In a rush to summarize this year’s Sundance Film Festival, an article this weekend in the local paper The Salt Lake Tribune by Christy Karras ’s proclaimed “Sundance Comes Out: 40 films with gay themes show festival's blooming acceptance of sexual diversity.” What an odd thing to say. In 1992, B. Ruby Rich coined the term "New Queer Cinema" from films screened at Sundance. And each year, gay films and filmmakers have shown up. What was remarkable this year is how gay and straight films and filmmakers were so well integrated. Malcolm Ingram’s documentary Small Town Gay Bar was executive produced by Kevin Smith. Wash Westmoreland & Richard Glatzer's Quinceanera, which won both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award, is so much more about the LA Latino neighborhood of Echo Park than it is about the gay couple who are gentrifying it. Indeed Westmoreland and Glatzer (who are a couple) spoke up in Indiewire about working with the community: "we didn't want this film to feel like it was made by two white boys peering in. It had to be insider. We cast people from our Echo Park neighborhood and constantly looked to them to let us know if we were on target."

# posted by Peter Bowen @ 1/31/2006 11:39:00 PM Comments (0)

Yahoo News is reporting that pioneering video artist Nam June Paik has died at 73. The Koren born artist was known for his multi-monitor sculptural video pieces, his various video happenings, and collaborations with artists like John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen, among others. When I worked at The Kitchen Center right out of college, Paik was a grand master of the video art realm, someone whose belief in the untapped power of this new art form fueled both is pieces as well as the innovative manners in which they were presented.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/31/2006 07:30:00 PM Comments (0)

For those attempting to parse the business climate at this year's Sundance Film Festival, today's piece by David Halbfinger in the New York Times is pretty on the money.

Also, I should note that I was a trifle embarassed to have been called by Ann Thompson one of the passionate bloggers who would be reporting from Sundance and then not to have written anything. Well, I was there more in producer mode this year rather than daily reporting mode, but I did catch a bunch of films I'll be writing about during the year. And, I am heading to Rotterdam now where I look forward to catching up to a couple films I missed, including Old Joy, and will be hopefully posting a couple of times from there.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/28/2006 03:40:00 PM Comments (0)

In Filmmaker this issue writer-director Andrew Bujalski interviews Caveh Zahedi, whose I am a Sex Addict won the new Filmmaker-sponsored "Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You" award at the Gotham's this year. As a sidebar to the piece, Zahedi penned a "Self Distribution Manifesto" explaining the moral imperative behind his decision to distribute his film himself. Zahedi started the piece by admitting that he had always dreamed of getting big distribution deals for his film and that none were forthcoming for Sex Addict. But midway through he turned what could have been a sour-grapes rant into a rousing call for filmmaker self-actualization, even quoting Hegel in the process:

"The truth is that self-distribution is fun, and not only is it fun, it’s empowering. Which brings me to the heart of the matter: whether an outside distributor would do a 'better' or a 'worse' job releasing the film is immaterial. The real question is: why are we making films in the first place? The answer for me has something to do with wanting to humanize the world. Hegel teaches us that we make the world our own by altering it, by leaving our own imprint on it, by reshaping it in our own image. This is the crux of my argument for self-distribution. It’s less alienating. It’s more organic. And it’s more human."

So, I was a little surprised when, shortly after our issue hit the stands, I read in Indiewire that Zahedi will not actually be self-distributing his film. Following the Filmmaker/Gotham award, I am a Sex Addict was picked up by IFC as part of its new "First Take" program, in which indie films will receive simultaneous theatrical and video-on-demand releases.

Figuring that there were perhaps some situational ethics at work here -- quote Hegel until a real distributor pops up for your film -- and perhaps feeling a bit embarassed to have run such a passionate "call to arms" from a filmmaker who has just saved himself months of licking envelopes and sticking screeners into FedEx packages, I decided to challenge Zahedi via email to explain himself to our readers. If you've seen the film, you know that he's a wily rhetorician, and after hitting send I sat back and awaited what I was sure would be provocative and combustible response.

Unfortunately for me, Zahedi's reply was, like his film, disarmingly sincere. Here's his answer to my question on why he bailed on his plans to self-distribute his film:

"I ended up taking the IFC deal because of the people who work at IFC. I liked them as people, and they convinced me that it would be a partnership as opposed to a 'purchase.' They also convinced me that I would still be very much involved in the actual work of distributing the film, but that I would be doing it as part of a team rather than having to go it alone. In short, they convinced me that the experience would be one of greater community rather than less.

