According to JT Leroy, Asia Argento's film adaptation of his book The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things now has its own Web site.

"Imagine Oliver Twist re-made as a horror pic and you'll come close to its essence," wrote one reviewer about the film.

The Heart is Deceitful had its debut at the Cannes Film Festival in May, then went on to Toronto in September. Directed by and starring Asia Argento, the cast also includes Winona Ryder, Peter Fonda, Mike Pitt, Jeremy Renner, Kip Pardue, Matt Schulze, Dylan and Cole Sprouse and Jimmy Bennett. The film screens November 8 at the AFI Fest in Los Angeles.

A slide show of Lydia Lunch's still photos from the film can be found on her Web site.

Leroy's latest book, Harold's End (Last Gasp), an illustrated novella with watercolors by Cherry Hood, is due out in December, and Leroy's band Thistle LLC, celebrates the release of its debut EP, November 13.
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# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 10/29/2004 03:09:00 PM Comments (0)

Although at first glance it might be mistaken for an action-adventure film in the vein of The Crow, Sting: Moment of Truth is actually a straight-forward docudrama based on the life of the pro wrestler known as Sting (a.k.a. Steve Borden). Focusing on his rise to success, eventual spiral into drug use, and redemption via religion, Sting promises lots of ringside action and personal drama. If you like your wrestling with a decidedly Christian bent -- and who doesn't? -- this could be one for you.

# posted by Andre Salas @ 10/29/2004 01:31:00 PM Comments (1)

Nerve.com's Politics Issue, online through Nov. 2, features an article by Lynn Harris on Mommar Qaddafi's sexy female bodyguards, which is also the subject of Rania Ajami's documentary Qaddafi's Female Bodyguards: Shadows of a Leader

"Everywhere [Qaddafi] goes he's surrounded by a badass bunch of Lara Croft clones," write Harris, "usually in matching colored camouflage (of dubious use in the desert). They've been described as 'wearing their Kalashnikovs like Gucci fashion accessories.' (Yes, news articles always describe [what] they're wearing. Not like you ever hear the AP mention the 'navy wool, three-button, notched-lapel suits' of the Secret Service.) On a good day, the bodyguards make Qaddafi look like Hef. On a bad day, a Bond villain. On every day, a crackpot."

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 10/29/2004 11:34:00 AM Comments (0)

"Want to see your name on a film screen at one of the most important cultural institutions in the world?" The Film Society of Lincoln Center and HBO Films are sponsoring a student competition to create a 45-second-long trailer for the 2005 New York Film Festival. Details can be found here. Deadline: December 31, 2004.

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 10/28/2004 01:13:00 PM Comments (0)

Lars von Trier, currently editing Manderlay at Zentropa studio's editing facility Klippegangen says it will be years before the third film in his USA trilogy hits screens. "It will be several years before we shoot the final part of the trilogy [begun with Dogville], " said von Trier, "because in the meantime I need to earn some money."

He is currently "preparing a new [English-language] film for a wider audience, a horror film... in the style of The Kingdom," explains executive producer Peter Aalbaek Jensen referring to von Trier's brilliant 1994 miniseries, later adapted by Stephen King for ABC as the tepidly received Kingdom Hospital. "It is kind of an Antichrist [movie] based on the theory that it was not God but Satan who created the world."

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 10/27/2004 04:00:00 PM Comments (0)

The folks at Greg.org got suspicious first, and their fears proved correct. Nick Nolte's online diary, linked to below, is revealed by its creators to be a parody. Or, alternately, a work of fiction. Or a satire containing photographs protected by Section 107 of the United States Copyright Law. Whatever. For the few seconds it takes to scan a home page and link to it here, we were fooled.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 10/26/2004 11:58:00 PM Comments (1)

"And it seems to me to be almost the perfect life, really. I mean, I would like to be taller and have more hair [laughs] and things, but apart from those physical things I can't really imagine how my life could be improved. I hope that doesn't sound smug, but it is a pretty good life."

That's British d.j. John Peel, the legendary musical tastemaker who championed and established bands like Joy Division and the Sex Pistols, as quoted in an interview on the B92 website as linked to by the ever essential Greencine Daily. Peel, 65, died yesterday, and, like us, our friends at Greencine saw fit to acknowledge on their film site the immense contribution Peel has made to our modern culture.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 10/26/2004 03:56:00 PM Comments (0)

Did you know that John Sayles, before he became a filmmaker, was a National Book Award-nominated novelist and short-story writer? Mediabistro.com's David S. Hirschman talks with Sayles about filmmaking, his latest collection of short stories, Dillinger in Hollywood, and the current climate in the news media.

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 10/26/2004 10:38:00 AM Comments (0)

Last night I caught up with "The Downtown Plays", a production of Drama Dept. and Pace University as part of the Tribeca Theater Festival.

