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BEST FILM NOT PLAYING AT A THEATER NEAR YOU @MOMA THIS WEEKEND

Scott Macaulay
Contributing Editor Brandon Harris has posted on his blog a new preview of Filmmaker and MoMA's annual "Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You" program, which unspools at the museum this week. Screening will be the five films that will be competing for the Gotham Award we sponsor on December 1. (For schedule and film descriptions, visit MoMA's site.) Brandon writes that this year's program [continue]

THIS WAS MTV IN THE '90s

Scott Macaulay
It didn't used to be all reality shows. In 1990 MTV aired Buzz, an experimental video art collage show by director Mark Pellington. Genesis P-Orridge, William Burroughs, RU Sirius, David Byrne, and other transgressive thinkers (oh yes, and Jon Bon Jovi) were all featured in the debut show, which was openly inspired by Bruce Conner and other experimental filmmakers. Boing Boing noticed that the [continue]

OSCAR DOC SHORTLIST: THE COVE & FOOD, INC. IN; TYSON & CAPITALISM OUT

Jason Guerrasio
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have announced the 15 films that have made the shortlist for Best Documentary. Two of the most prised docs of the year made the list: Louie Psihoyos's The Cove and Robert Kenner's Food, Inc., as well as a few lesser known titles like Anders Ostergaard's Burma VJ and Matt Tyrnauer's Valentino: The Last Emperor. But surprisingly excluded were Michael [continue]

READY TO RECord

Jason Guerrasio
The Sundance Institute announced today the 13 artists selected for the New Frontier section at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. These works will be shown at New Frontier on Main, open to the public Thursday, January 21 through Saturday, January 30, 2010. (The full list of artists are below.) One of the artists chosen this year is actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt (pictured), who we discovered last [continue]

THINGS TO DO IN DENVER WHEN YOU'RE DEAD

Howard Feinstein
The mountain came to Mohamed. I picked up a bug that lingered and made me miserable. But I had accepted the honor of being a juror for the Kieslowski Prize at the 31st Starz Denver Film Festival, which began last week and runs through November 22. Only six foreign-language films were competing for our votes, and, either at other festivals or through the kindness of European sales agents, I had [continue]

TWO TAKEAWAYS FROM JON REISS @ THE IFC CENTER

Scott Macaulay
Thanks to everyone who came out tonight for the first in our series, "A New World: A User's Guide for Filmmakers and Audiences" at the IFC Center. The speaker was Jon Reiss, who gave listeners an accelerated yet detailed overview of his thoughts on DIY distribution and what a theatrical release means today. (Some of these thoughts can be found in this article in Filmmaker.) There was a lot to [continue]



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SEVERE CLEAR'S KRISTIAN FRAGA AND MIKE SCOTTI
By Alicia Van Couvering

Severe Clear premiered at SXSW this week, five years to the day after the US invasion of Baghdad. Back then, Kristian Fraga was just one of millions, watching events unfold on cable news. First Lieutenant Mike Scotti was crossing the Iraqi border in an artillery tank, and he had a video camera. [continue]

FOR THE LOVE OF MOVIES' GERALD PEARY
By Alicia Van Couvering

Gerald Peary is not a cell phone person. He has witnessed a quarter century of films and criticism, from when Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris drew their lines in the critical sand to the currently expanding blogosphere. Gerald Peary is old school. A working film critic for 25 years, his work has [continue]

CREATIVE NONFICTION'S LENA DUNHAM
By Alicia Van Couvering

There is an actual college Creative Nonfiction class in Lena Dunham’s Creative Nonfiction, which premieres in the Emerging Visions section at SXSW this week. There is also the actual Dunham, who plays both Ella, a college student trying to get a grip on an ambiguous non-starter romance, as well [continue]

THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF LITTLE DIZZLE'S DAVID RUSSO
By Alicia Van Couvering

David Russo’s The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle is not your average Seattle-based, night-shift janitors eating self-heating cookies as unwitting test subjects male pregnancy special effects-peppered butt fish movie. The film’s official synopsis is: “When Dory’s life seems like [continue]

ST. NICK'S DAVID LOWERY
By Alicia Van Couvering

There is almost no dialogue in the first half of David Lowery’s feature debut, St. Nick. A young boy and a girl enter an abandoned house, clean it up, build a fire, forget to open a window and fill the house with smoke, figure out a chimney and watch the embers turn into flames. They sleep, [continue]

BROCK ENRIGHT'S JODY LEE LIPES
By Alicia Van Couvering

When Jody Lee Lipes set out to follow his friend Brock Enright prepare a solo art show for the prestigious Perry Rubenstein gallery, he knew he wasn’t going to change anyone’s opinion about contemporary art. If you hate the art world, you might still hate it after watching Enright’s [continue]

AMERICAN PRINCE'S TOMMY PALLOTTA
By Scott Macaulay

Even if you consider yourself a literate, well-viewed, cinema completist, you may not remember the name “Steven Prince.” I could jog your memory and tell you that he was influential to the films of Quentin Tarantino, Rick Linklater, and, most directly, Martin Scorsese, and the name still might [continue]

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AROUND AUSTIN AROUND AUSTIN RSS FEED

SXSW HOTEL ROOMS : SARDINES AWARD

The WINNER of the Filmmaker Blog  "Around Austin" ridiculous festival hotel room set-up is:  TEAM EMBASSY SWEETS: Director David Lowery, Director Joe Swanberg, Director Kris Swanberg, Writer Jade Healy, composer Mike Vasitch, Actor Chris Trujillo, and several more who wish not to pay for their [continue]

GOODBYE AUSTIN

Last Day in Austin. Lack of sleep + hangovers + five girls in one room = So it seemed like a good idea to get out of the Alamo (where they serve BEER AND HAMBURGERS to you while you watch movies!) (!!!!!!!!!!!!)  A group trip to Barton Springs was organized. Below, Creative Nonfiction's Lena [continue]

SMILE LIKE YOU MEAN IT

Arms locked together, smiles frozen in place awaiting the digital flash — we all have these photos on our cameras and phones when we return from a film festival. These moments sure look like happy ones now that a festival premiere has spackled over all the fractures that production wrought. At [continue]

#1 RULE ABOUT TEXAS

Everything is big in Texas. Take for example this giant cabbage, growing freely in a parking lot, in Texas.

WEILER REVEALS HIS SECRET

If you were at SXSW up until yesterday, you may have been accosted in one of several ways by protesters of a group who hated a man named Cain and wanted to "Stop Tarp." They threw a protest in the streets, threw dollar bills around the convention center, caused twitter uproars and otherwise seeped [continue]

SWANBERG... KRIS SWANBERG

Joe Swanberg's Alexander the Last is not the only Swanberg film here at SXSW. His wife Kris's movie, It Was Great, But I Was Ready To Come Home, premieres at the festival too. Pictured above at last night's Florida Fish Fry, from left to right, are Alexander the Last star Amy Seimetz, Swanberg, [continue]

THE DUDE BLASPHEMES

When Jeff "The Dude" Dowd told David Lee Miller that Miller's movie My Suicide was as epic and groundbreaking as 2001: A Space Odyssey,  humble Miller replied that such a statement was blasphemy and insulting to filmmakers everywhere. Still seeking word on whether or not the Dude abides. [continue]

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