Archive for August, 2006
Thursday, August 17th, 2006
The Chrysler Film Project has announced their five finalists for this year’s competition. Geared (notice the pun?) toward emerging filmmakers with high aspirations, the contest asks for a short film under 40 minutes along with a corresponding feature length script. The winning filmmaker will receive $5,000 and the opportunity to create a “production package” with a $1 million budget courtesy of Chrysler and Silverwood Films. In theory, the winner will go into preproduction as early as this September, so long as their film features a Chrysler vehicle. The finalists are a diverse group with unique backgrounds and more importantly, unique films. From a pick pocketing love story to a special-ed road trip, the shorts sound interesting and any one of them seems like it could make a good feature – with or without the Chrysler plug. For those of you who missed the April deadline Chrysler intends on heading up the project again next year, possibly opening it up internationally.… Read the rest
Wednesday, August 16th, 2006
Halfway through Pusher, Nicolas Winding Refn’s first installment in what would ultimately become an epic trilogy, the director faced a predicament. Suddenly, the genre marked by guns and car chases held no interest. He abandoned the beatings and foot chases from the film’s early scenes, and went for a haunting, harrowing character study. “I realized I wasn’t interested in gangsters and crime,” the Danish filmmaker explains of his 1996 film. “I was really interested in the morality of the characters, and their emotional descents into hell.”
That’s from KM Doughton’s feature on Nicholas Winding Refn’s Pusher trilogy which we’ve just posted to the Filmmaker main page. Check it out. And the films, by the way, open this weekend in New York.… Read the rest
Wednesday, August 16th, 2006
Director Nicolas Winding Refn on “The Pusher Trilogy”
KIM BODNIA IN “PUSHER”
Halfway through “Pusher,” Nicolas Winding Refn’s first installment in what would ultimately become an epic trilogy, the director faced a predicament. Suddenly, the genre marked by guns and car chases held no interest. He abandoned the beatings and foot chases from the film’s early scenes, and went for a haunting, harrowing character study. “I realized I wasn’t interested in gangsters and crime,” the Danish filmmaker explains of his 1996 film. “I was really interested in the morality of the characters, and their emotional descents into hell.”
“The Pusher Trilogy” is currently addicting audiences at film festivals, and word of its tough-to-shake resonance will grow during a theatrical run this fall. Refn’s vision is raw, gruesome, and unsavory – a downward spiral of decay through Copenhagen’s Vesterbro District. We wander through red light hotels and smoke-filled bars with junkies and prostitutes. We’re left alone with shady crime lords who cook up thoughtful snacks, before serving up less hospitable electro-torture to deadbeat clients.
Recruited not by Hollywood agents, but through on-the-street casting calls, many of Refn’s onscreen subjects are the genuine articles. “I liked the idea of having real people,” explains the 35 year-old director, still in his mid-twenties when the first film wrapped. “With the ‘Pusher’ films, I wanted real crime. I wanted to set people from an environment like that into a fictionalized world depicting themselves. See how they would act, and morally portray those characters.”
KIM BODNIA AND LAURA DRASB?K IN “PUSHER”
Aside from the trilogy’s convincing, here-and-now realism, it also captures three magnificent character studies. During “Pusher,” we spend time with Frank (Kim Bodnia), a brutish, physical smack dealer with serious debt issues. In “Pusher 2: With Blood on my Hands” (2004), the limelight shines on Tonney (Danish superstar and upcoming Bond baddie Mads Mikkelsen), an insecure young punk dismissed by both his gangland father and an arrogant girlfriend. “Pusher 3: I’m the Angel of Death” (2005) concludes the series by following Milo (Zlatko Buric), a Croatian crime kingpin troubled by ecstacy-peddling competitors, a spoiled, rich-bitch
… Read the rest
Wednesday, August 16th, 2006
Director Nicolas Winding Refn on “The Pusher Trilogy”
KIM BODNIA IN “PUSHER”
Halfway through “Pusher,” Nicolas Winding Refn’s first installment in what would ultimately become an epic trilogy, the director faced a predicament. Suddenly, the genre marked by guns and car chases held no interest. He abandoned the beatings and foot chases from the film’s early scenes, and went for a haunting, harrowing character study. “I realized I wasn’t interested in gangsters and crime,” the Danish filmmaker explains of his 1996 film. “I was really interested in the morality of the characters, and their emotional descents into hell.”