Featuring a terrific ensemble cast of 10 actors in nine short plays directed by John Rando ("Urinetown"), "Downtown Plays" is an exhilarating two hours of theater that runs the gamut from poignant drama (Frank Pugliese's "Late Night, Early Morning" and Jon Robin Baitz's "My Beautiful Goddamn City") to dark comedy (Kenneth Lonergan's True to You" and Neil LaButes's "Union Square") to social satire (Douglas Carter Beane's "He Meaning Him" and David Henry Hwang's "Trying to Find Union Square") to outright hysteria (Paul Rudnick's "Pride and Joy," featuring Jackie Hoffman, pictured above). Even the clunkers in the program (Warren Leight's relatively dull "Happy for You" and Wendy Wassertein's madcap "Psyche in Love") were still well worth the price of admission.

Each evening "The Downtown Plays," which runs through October 31, is introduced by a different celebrity. (I'm tempted to return Tuesday night when Christopher Walken handles the intro and Molly Shannon joins the cast for the remainder of the engagement!)

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 10/25/2004 04:21:00 PM Comments (0)

Writing for Ain't It Cool News, someone named Pappy relayed the following interesting tidbit: According to producer Richard Gladstein the release of Finding Neverland, initially completed in 2003, "was delayed because of the release of [P.J. Hogan's] Peter Pan. ...Since that film had the rights to the play, the reenactments of the theater scenes in Finding Neverland had to get Sony's permission to be admitted into the film. In short, Sony gave [the producers] permission if they would release the film after Peter Pan," hence Miramax's forthcoming release of Neverland almost a year later, on November 12, 2004.

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 10/25/2004 03:21:00 PM Comments (0)

A scene from Polar Express.

In his Game Engine column in the current issue of Filmmaker, Graham Leggat addresses the covergence of film and games. "The two industries are converging and there's no turning back," writes Leggat. "This is a huge kick for the casual observer, but even dispassionate natural historians of contemporary media, seeing the two species gamboling together in the wild, are feeling a sense of excitement, perhaps even liberation. And why not? It looks like progress. It gives you hope. Like anything, though, the novelty of cross-industry adaptation can wear thin. After you've watched several dozen ants launch themselves noisily downstream on leaves you start wishing for an ant that can swim. There's not much to do, however, but be patient and put your trust in evolution."

Walter Murch, talking with Scott Saunders in the print edition of the current issue of Filmmaker, elaborates: "There's a bifurcation which has always been part of filmmaking, but has been kind of latent in the process, which digital technology is forcing out into the open. It's the choice between what I call black-box films and snowflake films. What I mean by black box is a device that gives you absolute control over everything that you do; every pixel is there because you want it to be there. And obviously digital technology allows that to happen. If you force that to its logical conclusion, it becomes a theoretical black box into which you simply think the film. You don't have to make anything anymore; you just think it and there it is. And if you want to change something you think it different. It's kind of a bargain with the devil, and filmmakers will have to comes to term with what that implies about collaboration and about film as a reflection of the world as it exists at the moment a film is made. We're not there yet by any means, but Pixar and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow are waystations in that direction. ...

"The metaphor of the snowflake is that a snowflake freezes faster than the molecules can stay in control of the process. That's why they're all different. If water freezes with more control, it turns into an ice cube -- which to my mind is just a series of excitable bathroom tiles. The snowflake has this beautifully random element to it -- and in that lack of control there is something greater than absolute control. What the future holds is something in the spectrum between those two poles, between the snowflake and the black box."

"At a recent event inaugurating the new Electronic Arts Development Lab building at USC's School of Cinema and Television, filmmakers Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis addressed this topic," writes Cassie Carpenter in this week's Backstage magazine. 'My influence, when I was a film student here, was a television influence,' said Zemeckis, who borrowed game design techniques for his upcoming motion-capture film The Polar Express. 'In the '80s, cinema became influenced by the pace and style of television commercials. And in the '90s, it was the pace and style of the music video. And I think the next decades are going to be influenced greatly by the digital world of gaming.'

"When asked how long before the two mediums are equal, Spielberg said, 'I think the real indicator will be when somebody confesses that they cried at Level 17.'"

The prospect of that happening anytime soon seems unlikely.

"Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks come as close to commercial infallibility as seems possible in Hollywood," reports David Rooney in today's Daily Variety, but [they] appear to have taken an ambitious misstep with The Polar Express. Straining with all the elaborate, new-fangled wizardry at its disposal to become an instant Christmas classic [ironically] steeped in old-fashioned storybook charm, this visually impressive yet emotionally frigid fable could perhaps more accurately be tagged The Bipolar Express. ... While digital animation has made considerable strides in the past decade, the trick of creating emotionally vivid, realistic human characters has yet to be achieved. Pixar's Toy Story movies got by with peripherally featured humans, but attempts to move beyond that, like Sony's 2001 interactive computer-game-derived Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within have been cold and distancing."

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 10/25/2004 01:30:00 PM Comments (1)

It's pretty unusual to wake up in the morning and read entertainment industry news detailing benefits specifically targeted towards independent filmmakers. But that's what this (subscription-only) Variety piece does as it explains provisions in the just-signed American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 that make it more advantageous for investors to invest in independent film.