I still stand behind what I wrote. I do think it is important to valorize the actual work of distribution, and that self-distribution is as noble and valid an endeavor as self-financing. But I also believe that if there are good people who love your film and are offering to help you get it out into the world, refusing their help would be contrary to the purpose of making the film in the first place."

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/28/2006 01:23:00 AM Comments (2)

In the print magazine this issue Rupert Chiarella writes a short piece about Turn Here.com, a new website that streams short films created specifically about neighborhoods all over the United States. I figured some interesting filmmakers might be tempted to contribute to the site, but the site's layout makes it hard to identify the directors behind the various clips. So, I was glad to get an email today from Chris Kenneally, a veteran NYC post supervisor (he post-suped Patrict Stettner's Sundance pic The Night Listener) and also a director/producer (with co-director Danielle Franco he directed the doc Crazy Legs Conti: Zen and the Art of Competitive Eating). If you go to the Turn Here site and click on "New York" and then "Hell's Kitchen" you get Kenneally's film about Mark Nilsen. Go to "Lower East Side" and you get Franco's tour of the nabe with their former subject, Crazy Legs Conti.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/28/2006 01:15:00 AM Comments (0)

The generally excellent Boing Boing website posts this link to a news release from the Association for Psychological Science that answers a common question about actors and acting: how actors learn all their lines. Cognitive psychologist Helga Noice (Elmhurst College) and her husband, cognitive researcher, actor, and director Tony Noice (Indiana State University) have studied the subject and hope that their results can be used to counter cognitive decline in the elderly.

From the piece:

"According to the researchers, the secret of actors' memories is, well, acting. An actor acquires lines readily by focusing not on the words of the script, but on those words' meaning -- the moment-to-moment motivations of the character saying them -- as well as on the physical and emotional dimensions of their performance.

To get inside the character, an actor will break a script down into a series of logically connected 'beats' or intentions. Good actors don't think about their lines, but feel their character's intention in reaction to what the other actors do, causing their lines to come spontaneously and naturally. The researchers quote the great British actor Michael Caine: 'You must be able to stand there not thinking of that line. You take it off the other actor's face.'

The key, the researchers have found, is a process called active experiencing, which they say uses 'all physical, mental, and emotional channels to communicate the meaning of material to another person.' It is a principle that can be applied off-stage as well as on. For example, students who studied material by imagining conveying its meaning to somebody else who needed the information showed higher retention than those who tried to memorize the material by rote."

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/28/2006 01:03:00 AM Comments (0)

Brian Brooks and Eugene Hernandez post upsetting news in Indiewire today that filmmaker Julia Reichert who, with her partner Steve Bognar (together pictured), directed Lion in the House, a Sundance Competition doc about children dealing with cancer, was herself diagnosed with lymphoma. She received the news just after arriving in Utah for the film's premiere. After her third screening she flew back home to Ohio where she is now hospitalized and receiving treatment.

Julia's work has been covered in Filmmaker and she has a long association with IFP. We send her our best wishes for her recovery, and friends and colleagues can find her hospital address in the Indiewire piece linked to above.

Lion in the House will be broadcast on PBS this June.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/27/2006 03:28:00 PM Comments (0)

The winter 2006 issue of Filmmaker (or part of it -- you need to buy the print edition to experience the full goodness of it all) is online. Sorry for the delay, but we've also redesigned the site and the blog, which now appears on the main page as well. Many thanks to our brilliant, obsessive Web designer Jonathan Thirkield, who has put countless hours into what we feel is a great new site.

# posted by Matthew Ross @ 1/25/2006 10:56:00 AM Comments (3)

After I posted Ted Hope's movie pitch, 1000 Red Pieces of Sarah, below, Hope received this email alerting him to a fictional competing project from someone who prefers to be referred to as "an anonymous source":

"Hate to blow your bubble, but (off the record) Michel Gondry is directing the almost exact same movie as a co-production between Palm, Res Magazine, and Tokion Magazine, who has a first look deal with Nathan Hornblower, who controls the underlying rights to the autopsy reports of Eric Red's victims.

Additionally, Governor Schwarzenegger and Ed Pressman are still squabbling over Conan royalties, and the Governator has vowed to give Eric Red the death penalty. Ethan Hawke just wrote a very moving poem about Red's plight, which will be read at Housing Works during their annual 'Screenwriters With Scurvy' post-Sundance benefit."

