbreaking TV of 2011. This installment’s focus is HBO’s wildly ambitious and equally expensive fantasy series, Game of Thrones. Booker Prize winning author Salmon Rushdie recently had some not so flattering words for Thrones. In a recent interview with Haaretz, he said: “Most novels published are bad novels, most plays put on are bad plays, most movies that come out are bad movies and that is also true of TV. Nineteen times out of 20 you fall asleep. There was a series called Game of Thrones which […]
by Jane Schoenbrun on Dec 12, 2011 -
Zach Wigon’s Top 20 Films of 2011
Throughout the month of December, Filmmaker‘s writers will be commenting on their favorite films of the year as well as business, tech, and cultural trends. To kick off, here’s Zack Wigon’s Top 20 Films of 2011. 1. Shame. Shame is unquestionably the real deal when it comes to the easily-melodramatic territory of the Addiction Film – the words “searing” and “raw” come to mind without irony – but what makes it the best film of 2011 is the fact that Steve McQueen seems hell-bent on upending everything we know about how stories are supposed to be told in cinema. For […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 5, 2011 -
“KINYARWANDA” OPENS, SCORES 4-STAR EBERT REVIEW
25 New Face filmmaker Alrick Brown’s Kinyarwanda, a project of the IFP Narrative Lab, opens today via the AFFRM and Visigoth Pictures, and I urge you all to see it. Brown has made an extraordinary and ambitious independent film that tackles one of the gravest subjects of the 20th century: the Rwandan genocide. He does so with an intimate, character-based approach, evoking details that add up to full, human picture of the conflict. Writes Roger Ebert, who gave the film four stars I thought I knew something about Rwanda, but I didn’t really know very much. I was moved by […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 2, 2011 -
The Microbudget Conversation: The Journeymen
As most of us receive our early morning Sundance rejection email (which literally makes us the 99 percenters…again.) we should all take a moment and reflect: what drove us to this? What brought us to this moment where a single email is either enormously heartbreaking, or just another bump on the dirt road of DIY/micro filmmaking? I’ve asked fellow columnist, and bi-coastal filmmaker, Gregory Bayne to shed a bit of light on his practice of treating each project as the first uphill battle of many, and how that journey is essential for the career independent filmmaker. We have an almost […]
by John Yost on Dec 2, 2011 -
SWANBERG’S LATEST AT reRUN TONIGHT
Continuing an extraordinarily prolific phase that has also encompassed his year-long subscription service, Joe Swanberg premieres his latest film, Caitlin Plays Herself, tonight at Brooklyn’s reRun theater. His new star is Caitlin Stainken, a member of the Neo-Futurists Theater Ensemble. Here’s the description and a clip. Making its North American debut, CAITLIN PLAYS HERSELF is the last in a trio of provocative, self-reflexive new dramas premiering at reRun this season from acclaimed auteur Joe Swanberg (SILVER BULLETS, ART HISTORY). Inspired by Eric Rohmer’s THE GREEN RAY and the life of lead actress Caitlin Stainken (a member of the “Neo-Futurists” experimental […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 2, 2011