Writes Susan Crabtree and Ian Mohr, "After years of lobbying, independent filmmakers scored a major victory Friday when President Bush signed a bill that gives a sweeping tax break to movies made in the U.S. Producers believe the measure may draw substantial fresh funds into indie filmmaking."

They go to note, "Independent producers now may write off a movie in a single year if it has a budget of $1 million-$15 million and 75% of that budget is spent in the U.S. The expensing limit increases to $20 million if the movie is made in a low-income area of the U.S....

"'Overall, it's good, it's fantastic,' said Tim Williams, production head at New York-based GreeneStreet FilmsGreeneStreet Films, who co-produced Miramax's 2001 breakout 'In the Bedroom.' 'It's the same concept as the basis for the U.K. sale-and-leaseback (program). The trick now is for smaller companies to utilize it. Can this (bill) be used to leverage more funding on a state and local level?'

"'It's phenomenal,' said Schuyler Moore, an entertainment industry tax law expert. 'Once this gets out, it's going to jumpstart U.S. production in an enormous way. There's nothing like it in the entire (U.S. tax) code. It's just astounding.'"

More on the benefits of this law as they become apparent. I already know a couple of New York producers who are huddling with their accountants to analyze the implications of the change. And please post below if you have specific insight into the impact the law will have on film investment.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 10/25/2004 09:26:00 AM Comments (0)

Perhaps you've heard that the IFP/New York has retooled its annual Gotham Awards, moving the event out of IFP Market week to December 1 -- smack dab at the start of the Oscar push. This week the IFP/New York announced the Gotham's first two 2004 award recipient: actor Don Cheadle, who has Hotel Rwanda coming out from United Artists, and Michel Gondry's film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which is being honored under the new "Celebrate New York" tag for films shot in New York that "expand the boundaries of creative expression."

With its December 1 date, the Gotham's unfold just a day after the IFP/LA announces its roster of Spirit Award nominations, a fact not missed by David Poland in his new Hot Blog. As usual, Poland focuses on the politics of the announcement far more exhaustively than us tired-at-2:00 A.M. types at Filmmaker are able to...

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 10/22/2004 02:30:00 AM Comments (0)

I stumbled across author William Gibson's (Neuromancer) online blog today and caught up with the news that director Peter Weir is attached to direct a film version of Gibson's latest, Pattern Recognition. The novel is a contemporary cybernoir about a "cool hunter" who winds up on the chase for the director of mysterious multi-part Internet film. Locations are being scouted in Moscow, London and Tokyo.

I wound up bookmarking Gibson's blog as he seems to update it daily and has some interesting political commentary on it as well. In today's entry he describes the process by which he feels an imaginative collective mental barrier may be working against John Kerry:

"As I took the zeitgeist's temperature this morning (the hard way, as we professional prescients always insist on doing) I noticed that it was decidedly more difficult to imagine life after a Kerry win than life after a Bush win.

Aside from the fact that, as we professionals know, it's inherently more difficult to imagine things getting relatively unfucked than it is to imagine things getting more fucked but in a familiar direction, I found myself wondering whether that Bush-as-idiot-shaman essay I quoted here recently might not be literally true, in some ghastly Castanedan way? Could it be that the obscenely comforting narrowing of imaginative bandwith (the real payoff in becoming a Bushite believer) was actually changing the world, or threatening to, via its chilling effect on concensus-reality?"

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 10/20/2004 09:57:00 PM Comments (0)

MoxieDocs' Co-Production Award deadline has been extended to October 30, 2004.

MoxieDocs' goal is to provide select documentaries with asistance in production, postproduction, and theatrical distribution. Since its founding, the MoxieDocs Award has become one of the most valuable production resources available to documentary filmmakers with projects in the work-in-progress stage. Each competition receives an average of 200 submissions, five finalists are then selected for a "pitch" at which projects are presented to a panel of jurors made up of award winning documentary filmmakers and industry executives. Submissions are judged based on subject matter, a filmmaker's access to the issue at hand and production personnel experience.

Past MoxieDocs Award recipients include Farmingville, which premiered at Sundance 2004, aired on the PBS series P.O.V. earlier this summer, and will open theatrically at the Quad Cinemas in NYC on October 22; Cheeks, which screened as part of the 2004 IFP Market's Spotlight on Documentaries and which focuses on a Southern New Jersey family as they face despair, suicide attempts, manic depression, schizophrenia, and secret societies trying to ruin their lives; Hart Island: An American Cemetery, about the NYC-based potter's field which dates back to the American Civil War; and Revolucion: Visions of Cuba Since the Revolution, a feature-length work-in-progress which traces the Cuban Revolution as experienced by three distinct generations of photographers.

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 10/20/2004 01:40:00 PM Comments (1)

Left to right: Kutlug Ataman's Twelve (detail); Jeremy Deller's Memory Bucket: A Film About Texas; Langlands and Bell's The House of Osama Bin Laden

"I Love Jeremy Deller," Jonathan Jones's decidely partisan article in the Guardian, handicaps this year's Turner Prize nominees, each of who produce video work.