“The Pusher Trilogy” is currently addicting audiences at film festivals, and word of its tough-to-shake resonance will grow during a theatrical run this fall. Refn’s vision is raw, gruesome, and unsavory – a downward spiral of decay through Copenhagen’s Vesterbro District. We wander through red light hotels and smoke-filled bars with junkies and prostitutes. We’re left alone with shady crime lords who cook up thoughtful snacks, before serving up less hospitable electro-torture to deadbeat clients.
Recruited not by Hollywood agents, but through on-the-street casting calls, many of Refn’s onscreen subjects are the genuine articles. “I liked the idea of having real people,” explains the 35 year-old director, still in his mid-twenties when the first film wrapped. “With the ‘Pusher’ films, I wanted real crime. I wanted to set people from an environment like that into a fictionalized world depicting themselves. See how they would act, and morally portray those characters.”
KIM BODNIA AND LAURA DRASB?K IN “PUSHER”
Aside from the trilogy’s convincing, here-and-now realism, it also captures three magnificent character studies. During “Pusher,” we spend time with Frank (Kim Bodnia), a brutish, physical smack dealer with serious debt issues. In “Pusher 2: With Blood on my Hands” (2004), the limelight shines on Tonney (Danish superstar and upcoming Bond baddie Mads Mikkelsen), an insecure young punk dismissed by both his gangland father and an arrogant girlfriend. “Pusher 3: I’m the Angel of Death” (2005) concludes the series by following Milo (Zlatko Buric), a Croatian crime kingpin troubled by ecstacy-peddling competitors, a spoiled, rich-bitch
… Read the rest
Wednesday, August 16th, 2006
Astra Taylor, one of our “25 New Faces” this year, passed on information about a new media activist and documentary organization, Lens on Lebanon, currently seeking donations and support.
From the group:
Lens on Lebanon is a grassroots documentary initiative formed in response to the devastating Israeli bombardment of 2006. As filmmakers, journalists, and activists from Lebanon, Europe, and North America, we are pooling our resources to deliver film and video equipment into communities in south Lebanon, and to bring out documentary evidence as well as photo narratives, and video diaries of daily life under siege. With its infrastructure destroyed, a burgeoning refugee crisis, and its towns and villages under continual bombardment, the south is becoming less accessible to journalists and – with U.N observers fleeing under Israeli fire in early August – increasingly isolated from the outside world. Lens on Lebanon is a non-partisan collective whose primary concern is to provide technical support to local communities under fire in order that they might document lived experience of the conflict on their own terms.
Lens on Lebanon is urgently seeking donations of small hand-held cameras, digital cameras and digital video tape stock, as well as the necessary accessories like battery chargers, memory sticks and firewire cables. Donations of money to cover the costs of transporting the equipment to the region, travel expenses for volunteers and overall maintenance expenses, can be made securely through PayPal on our support page.
Visit the site for some amazing postings, including transcripts of first-person interviews of Lebanese recounting their experiences during the war, some nuanced commentary and description of the current social and political reconstruction, and a video letter filmed during the war by a film and cinema collective which runs the yearly Ayam Beirut Al Cinema’iya Film Festival.… Read the rest
Tuesday, August 15th, 2006
I kinda wondered this myself when I read the story: Why is George Bush reading on his vacation in Crawford, Texas, an existentialist novel about a man who impulsively and without provocation kills an Arab?
John Dickerson gives it some more thought over at Slate:
Unhappy tales of East meets West are found in the papers every day, so presumably the president was looking for more, but his aides will not tell us what he made of the story of a remorseless killer of Arabs. White House spokesman Tony Snow said Bush “found it an interesting book and a quick read” and talked about it with aides. “I don’t want to go too deep into it, but we discussed the origins of existentialism,” said Snow.
Oh please, Tony, go into it. This is no time to be vague. The president uttered the word “crusade” a single time when talking about fighting terrorists and critics in Europe and the Middle East still use it as proof that his war aims are motivated by 11th-century wide-eyed religious zealotry. Surely someone is going to think that Bush read the book because he identifies with Meursault. There’s got to be another explanation. Does his experience in Iraq push him to read works replete with themes of angst, anxiety, and dread? Was the president trying to gain insight into the thinking of Europeans who are skeptical of his plan for democracy in the Middle East, founded as it is on the idea of a universal rational essence that existentialists reject? Did he just want to read something short for his truncated vacation? This may be the first time that national security demands an official version of literary criticism. We want a book report!