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/24/2006 02:31:00 AM Comments (0)

Producer Ted Hope, who travels to Sundance this week with two films -- Friends with Money and The Hawk is Dying -- emailed to say that he's been reading this blog and noticing certain subcurrents linking the various posts, observing that people, things and ideas are shape-shifting between fiction and fact within our cultural landscape. He's come up with a fictional movie pitch encapsulating his thoughts which he forwarded to me, and I'm reprinting it below:

"Okay it goes like this: A screenwriter who alleges to be Eric Red's unevil twin is hired to adapt a story of a drunk in rehab written by a former yard lizard child prostitute imposter who may not exist.

Chain of Title:

Charlie Kaufman's brother writes it based on an outline of unprinted L.A. Weekly article that Paul Cullum read on a blog and wrote on a napkin to Jeffrey Hatcher about Oprah Winfrey endorsing Jeff Levy-Hinte optioning a former movie idea by Gus Van Sant about Kurt Cobain's body hair that was initially optioned by Ed Pressman for Steve Shainberg without having any of the rights to Mark Romanek's photographs of Tamara Jenkins. I think there were also notes of it in Steve McQueen's trunk, but they were burned by Johnny Depp at Hunter's funeral.

You can print it, but you'd have to produce it with me, Christine, and Caroline Baron at Artisan. Phil S Hoffman will play Toby Jones portraying George Elliot. Music by New Order in the trailer we did for Sofia's new Marc Jacob's scent.

Starbucks will sponsor a reading at the Seattle party for GenArt at Slamdance (the owners of the indie's indie indie brand) and Nathaniel Hornblower will give all audience members cameras to film it as a Spike Jonze anti-globilization ad for the new MoveOn.org remix collectible sneaker downloadable user sponsor non-competitive contest now on the iTunes site. But I am waiting for the vinyl release signed and numbered by the person who bought the last Lego brick pixel on that website auctioned off on Ebay that Boing Boing linked me to..."

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/19/2006 09:21:00 AM Comments (2)

For fans of Jan Wozencroft, the artist whose evocative and mysterious landscape photos adorn CD covers by the likes of Christian Fennesz and others on the Touch label, the folks at the U.K. music company are offering free 20 downloadable Wozencroft pics, formatted for use as screensavers on a variety of differently-sized computer screens. It's the label's 20th anniversary and a bunch of other special stuff is planned for the year.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/15/2006 03:01:00 PM Comments (0)

There are a lot of screenplay contests and development programs out there, but the Sloan/Tribeca Screenplay Program is one of the more interesting. In addition to a sizable development grant, the program provides mentorship to screenwriters and writer/producers grappling with science and technology themes in their work. An advisory panel of writers and scientists offer a year's worth of feedback and input to, says the press release, "scripts that have a scientific or technological theme and story line or have a leading character who is a scientist, engineer, or mathematician.... Screenwriters currently participating in the program are Shawn Lawrence Otto (with the story of astronomer Edwin Hubble, Hubble) and Penny Penniston (with the romantic comedy Love is Brilliant). During the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival, each project was showcased at a panel and script reading featuring leading scientists, screenwriters, and actors. Advisors for these writers include screenwriter/director Henry Bean, screenwriter/director Nora Ephron, and award winning physicist Brian Greene."

If you have a project that might fit Sloan/Tribeca's mandate, you'd better hurry up. The deadline for submissions this year is February 3. Click here for official guidelines and required submission materials.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/14/2006 10:48:00 PM Comments (0)

I supposed I should take note of the whole JT Leroy thing. I'm referring, of course, to the recent piece by Warren St. John in the New York Times revealing that the shy, diminuitive figure with a floppy hat, black sunglasses, and a smear of red lipstick appearing in public as author JT Petty is actually a woman named Savannah Knoop, the half sister of Geoffrey Knoop, husband of Laura Albert. Albert is the 40-year-old Brooklyn woman who, in a New York magazine piece a few months ago, Steven Beachy asserted was the person behind JT Leroy's fiction and rapidly expanding cult.