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 10/20/2004 10:38:00 AM Comments (0)

New Yorkers with a yen for scary movies are going to be in hog heaven as the third annual NYC Horror Film Festival rolls into town just in time for the Halloween season. Running from October 20-24 at the Tribeca Film Center, the festival promises over 45 feature and short films, including rare classics among the newer fare.

Besides the latest offerings from cult directors Tobe Hooper and Joe Lieberman, there will be a selection of cool parties and panel discussions with high-profile industry figures, making this fright fest the place to be for thrills and chills.

For film schedule info or to buy tickets, log onto www.nychorrorfest.com.

# posted by Andre Salas @ 10/19/2004 05:45:00 PM Comments (0)

As Nick Paumgarten reports in the Talk of the Town section of this week's New Yorker magazine, "In 2001, after a seventeen-year quest, Rudloph Grey, the author of the Ed Wood biography Nighmare of Ecstasy (which became the basis for the Tim Burton film Ed Wood), found [Wood's final film,] the triple-X Necromania in a warehouse in Los Angeles."

Wood wrote, produced and directed a soft-core and hard-core version of the film in three days under the name Don Miller; the soft-core version was discovered in 1992 and has since been available in limited release.

Necromania: A Tale of Weird Love (1971) -- "one of the first skin flicks to have what, technically, could be called a plot," according to the New Yorker -- is now available on DVD. It's the first title released under the newly launched Fleshbot Films imprint.

As described on the Fleshbot site: "The plot involves a coven of witches, led by the mysterious Madame Heles, who concoct a series of 'lessons' for a couple whose sex life is less than satisfying. Their teaching methods involve topless chanting, simulated intercourse with painted skulls, and a lot of oral sex. Madame Heles was to have been played by longtime Wood collaborator Maila 'Vampira' Nurmi, who took one look at the script and withdrew herself from the production citing concerns of 'professional suicide'."

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 10/19/2004 11:04:00 AM Comments (0)

Via the encyclopedic Weblog Green Cine Daily comes this link to an article in Slate about Harry Shearer's video installation "Face Time" at the Conner Contemporary Gallery in Washington, D.C.

As the exhibiton's curator, Welmoed Laanstra, writes, "Shearer, who has appeared in such films as Spinal Tap and A Mighty Wind and who does the voice for many characters in The Simpsons (including Montgomery Burns), has an eye for contemporary absurdity. He is both commentator and artist, having written for Slate and having produced for 21 years a weekly radio show spoofing the news.

" 'Face Time', a temporary installation pegged to the final weeks of a long and dramatic presidential campaign, will feature television footage of both presidential candidates, the vice presidential candidates, other political figures and media talking heads. Using video footage without any dialogue, Shearer will present all these figures in our national sandbox as artifacts. He will explore the artificiality of political communication. The installation will offer viewers the opportunity to ponder the manner in which politics and news are presented by the mass media and then consumed by individuals. The point will be to remove the viewer from the immediate media slipstream and suspend the from-them-to-you interaction in time."

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 10/18/2004 11:53:00 AM Comments (0)

The International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) will introduce three new program sections during its 34th edition (January 26 - February 6, 2005). The new sections will replace the fest's Main Program Features and its Hubert Bals Fund Harvest. Together, the new sections will include approximately one hundred fiction features and documentaries.

IFFR director Sandra den Hamer explains: "The three sections represent the IFFR's main strands of interest: young and innovative filmmaking, the commitment to global developments and the 'cinema d'auteur'.

"Cinema of the Future: Sturm und Drang groups films by promising talents and offers an overview of recent developments within independent filmmaking; Cinema of the World: Time & Tide brings together films that reflect the festival's social and political awareness or show the human condition in the film's regions of origin; and The Maestro's: Kings & Aces section reunites the works of the more established auteurs whose oeuvre has the ongoing interest of the Rotterdam festival."

In other IFFR news: French cineaste Benoit Jacquot has been selected to receive a Rotterdam tribute program of part of his film and television oeuvre along with the screening of his recent feature film A Tout de Suite (2004).

The thematic program S.E.A. Eyes, curated by programmer Gertjan Zuilhof, will put a "spotlight on the South East Asian region where independent film production is emerging strongly through a new generation of filmmakers," says den Hamer. "The section will include new films by Lav Diaz (Philippines), U Wei bin Hadji Saari (Thailand) and James Lee (Malaysia), who has already generated festival attention worldwide. But S.E.A. Eyes will go further, introducing more young filmmakers [as it reflects] on a region currently undergoing fast changes in several parts of its societies."

Finally, Paradise Girls by Dutch filmmaker Fow Pyng Hu has been selected for Rotterdam's VPRO Tiger Awards Competition.