… Read the rest
Tuesday, August 15th, 2006
A true film addict loves nothing more than talking about film. But if you’re tired of listening to some film critic drone on and on about a movie you’re not going to see, or you can’t take one more minute of Ebert and Roeper, you need a new way to get your film-talk fix. Cue Scene Unseen, a new podcast on Apple iTunes that guarentees to deliver that fresh perspective you’ve been looking for. This month-old radio show is the baby of Chris and Jimmy, two industry insiders whose wit keeps the banter smart and the direction unpredictable. If this doesn’t already distinguish them from their fellow movie reviewers, the show’s twist will. The hook of Scene Unseen lies in its name–one of the reviewers hasn’t seen the movie. But that’s not a problem. In fact it’s the edge.
This past week the boys of Scene Unseen reviewed Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. The discussion is both a cheeky and an academic look at the film, Will Farrell’s body of work, and a string of other tangents Chris and Jimmy wandered into. Check out their weekly podcast. It’s both priceless and free.… Read the rest
Thursday, August 10th, 2006
Indie film addicts are a rare breed – they spend most of their free time in darkened theaters, they compile ranking systems for every cinematic category imaginable, and they love to talk and talk and talk about movies. Meet the target audience for Nerve.com’s latest launch, the Nerve Film Lounge. Dedicated to the discussion (albeit sometimes exhausting) of independent film, the lounge is a virtual hangout for aficionados. What separates Nerve’s lounge from the overabundance of forums out there is the emphasis on the interactive and uh, well, the sex. Not only do they encourage readers to add commentary and write reviews, they’re getting personal. Logging on to Nerve.com can gain you access to the profiles of more than 2,000 other “indie addicts” all looking for someone’s hand to hold in that darkened theater. So if it’s interviews and gossip you’re after or the phone number of that cute girl who “really dug The Puffy Chair,” Nerve’s Film Lounge may have what you’re looking for.… Read the rest
Thursday, August 10th, 2006
Screenwriter John August (Go, Big Fish) has been directing a movie, an indie and his first, and he’s been writing about it on his blog. This week he discusses the dilemma of working within the industry and still trying to audience-test your work:
Last Monday was the first time I put The Movie in front of an audience: thirty friends and colleagues recruited to help figure out whether the film was appropriately funny, dramatic, and comprehensible. (Answers: Yes, Yes, and Not So Much. We’re working on that last part.)
Screening a work-in-progress is just as nerve-wracking as it sounds. Going in, you know the film isn’t perfect. You’re projecting low-resolution video, with temp music, temp visual effects, and bad sound. But it’s a crucial step, because it’s impossible for filmmakers to see their movie with fresh eyes. You need an audience to laugh, gasp or murmur in confusion.
The thirty people who watched the cut were incredibly generous with their time and comments, not only staying afterwards to talk, but also filling out cards and emailing additional thoughts. They made the movie significantly better.
But as great as they were, the fact that they were friends and colleagues was a significant detriment. They had an emotional investment: they wanted to like it. They were also largely film-and-television people, hardly a representative cross-section of the movie-going public.
The obvious next step would be to put The Movie in front of a real recruited audience, i.e. strangers.
But I can’t.
The very same internet that makes this site possible makes a real test screening impossible. Or at the least, a very risky proposition.
Odds are, one or more of those recruited strangers would recognize my name, the producers, or the actors involved and decide it would be a really good idea to write in to Ain’t It Cool News or a site like it. Quite a scoop, after all, reviewing a movie where even the premise has been kept hush-hush.
Reviews of test screenings are frustrating for a big studio like Warner Bros., but they’re potentially ruinous for a
… Read the rest
Thursday, August 10th, 2006
… does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Answer: Does it have to be a lightbulb?
Jokes aside, the topic of producer credits — who deserves them, who doesn’t, and whether or not they should be regulated — has been in the news this year due to producer and financier Bob Yari’s lawsuit against the Producers Guild of America and AMPAS regarding his credit on Crash. In the new Filmmaker, producer Kendall Morgan (Southland Tales) uses the Yari case as the jumping off point for a discussion of these issues, and her piece — which is not posted on the web — has already elicited much feedback from fellow producers thankful that this subject is getting a proper examination.
A tiny excerpt:
Still, the question remains: what defines a producer and what secures his or her credit? Does bringing financing to a picture truly make someone a producer? How about the person who works for a long time on a project for free in return for an eventual credit? Does a person with the ability to access name cast deserve a producer credit? Where do you draw the line especially if giving that credit helps you get your movie financed, bought, or made? Would Phillip Seymour Hoffman have acted in Capoteif he didn’t have executive producer credit? Would he not take a pay cut without being rewarded with a credit?
Check out Morgan’s piece on the newsstands this month.… Read the rest