The Savannah Koop revelation has broken over the last few days, but JT's blog entries haven't caught up with it yet. In the latest, he frets over the Christmas season, raves Narnia and Deadwood, and promotes his upcoming appearance as a guest DJ at a Starbucks-sponsored Sundance event. But already, the New York Times article has prompted not-quite-equal parts outrage, self-examination and amusement on the internet. Although in a piece titled "Lying Writers and the Readers who Love Them," Meghan O'Rourke in Slate notes that confusion over JT's authorial identity was part of his initial mystique ("The fact is, doubts were raised about the accuracy of Frey's memoir from the start, both in reviews and in cocktail party chatter. And people have long believed that LeRoy was, in some fashion, the invention of another writer"), those writers and editors who helped JT refine his voice are, for the most part, a bit angry. Perhaps, as writer Susie Bright points out, it wasn't the literary quality of JT's literary hoax but its hoax-like quality that has enraged some of his early supporters:

"...JT wrote and asked me to help fundraise for his son's private French immersion school, Lycee Francaise La Perouse -- the most prestigious and expensive secondary school in San Francisco.... I had just come from a Hurricane Katrina fundraiser before I opened my mail. JT's plea to support his dream of higher education seemed... just plain high. In the years since I first knew him, JT had made film and book deals galore, with celebrities fawning at every gesture. Would he like to donate to my gas bill? It happens to be suffering more than Lycee Francaise's current endowment fund."


Writer Dennis Cooper is one who was, at one point, rumored to be the hand behind JT's fiction. Of course, that wasn't the case, but Cooper is someone who spent a lot of time on the phone with JT helping guide the early artistic course of his work. In his blog today, Cooper posts his own response to the news and begs those few diehards convinced that it's all a big Establishment smear to hang it up. He concludes:

"It'll be fascinating to find out how and precisely why Laura did it, if she wrote the books by herself or in collaboration with others, and learn all the little details that might turn this currently ugly, sadistic, greedy game into something worth wasting brain cells and conversation on. But for now I just hope that the people who've been taken will swallow their pride and begin to entertain the fact that that they were fooled, and that it's okay to have been fooled. No one was more fooled than me, and it blows my mind that I bought the whole story for so many years, but accepting that I was really gullible for what I believed was a good cause is really okay and kind of interesting when I'm not angry at Laura for fucking me over."

There's a lively discussion on both Cooper and Bright's blogs about the whole thing, conversations that veer from discussions of George Eliot and the history of literary scams to the following trenchant question on Cooper's site by poster Benjamin Russack: "Do you think Luara's books would have made it to press had they not come with her elaborate story? And, would you have read her stuff and given it the same attention had she been Laura Albert instead of JT LeRoy? Yeah, that's a mean question, but I only ask it because I STILL don't know if I would have read his books had I known the truth. It makes me worry about the my own perceptions, like I can't see things for what they are."

Finally, there's a good piece up on The Book Standard that bundles the JT Leroy story with the other authorial identity tale of this week, the charge that James Frey did not lead nearly the hardscrabble life he claims to in his book A Million Little Pieces. In this piece, writers Tatiana Siegel and Borys Kit find out what's going on with the various JT Leroy film projects. Producer Jeff Levy-Hinte has the option on Sarah, and here's from the article:

"'The project has been profoundly upset. We're just trying to determine what's the next step,' Levy-Hinte said. 'Now we're evaluating two things: one, how we feel about the project, and two, how the marketplace is going to feel about it.'

The book, which centers on an androgynous 12-year-old boy who idolizes his truck-stop prostitute mother and adopts her identity, was originally optioned by director Gus Van Sant, who allowed the option to lapse. Levy-Hinte paid $15,000 a year to option the book and hired Jeffrey Hatcher (Casanova) to pen the screenplay. Steven Shainberg agreed to direct once he wraps the Nicole Kidman starrer Fur. The producer estimates that he has spent more than $100,000 in developing the now-questionable project.

'The question of third-party financiers and their desire to become engaged with this project could very well be diminished,' Levy-Hinte added. 'It definitely gives me hesitation.'"

On the other hand, Andy Robbins, head of marketing at Palm Pictures, thinks that the controversy might actually help the company's upcoming distribution of Asia Argento's adaptation of The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things.

Gus Van Sant, who worked with Leroy a bit on Elephant and who, at one point, tried to get Sarah off the ground, is one who appreciates the Warholian ironies behind the whole Leroy affair. From the same piece:

'Van Sant said he believes the person he dined with was indeed LeRoy but admits the possibility of being hoodwinked. He turned philosophical: 'But is anyone who they say they are? Is Amy Pascal really Amy Pascal? Am I really me? How do you know you're talking to Gus Van Sant? I think people are a little light on information right now.'"