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 10/15/2004 05:14:00 PM Comments (1)

Nick Nolte, who has worked in a number of independent and foreign films recently, has a rather charming online diary up. Check it out here.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 10/15/2004 01:01:00 AM Comments (0)

Filmmaker has long been interested in smart modern horror, so check out these two web links. The first is the link to the elegantly eerie teaser trailer for The Ring 2, the sequel to the horror hit which also happens to be the first English language film to be directed by the great Hideo Nakata, who helmed the Japanese original.

And then there's this thought-provoking feature in The Guardian about a three-part BBC series to be aired next week entitled The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear. Written and produced by the documentarian Adam Curtis, the series is a "riskily counterintuitive" response to the current "war on terror."

Writes The Guardian, "Much of the currently perceived threat from international terrorism, the series argues, 'is a fantasy that has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians. It is a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services, and the international media.' The series' explanation for this is even bolder: 'In an age when all the grand ideas have lost credibility, fear of a phantom enemy is all the politicians have left to maintain their power.'"

Read deep into the article and you find some provocative theorizing about the "Straussians," a group of political thinkers devoted to the teachings of political scientist Leo Strauss of the University of Chicago, who argued in the '50s that American needed to position itself as a battler of evil throughout the world and employ a series of "grand myths" to create a "higher form of political propaganda."

Explains the piece, "As Curtis traced the rise of the 'Straussians', he came to a conclusion that would form the basis for The Power of Nightmares. Straussian conservatism had a previously unsuspected amount in common with Islamism: from origins in the 50s, to a formative belief that liberalism was the enemy, to an actual period of Islamist-Straussian collaboration against the Soviet Union during the war in Afghanistan in the 80s (both movements have proved adept at finding new foes to keep them going). Although the Islamists and the Straussians have fallen out since then, as the attacks on America in 2001 graphically demonstrated, they are in another way, Curtis concludes, collaborating still: in sustaining the 'fantasy' of the war on terror.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 10/14/2004 11:43:00 PM Comments (1)

New York's legendary psychobilly outfit The Cramps is back, bringing their much-needed blend of horror imagery and rock and roll to the worshipping masses. They're hitting the road to promote a brand new release, How to Make a Monster, a two-disc CD set featuring rare early recordings and live performances.

Also just out is a DVD, Live at Napa State Mental Hospital, a much coveted 1981 performance that finds lead crooner Lux sharing the stage (and mic!) with actual mental patients at said facility. Lo-fi and raw, it captures the essence of what The Cramps is really about.

If this just isn't enough crampyness for you, then be sure to catch the gang playing live at a venue near you, as they kick off a fall tour to support the CD.

# posted by Andre Salas @ 10/14/2004 04:51:00 PM Comments (0)

At the Hollywod premiere party for Team America: World Police on Monday, Trey Parker is quoted in today's Variety as having said, "Since we'll never make another movie, Matt [Stone] and I are going to spend the next year bringing a class-action suit against the MPAA" for the "two-sidedness" in the way it deals with studio and indie films. "It really does favor the studio movies and it is illegal," said Parker. "As an independent filmmaker they make it almost impossible for you. So we're going to get the independent filmmakers together and sue them."

Team America is a Scott Rudin production for Paramount Pictures and cost an estimated $20 million.

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 10/14/2004 04:15:00 PM Comments (0)

From October 16-December 22, the Allan Stone Gallery, 113 East 90th St., New York, will present the exhibition Alfred Leslie 1951-1962: Expressing the Zeitgeist.

The exhibition will include the only two films by Alfred Leslie not destroyed in a studio fire in 1966 -- Pull My Daisy (1959), co-directed by Robert Frank and featuring Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Peter Orlovsky and Delphine Seyrig, with narration by Jack Kerouac, and The Last Clean Shirt (1964), with quirky dialogue by writer/poet Frank O'Hara -- as well as Leslie's abstract paintings from the period, including 11 large oil paintings and 27 small collages and mixed media works.

The gallery will also screen The Cedar Bar (2002), Leslie's first feature, which he says, "tells the truth about the war between people who make art and the people who write about it." According to an exhibition press release, The Cedar Bar, which premiered at the London Film Festival in 2002, is "pieced together from assorted film clips and remembered conversations at the infamous Greenwich Village artist hangout, The Cedar Tavern. Leslie creates a colorful collage that includes artists' opinions and critical commentary, shedding satirical light on the often contentious relationships between artists and critics."

Alfred Leslie (standing left) directing Pull My Daisy in his 4th Ave. studio in 1959. Gregory Corso is in the chair, Allen Ginsberg is standing, right, and Robert Frank is reflected in the mirror.

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 10/14/2004 01:49:00 PM Comments (1)

Producer Ted Hope e-mailed me this New York Times article by Anne Thompson which is mandatory reading for all producers, writers and development executives. The article concerns the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and its recent ruling in the Jeff Grosso v. Miramax Film Corporation case. In the case, Grosso, a freelance writer and high-stakes poker player, sued Miramax claiming that the John Dahl film Rounders lifted story details and characters from his own spec script The Shell Game, which he had submitted unsolicited to a production company that had offices in the Miramax building. As quoted in the Times, Grosso said, "[The poker phrase] 'Texas hold 'em' had never been used in a movie before... It was obvious to me that they stole my movie. Those two works couldn't be mutually exclusive. They realized that I was not powerful, had no connections, that they could rewrite the script and use it, for free."

The Federal District Court dismissed the part of Grosso's suit claiming copyright violations. But what is concerning producers is the part of the suit the court left standing. Basically, the court says that Miramax must go on trial on the charge of violating an "implied contract" with the writer, a contract that was presumably triggered by the mere act of Grosso's submission. (The details here are sketchier as to whether Grosso had more detailed discussions with the companies.) Continues the article, "Under California law, Judge Mary M. Schroeder wrote in a ruling for a three-judge panel on Sept. 8, 'a contract sometimes may be implied even in the absence of an express promise to pay.'"

For unagented writers, the ruling is a mixed blessing. Litigious scribes may wind up with the courts on their side when they claim to be "ripped off" by the movie business, while others struggling to break into the business may find that the courts are creating a new "barrier to entry" as skittish producers will shy away from reading any unrepresented work.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 10/13/2004 08:43:00 PM Comments (3)

According to the Hollywood Reporter, "A&E is getting into the independent film business. The cable network has launched A&E IndieFilms, a label aimed at pitching in on the finance and production of documentaries in the spirit of its own nonfiction programming."

The "adventurous" cabler is currently airing Growing Up Gotti and Dog The Bounty Hunter and will premiere Christopher Reeves's final film as director, The Brooke Ellison Story, on October 25.

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 10/13/2004 03:00:00 PM Comments (0)

Impakt Online is the annual Web-based project of the Impakt Film Festival, October 27-31, in which projects with a common theme are launched on www.impaktonline.nl.

Oddly, the 2004 selection is not online, but you can still sample 2003's selection, organized in three thematic packages: Art of the Narrative, Out of the Box and Database Dilemmas. "Each of these themes involves a differing set of technologies, approaches and viewpoints about the Internet and the new media technologies which are becoming more and more part of our daily lives."

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 10/12/2004 01:55:00 PM Comments (0)

Benoit Jacquot, the director of The Single Girl, Sade and Keep it Quiet is the first of six French filmmakers who will direct master classes in American universities this fall as part of the the program "On Set with French Cinema," organized jointly by Unifrance and the French Embassy with the participation of the French American Cultural Exchange.

Other participating directors include: Luc Besson (The Fifth Element, Joan of Arc), Jean-Paul Rappeneau (Bon Voyage , Cyrano), Claire Denis (Chocolat, Friday Night), Olivier Assayas (Demonlover, Clean), and Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Delicatessen, Amelie) who will also premiere his latest movie, A Very Long Engagement, starring Audrey Tautou.

New York, Columbus and Chicago Program:
Participating Universities: Columbia University, City College of New York, and the School of Visual Arts in New York, The Ohio State University in Columbus, Columbia College and Northwestern University in Chicago.

Benoit Jacquot: October 18 - October 21
Claire Denis: October 29 - November 5
Olivier Assayas: November 14 - November 19

Los Angeles Program:
Participating Universities: University of Southern California, University of California of Los Angeles, and the American Film Institute.

Luc Besson: October 27 - October 28
Jean-Paul Rappeneau: November 1 - November 2
Jean-Pierre Jeunet: November 10 - November 11, and November 22

San Francisco Program:
Participating Universities: San Francisco State University and Stanford.

Jean-Paul Rappeneau: November 3 - November 5

A series of public screenings will also be held in each city. For the complete schedule, please log onto www.onsetwithfrenchcinema.com.

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 10/12/2004 01:24:00 PM Comments (0)

"I thought you might be interested in the 25-film retrospective of Marshall Plan films called Selling Democracy that screens this coming week at the New York Film Festival," writes Sandra Schulberg in a recent e-mail.

"I curated a 40-film series that was shown at the Berlin Film Festival in February. These films are an hommage to the work of my father, Stuart Schulberg, and his Marshall Plan colleagues. But more importantly, they demonstrate what an exceedingly well-planned 'democratization' effort looks like, in stark contrast to what we're seeing today in Iraq and Afghanistan. The films were banned in the U.S. until John Kerry introduced legislation in 1990 to lift the ban. They illustrate in surprisingly specific terms the strategy implemented by the Truman Administration for 'winning the peace.' Since this issue has been so central to the presidential campaigns of both candidates, I think these films have great insights to offer. If you are not in town for the screenings at the Festival, you may be interested to read more about them on the Selling Democracy Web site."

Schulberg is also working on a national tour and DVD collection.

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 10/12/2004 01:03:00 PM Comments (0)

Offscreen.com, an online film journal dedicated to independent and international films, has just put up a new issue on its Web site, www.offscreen.com. The new issue includes articles on Robert Bresson and Rainer W. Fassbinder, as well as commentary on Kim Ki-duk's Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring, Alexander Sokurov's Father and Son, and John Greyson and Jack Lewis's Proteus.