As for me, well, my interactions with Leroy were pretty minor. I seemed to be on his speed dial for a week a few years ago. A couple of people told him I could help guide him through the maze of getting his book adapted for film. He especially wondered if I could introduce his work to a well-known friend. I did, and the phone calls stopped shortly thereafter, although I was surprised to find my help thanked in a New York Press article a couple of years later. I don't remember much about our conversations, except that he'd call around 2:00AM my time, and that the conversations were interesting at first but then rather tedious. The one thing I do remember talking about, which seems kind of ironic given this week's news, was JT's stress over becoming some kind of icon for kids who were abused or in emotional distress. He said that he had posted his email address and that his inbox would fill up with emails from readers who responded strongly and emotionally to his work and who looked to him for some kind of advice or guidance. He told me he that he felt pressured by this and wasn't sure he should be in that position. I can't quite remember what I said, except I think I probably mumbled something about how he should just focus on the work and not try to assume the role of anyone's therapist. Later, JT contributed a few pieces to Filmmaker, like this interview with director Paul Devlin. It was cool to have him in the book for a while, but at some point, his submissions to us dwindled off, and that was fine with me because his interviews were becoming a bit too fan-ish for our style.

In a program entitled "Friends of JT Read from the Heart", unnamed folks, presumably celebs, will read from his work at the Starbucks Salon at Sundance on January 25. It will be interesting to see who shows up.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/13/2006 12:11:00 AM Comments (0)

Here's a link to Current TV's very smart "Survival Guide" for those who want to make short videos that can get played on the cabler. Lots of filmmakers and celebs, ranging from director Catherine Hardwicke to Sean Penn, tell you in short Quicktime films how to do everything from telling your story to taking good sound to getting the right clearances.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/12/2006 09:38:00 PM Comments (2)

One of the more unusual indie film stories forwarded to us as Filmmaker is that of Minnesota producer and writer Christopher Harmon. Profiled here in the Minnesota-St. Paul Star Tribune, "Harmon can't see, but he has vision. Can't hear, but has imagination. Can't move, but in his mind, he can dance and sing and dream about giving the rest of us films with messages of hope and triumph." Harmon has a rare neurological condition called spino cerebellar degeneration which prevents communication and requires his use of a respirator to breathe.

With writer Doug Klozzner, however, Harmon, who communicates through interpreters, has completed a script for a film called Sparkle, Serena!, "a contemporary version of Shirley Temple's song and dance films."

From the piece:

"All the while, the government was fighting him in court over who should pay for the interpreters, who are all that stand between Harmon and total isolation. Eventually, he said, he won the fight, but 'my family was left almost bankrupt.'

'I couldn't face life anymore,' he said. 'I remember lying on my bed, asking God for death.'

Instead, he got this: a memory of a Shirley Temple movie, The Little Princess, he'd seen clearly years earlier at a group home.

'It's an embarrassing confession,' Harmon said of this connection of Shirley Temple, God and inspiration. 'When you're deaf and blind, you're a little isolated.'

The key connector in all of this is that for reasons he never has been able to understand, he saw the old black-and-white movie clearly.

That night of despair led to this movie project, now entering its fourth year. The project, to him, is the essence of life."

Harmon and Klozzner have a website that details more about their idiosyncratic quest to discover a new child star and recreate the charm of the '30s and '40s children's musical.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/12/2006 12:18:00 AM Comments (2)

Brokeback Mountain, which has been the object of such affection for so long, recently experienced its first growing pains of controversy. First the Megaplex at Jordan Commons in Sandy, Utah (a suburb of Salt Lake City), suddenly declined to screen the film. Now Gene Shalit (the film critic and his moustache) have issued an apology over comments made during his review of the film on The Today Show. In his 5 January review, Shalit called the character of Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) "a sexual predator" who "tracks Ennis [Heath Ledger] down and coaxes him into sporadic trysts." The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) rightly took exception to Mr. Shalit's perverse choice of words, and demanded an apology. On January 10, GLAAD received a sort of letter of apology, in which he explains, "I certainly had no intention of casting aspersions on anyone in the gay community or on the community itself." ( I guess he got someone to look up the phrase "sexual predator" for him.)

While Shalit was backtracking on his comments, Shalit's gay son Peter went on the offensive, writing a letter to GLAAD (reprinted in advocate.com, in which upbraided the organization for their snap -- or maybe three snaps -- judgment: "I am hurt by your mischaracterization of my father, a man who does not have a molecule of hate in his being. It does not speak well for GLAAD, and it is not helping our community." The end result of all this? A responder to the story on Defamer asked, "You mean Gene Shalit's still alive?"