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 10/12/2004 11:46:00 AM Comments (1)

Variety has a short article up (sorry, subscription only) on Island Fever 3, the first hardcore porn movie to be shot on HD and released on a high definition DVD.

Writes Variety's Claude Brodesser, "Much has been made about the changes ultrasharp HDTV will wreak on newsdesk anchors -- every nick and blemish magnified, foundation that looks like pancake makeup -- but no one spared a thought for the plight of porn stars -- until now."

The piece goes on to note the sudden importance of highly skilled makeup artists when shooting in HD, and ends with some cryptic comments by director Joone about the relationship between porn, HD and indie film: "The way I see it, independent film sort of died in the early '90s when Miramax got bought by Disney. HD is changing that. I'm hoping people see sex as just the commercial that pays for the movie."

Huh?

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 10/10/2004 07:51:00 PM Comments (2)

Christopher Lucas and Avi Santo, coordinating editors of Flow, a new online journal of television and media studies out of the University of Texas at Austin, write:

"Television and contemporary media are ephemeral experiences for most people, no less so for academics and cultural critics. Most of what we watch passes without notice. In an era of ever-increasing 'choices' it becomes ever more difficult to crown a particular televisual king or queen as representative of our current moment (not that this was ever possible. Certainly, the history of television in the 1950s is very different depending on whether you look at it through the lens of Ozzie and Harriet or The Adventures of Superman, and we are not simply referring to the stories told on these series, but their modes of production, their intended audience, their engagement with collective memory and popular culture, and so on).

"Yet, much critical writing about media has tended, even when addressing its complexity and diversity, to seize on particular programs, episodes, televisual moments and experiences. This necessity, despite the intentions of many, leads to canons, prescriptions, diagnoses that are antithetical to the ways most of us understand television.

"Flow [is] envisioned as an experiment in aligning the academic perspective more closely with the televisual experience."

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 10/08/2004 05:14:00 PM Comments (0)

National and local news organizations will be conducting online polls during and after tonight's presidential debate asking for readers' opinions. Look for online polls at these news Web sites, and make sure to vote in every one of them:

CBS: http://www.cbsnews.com

CNN: http://www.cnn.com

Fox News: http://www.foxnews.com

MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com

Wall Street Journal: http://www.wsj.com

Los Angeles Times: http://www.latimes.com

Akron Beacon-Journal: http://www.ohio.com

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: http://www.ajc.com

Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com

Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune: http://www.startribune.com

Orlando Sentinel: http://www.orlandosentinel.com

Philadelphia Inquirer: http://www.philly.com

South Florida Sun-Sentinel: http://www.sun-sentinel.com

And be sure to check the Web sites of your local newspapers and TV stations for online polls. For your voice to register it is crucial that you do this in the minutes immediately following the debate.

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 10/08/2004 03:57:00 PM Comments (0)

For his latest multimedia installation, developed over the past two years, 2004 Turner Prize nominee Kutlug Ataman returned to his native Istanbul to work in one of the city's hidden ghettos, known only as Kuba.

The district came into being in the late 1960s and quickly became a shantytown where leftwing militants concealed themselves and their weapons from the police. Since then it has developed into a cohesive society, presenting an impenetratable solidarity to the outside world.

Kutlug Ataman's Kuba uses 40 television sets featuring video of 40 inhabitants of Kuba telling their personal tales of tragedy.

Commissioned by the British arts organization Artangel and co-produced with Carnegie International 2004/2005, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York; Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (T-B A21), Vienna, Theater der Welt, Stuttgart and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Kuba was produced by Yalan Dunya in Isanbul.

Kuba opens in Pittsburgh for the Carnegie International, October 9, 2004 - March 20, 2005 at the Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh, and arrives in London in the spring 2005. It will also be available as a 176-page full-color publication.

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 10/08/2004 11:50:00 AM Comments (2)

As reported in Variety today: "Emerging Pictures will launch America's first full-time commercial cinema operating only with digital projection equipment in Manhattan's Off Off Broadway theater complex Theater Row," located at 410-412 W. 42nd St.

"Emerging Cinema will screen arthouse fare on a calendar basis," says Variety. "Docu Home of the Brave, bowing Oct. 27, will be the venue's first theatrical engagement. The space houses five Off Broadway theaters, ranging in capacity from 88 to 199 seats, but only one auditorium will be used to screen films at any time. The projection equipment, which is portable, will be shuttled from theater to theater, depending on the film and the live performances schedule."

Home to the newly launched Summer Play Festival, Theater Row was dark last night when I caught a lecture organized by dorkbot -nyc at the multimedia space The Tank, which is a block away, followed by a performance of Quincy Long's terrific "comedy with music," People Be Heard, at neighboring Playwrights Horizons.

The Off Off Broadway theater community is still reeling from the redesign of the Arts & Leisure section of the Sunday New York Times, which scuttled the small-print column known as The Guide that provided comprehensive listings of all legit shows, even those playing the tiniest venues; and The Tank may be losing its space and is currently scrambling to find alternate digs. Let's hope Emerging Cinema's newest venture -- the first step in its plan to develop a digital theater chain of some 400 screens in existing theaters throughout the country -- fares well.