# posted by Peter Bowen @ 1/11/2006 02:53:00 PM Comments (0)

I linked to Joe Gratz's legal blog below when discussing the 2257 regulations, but here's something else interesting from his site: This discussion of the company TVMyPod.com, which will sell you a video iPod pre-loaded with your favorite DVDs (which you have to buy from them along with the iPod), getting around the video iPod's digital-rights-management system. It's basically just a company doing for you what you could learn to do for yourself in about ten minutes on the internet, but the idea that a market has sprung up for this is kind of interesting.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/11/2006 12:19:00 AM Comments (0)

Joe Grat, over at his legal and intellectual property-oriented blog, writes about a setback for the Justice Department in its enforcement of the 2257 regulations, a set of record-keeping requirements designed, many feel, to severely hamper and restrict the adult entertainment industry on the internet. As few have pointed out, however, these regulations also regulate content by all manner of film producers, including independents, and, as I've been blogging throughout the last few months, the ramifications of these rules needs to be debated in the indie community.

For now, the fight over 2257 is being waged by the adult industry's Free Speech Coalition, and as Gratz notes, the government received a setback just before the New Year:

"United States District Judge Walker D. Miller of the District of Colorado filed an order Wednesday enjoining the enforcement of certain reporting requirements recently imposed on distributors of pornography while the plaintiffs’ case against the justice department proceeds....

"The Free Speech Coalition, an association of pornographers and disseminators of pornography, sued to enjoin enforcement of section 2257 on three grounds. First, they argued that the Justice Department regulations covered a wider range of activities than the statute allows — in legal terms, that the regulation was ultra vires. Second, they argued that the statute as a whole violates their First Amendment rights. Third, they argued that the statute violates their constitutional right of privacy...

"The judge ruled in favor of the Free Speech Coalition on the ultra vires issue, finding that the statute did not give the Justice Department the power to regulate anyone who does not participate in “hiring, contracting for managing, or otherwise arranging for the participation of the performers depicted.” This finding was not surprising, given that the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals (whose jurisdiction includes the District of Colorado) has ruled that a previous version of the regulation containing an identical exception was ultra vires. See Sundance Assoc., Inc. v. Reno, 139 F.3d 804, 805 (10th Cir. 1998). The court enjoined the Attorney General from enforcing the regulation against those plaintiffs whose business “does not involve the hiring, contracting for, managing, or otherwise arranging for the participation of the depicted performer...

"While this is only a preliminary injunction, it indicates Free Speech Coalition’s likelihood of ultimate success in this lawsuit. The chilling effects on lawful, protected speech we’ve seen as a result of the Justice Department’s overbroad regulations should dissipate if the plaintiffs ultimately succeed."

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/11/2006 12:16:00 AM Comments (0)

Imagine, if you will, that Buster Keaton was Asian, grew up playing Mike Tyson's Punchout on Nintendo, and dabbled in experimental theater. Now watch this. It takes a while to load, but it's worth it. And yes, it includes the training montage. (Thanks Guy.)

# posted by Matthew Ross @ 1/10/2006 12:48:00 PM Comments (0)

The folks at the literary magazine McSweeney's have launched a DVD zine called Wholphin. The title has something to do with the way we're supposed to have felt when we learned that "dolphins and whales sometimes, you know, do it." Anyway, Volume One is included in the latest issue of McSweeney's that's on the stands, and it includes a bunch of should-be interesting stuff: a Spike Jonze film about Al Gore, a David O. Russell film about the first Iraq war, a short-film collaboration between Miguel Arteta and Miranda July, Alison Smith's short film "The Specialist," and something with John C. Reilly in it because he's on the trailer that streams on the site. Oh yeah, some animation too.

Visit the Wholphin site for info on subscribing -- you get five DVDs for $40.00. There's also info on submitting your own films for future issues of the zine.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/08/2006 08:47:00 PM Comments (1)

Dennis Lim has a great half-page profile of writer/director Andrew Bujalski in the Sunday New York Times. Bujalski, who Matt Ross selected as one of our "25 New Faces" three years ago, has built up a big fan and critical base with his two features, Funny Ha Ha and Mutual Appreciation. Lim uncovers some good stuff -- I didn't know, for example, that Chantal Akerman was Bujalski's filmmaking thesis advisor at Harvard and that she instructed him to run down the hall one day after a possible performer.

Lim ends the piece by discussing what the future could hold for a moderately successful no-budget filmmaker:

"He now finds himself grappling with the same career anxieties as his Mutual Appreciation hero, who goes through the motions of networking and self-promotion with an ambivalence that often shades into dread. Mr. Bujalski has acquired an agent and is looking to the economic models of independent stalwarts like John Cassavetes and John Sayles, who financed personal projects by taking on work for hire. Hoping for a shot at Hollywood screenwriting, he recently connected with some executives in Los Angeles, though he said he treated the meetings more like therapy sessions: 'I would go in and tell them my problems,' he said. 'They always had a couch.'

As the big 3-0 looms for this chronicler of 20-something malaise, his first two features increasingly represent not just an impractical way of working but also a quixotic way of life. 'As I get older and my friends get older,' Mr. Bujalski said, 'it's harder to say to people, 'Take a month off from your life and work for me for free.' "

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/08/2006 12:50:00 AM Comments (0)

First there was inclusion of video in the iTunes music store, an now, with Friday's announcement by Google, is the new Google Video Store, currently online in a beta version. For those slow to the party, here's a good Los Angeles Times piece by Chris Gaither explaining Google's approach, which allows producers to upload their own videos and set their own price for downloads and decide whether or not to allow copy-protection. (The copy-protected works on the site use Google's proprietary technology and are annoyingly not transferable to video iPods.) Google is launching the service with 5,000 titles, including films distributed by our friends at GreenCine.

One savvy early adopter of the Google service is Ben Rekhi, producer of the film Bomb the System and director of the L.A.-set disaster pic Waterborne (pictured), which we've covered previously in Mary Glucksman's In Focus column. Rekhi is streaming the film for free on Google for this first week of the service and then will be selling a downloadable version for $4.99 that is DVD-burnable.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/07/2006 07:06:00 PM Comments (0)

Via The Reeler comes this link to Jen Cheung's interview with Brooklyn-based filmmaker Kareem Edouard in The Gothamist.

Edouard has recently made a short doc, Bling: Consequences and Repercussions that takes a look at the abuse of young African workers in the diamond minds of Sierra Leone. It's the subject tackled by Kanye West in his hit of last year, "Diamonds are Forever," but Edouard fills in more of the blanks, aided by a v.o. from Public Enemy's Chuck D.

The film is downloadable by clicking on the link above, and Edouard's site even allows it to be sampled in both video iPod and PSP versions.

Here's Edouard from Cheung's interview:

"The problem that we run into is that non minorities often tackle subject matters such as Hip Hop, Civil Rights and minority sports figures. Subjects specifically dealing with minorities. Much of the time non minorities have the access to the tools and financing to get projects off the ground. Another problem facing minority filmmakers is when they are pigeon holed into dealing with only certain subject matters. Some of the top DVD's tend to deal with the negative aspects of our culture.

Right now I feel that the industry is more about using minority agents to export their own culture. I want to take a critical look at some of the issues that make us who we are."

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/07/2006 06:48:00 PM Comments (0)

I missed the event held last night at the Tribeca Cinemas by the makers of Street Fight, the engrossing documentary on the 2002 Newark mayoral race. Director Marshall Curry, one of our "25 New Faces of 2005," followed Cory Booker as he challenged five-term mayor Sharpe James for the job and was shocked when James not only attacked Booker but also turned his ire on Curry as well.

I guess the event must have been a kick-off to Booker's 2006 campaign, but there's no word yet on a film sequel. I hope Curry considers it. His films could be the Godfather and Godfather 2 of American politics.

Here's Debra Dickerson in The Washington Monthly about the 2002 race before she concludes that "Newark Part Deux is going to be a very bumpy ride":

"James ran on a platform of squashing any dissent from within the black ranks and of letting his beleaguered constituents eat the cake of impoverished black identity. He called Booker 'white boy,' 'faggot,' and claimed he was 'a Republican' supported by 'the Jews' and 'the Klan'. The off duty policemen in James' security detail roughed up Booker supporters and the documentary film crew following the campaign (I supplied commentary for the film); they ejected Booker supporters and journalists from public spaces where James campaigns. Booker supporters lost their jobs, their licenses, their parking permits. James affected fury that Booker, what Bull Connor would have called an outside agitator, 'maligned' Newark's inner city as blighted, that people suffered there. He was shocked, shocked that anyone would claim that there was a lost tribe of poor blacks somewhere in Newark who weren't quite living the dream. Watching the footage was like watching Eyes on the Prize but with blacks as the truncheon-wielding thugs."