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 10/07/2004 10:20:00 AM Comments (0)

Paramount's upcoming marionette comedy Team America: World Police has finally achieved an R rating from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), says The Hollywood Reporter.

According to filmfodder.com, "The R comes after a long battle between the MPAA censors and Team America creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. The film was originally slapped with an NC-17 (a.k.a. The Kiss of Death) because of an extended scene featuring simulated puppet sex.

"Let's go over that again. Team America was given an NC-17 because of an extended scene featuring simulated puppet sex. Want specifics? Check out this article from Guardian Unlimited. It's a sad state of affairs.

"Parker and Stone reworked the scene 10 times before the MPAA bumped the rating down to an R."

The R-rated Team America: World Police won't be released until Oct. 15, but the ever-resourceful Moriarty over at Aint It Cool News has the early buzz.

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 10/06/2004 02:19:00 PM Comments (0)

Vice President Cheney, in defense of his tenure at Halliburton, referred viewers to the Web site www.FactCheck.com in last night's televised debate with John Edwards. That URL actually redirects to www.georgesoros.com, which today leads with a personal message from George Soros that reads:

"President Bush is endangering our safety, hurting our vital interests, and undermining American values."

A visit to the Annenberg Political FactCheck site, www.FactCheck.org -- the site we assume Cheney intended to refer viewers to -- today leads with the following summary of the debate:

"Cheney wrongly implied that FactCheck had defended his tenure as CEO of Halliburton Co., and the vice president even got our name wrong. He overstated matters when he said Edwards voted 'for the war' and 'to commit the troops, to send them to war.' He exaggerated the number of times Kerry has voted to raise taxes, and puffed up the number of small business owners who would see a tax increase under Kerry's proposals.

"Edwards falsely claimed the administration 'lobbied the Congress' to cut the combat pay of troops in Iraq, something the White House never supported, and he used misleading numbers about jobs."

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 10/06/2004 01:21:00 PM Comments (0)

You thought The Passion of the Christ was controversial.

Fine Media Group has announced the nationwide theatrical release of a feature-length animated film that chronicles the early life and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad.

The release of Muhammad: The Last Prophet, directed by former Disney animator Richard Rich, is scheduled to coincide with Eid ul-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the Islamic fast of Ramadan.

The 90-minute film, produced by the creators of animated films as The King and I and The Fox and the Hound for Badr International will be shown in theaters in 37 U.S. and Canadian cities for one week beginning November 14.

Because of Islamic traditions prohibiting the visual representation of religious figures, no images of the Prophet Muhammad appear in the film. Instead, Mohamad is represented as a bright light and an off-screen voice. (The only other major film production to chronicle the life of Prophet Muhammad was The Message, a 1976 film by Syrian director Moustapha Akkad in which the Prophet was neither portrayed nor voiced-over. The Prophet's uncle, Hamza, however, was portrayed in the movie by Anthony Quinn.)

As part of the film's promotional campaign, Fine Media Group is raffling off a round-trip plane ticket (New York to Jeddah) to experience Hajj, the pilgrimage to Makkah which is one of the five "pillars" of Islam.

In a statement released today, Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on Islamic-American Relations (CAIR) is quoted as saying, "This is an exciting opportunity for parents and children of all faiths to learn more about an historic figure like Prophet Muhammad and events that shaped today's world. The release of this film in theaters also offers a chance to interact with American Muslims in a learning environment."

However, according to IslamOnline, "Some [Egyptian] critics and journalists expressed their disappointment" following a screening of the $12 million film in Cairo, where it was released in 2002. (The film was also released in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates.)

"The movie ignores important events such as the struggle between Muslims and Jews, leading many critics to say that it is deliberately ignored due to political considerations as the film producers wanted to avoid any political problems that may occur in case this struggle was mentioned.

"The movie is below any expectations and full of political problems, one of them is the total ignorance of the struggle of the first Muslims with the Jews and the Prophet's battles against them in Madinah," said Ashrah El Bayoumi, a critic.

"He added that it is impossible to talk about the life of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) without mentioning the struggle against the Jews, the second force after the infidels of Makkah in their animosity to the Prophet's (pbuh) message, as well as their role in the attempt to suppress it, especially in its early phases in Madinah.

"On the other hand, Ali Mohieb, a movie director, said he sympathizes with the producers of the movie as they are exerting a remarkable effort, he said, adding that ignoring the part related to Jews may be because the producing company wanted to 'save its money' and guarantee that the English version of the movie will be allowed in Western markets.

"Answering these criticism, Mowafak El-Harthy, the Saudi head of the producing company Badr, said that critics should not turn the movie into a political issue."

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 10/05/2004 03:58:00 PM Comments (5)

Via Eyebeam's reBlog, check out Michel and Olivier Gondry's video for "Behind", the first single by the new French recording artist Lacquer, whose debut album Overloaded was released this summer.

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 10/04/2004 07:13:00 PM Comments (3)