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/07/2006 12:27:00 PM Comments (2)

Cam Archer emailed to say that the website for his feature, Wild Tigers I Have Known is online. It premieres later this month at the Sundance Film Festival in the Frontier section.

If you don't know Archer's shorts, you can get a glimpse of his style by checking out the site, which has the same hand-etched, artisanal qualities as his very intimate films. His is a film I'm really looking forward to at the festival.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/07/2006 12:04:00 AM Comments (0)

Here's Jim Cramer on the video podcasting revolution:

"Bloggers may be stealing readers away from newspapers, but when it comes to audio and video feeds, people will go for high production values. Which would you rather spend time uploading to your iPod: An episode of Lost or a grainy feed of someone prattling about their favorite celeb? So, for a few more years, the media we download will be the same stuff you see or hear on old media. The masses will have to wait for cheap, yet sophisticated production technology in order to win a wider audience. Until then, the quickest route to fame will remain reality TV."

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/06/2006 12:41:00 PM Comments (1)

As Indiewire and Anne Thompson have reported, veteran exec Amy Israel, who worked acquisitions for Miramax and then production for the L.A. post house The Orphanage, has been named Executive Vice President of Production and Acquisitions at Paramount Classics by its new head, John Lesher.

In a statement, Lesher said, ""Amy's extensive background and stellar reputation makes her an ideal choice to help us create a wholly new, dynamic production and acquisition-driven film business. Her expertise as a producer, and her involvement in some of the most successful independent films of the last decade speak volumes about her leadership and the direction we want to take our new specialty film label."

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/05/2006 05:28:00 PM Comments (0)

A poster who calls himself Fuckles over at Ain't It Cool sends world from a The New World Q&A screening with producer Sarah Green that there will be three cuts of Terrence Malick's new film. The cut that's in the theaters now, a likely "trimmed" version that will consist of the same scenes but shorter, and then an extended cut that's longer than the 155-minute current cut. Green apparently said the current cut will "always exist," but the poster hypothesizes that it's soon to fall by the wayside, stranded between the more audience-friendly cut and Malick's full-blown epic version.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/04/2006 01:52:00 PM Comments (1)

Dennis Cooper writes about artist Ryan Trecartin in the pages of Artforum this month, situating the 24-year-old's work somewhere alongside that of "Kenneth Anger, Jack Smith, and early John Waters."

From the piece:

"...everything aesthetic about his videos -- from the baroque screenplays that polish flippant teen slang into cascading soliloquies to the dueling fascinations with profound loneliness and extremely affected behavior to the swarming, jumbled, yet precisely composed shots that pack each frame to the rafters with visual stimuli -- displays a near obliviousness to what's going on in his field, whether it be the cliches of current video art or the signature styles of past experimental films."

A bit later Cooper describes how Trecartin was discovered:

"Trecartin was "discovered" last spring when a student at the Cleveland Institute of Art showed visiting artist Sue De Beer a few minutes of a crazy video he'd found on the dating/networking website www.friendster.com. Upon her return to New York, De Beer told writer and former New Museum curator Rachel Greene about her find. With only the artist's first name to go on, together they searched Friendster's database until they found Trecartin's profile, then wrote to ask if he would send them a copy of the video in its entirety -- a forty-one-minute work titled "A Family Finds Entertainment," 2004. Floored by what she saw, Greene began showing the piece to enthusiastic artists, curators, and gallerists. Several months and much buzz later, Trecartin's first solo show opens in January at Los Angeles gallery QED; the J. Paul Getty Museum, an institution not exactly known for supporting young, unproven artists, has commissioned a new work that will be exhibited this spring; and AFFE, the video that started it all, will be in this year's Whitney Biennial."

According to the article, Trecartin was recently based in New Orleans but left after Hurricane Katrina "destroyed Trecartin's elaborately painted, decorated home (featured prominently in the video) and with it virtually all of the nondigital artwork he'd ever made." He now lives in L.A. Concludes Cooper in his piece: " THE wonder of Trecartin's videos is that his approach seems as intuitive and driven by a mad scientist–style tunnel vision as it is rigorous and sophisticated, grounded in his expert editing and inordinate gift for constructing complex avant-garde narratives. For this reason, his movies resist the kind of deconstructive analysis through which one normally manages to strip new, challenging art down to its nuts and bolts. It's early yet, but the great excitement of Trecartin's work is that it honestly does seem to have come from out of nowhere." Click on the link above to read the rest of the piece, which includes a great description of the narrative for "A Family Finds Entertainment."

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/03/2006 10:28:00 PM Comments (0)