On my "best of '08" list is a sub-category for the best films I saw on the fest circuit that have distribution in '09, and one of my favorites of these is Astra Taylor's Examined Life. It's a documentary in which the director takes eight philosophers to the streets and explores the way in which their ideas bleed back and forth between the world and their consciousnesses. It's a smart, heady film that is also an especially warm, engaging, and high-spirited viewing experience. Here is the just released official trailer.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/06/2009 11:08:00 PM Comments (0)

One of the questions Apple's filmmaker fans had going into today's Macworld conference was whether the rumored changes to the iLife suite of programs would include an upgrade to iMovie that bring the program's functionality back to where it was before it was disastrously retooled as iMovie HD.

Unfortunately, based on screenwriter and director John August's opinion, it doesn't sound like this happened today. From his blog:

Among the products Apple announced today is iMovie 09, an update to their entry-level video editor that I currently find completely unusable. They have demo videos up showing some of the new features, which range from very helpful (stabilization) to fairly gimmicky (the animated maps).

What’s most clear, however, is that they’re sticking with the bizarre and unfortunate editing interface.

Read the entire post for the rest of his comments.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/06/2009 10:58:00 PM Comments (0)

Cinetic's Matt Dentler, who is part of the roundtable discussion on the current state of the biz in the current Filmmaker ("as discouraging as it was galvanizing" one indie director called it in an email) is interviewed on the CineVegas blog by Roger Erik Tinch. Check it out.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/05/2009 09:18:00 PM Comments (0)

Ray Pride has coverage of the Thessaloniki Film Festival in the upcoming issue of Filmmaker, but over the past few days he's uploaded a bunch of his fantastic fest photography to our Festival Ambassador section. In addition to the Greek festival he's got snaps from Sheffield and True/False as well as embedded clips featuring directors and writers like Azazel Jacobs, Diablo Cody and Michael Ondaatje. There's even a shot of Peter Broderick in a swami hat and, here, Emir Kusturica leading his No Smoking band.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/05/2009 12:22:00 AM Comments (0)

CinemaTech's Scott Kirsner has been collaborating with ITVS on a series of case studies focusing on filmmakers who are using new technologies to connect with their audiences and achieve distribution. The first seven case studies, featuring filmmakers like Hunter Weeks and Josh Caldwell, Tiffany Shlain and Kate Chevigny, are up now as is Kirsner's "Top Five Digital Strategies for Social Issue Filmmakers." Check them out at the links above.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/04/2009 05:17:00 PM Comments (0)

I've posted a couple of times about the Google Book Settlement, more from a general interest in intellectual property issues than anything else. The relationship between the settlement's engagement with the publishing industry and its possible application to the world of film are not direct by any means. The Google Book Settlement applies to library collections containing copyrighted but out-of-print works as well as orphan works. But, I did suspect that at some point the issues involved would become relevant to the world of film. (Remember, Google owns YouTube.)

Now comes a piece critical about the proposed terms of the settlement from Chris Castle at The Register. He especially takes issue with the proprietary nature of the register Google is creating and the "opt-out" aspect of the permissions process.

From the piece:

Allowing a content registry to be controlled by a company that also exploits that content creates anticompetitive conditions even without the MFN. Potential competitors will worry that their business depends on an infrastructure controlled by a dominant competitor.

History shows that if a company that does the paying also does the counting, there is an inherent tendency for shenanigans against the creators. Imagine if the British performing rights society the MCPS-PRS Alliance outsourced its royalty collection and accounting to broadcasters. The fox would be in the chicken house, and the writers would revolt.

So where does film come in? Well, Castle quotes from this piece in The Wall Street Journal Online in which Google's Sergey Brin talks about other possibilities:

WSJ: Is establishing a registry for rights holders a model that Google thinks it can replicate in other areas of digital media, like video?

Brin: “Very much so. In fact, with video and our fingerprinting technology, we are essentially building the registry. We have a number of big media companies that send us their raw video files and we fingerprint that and we can attribute those videos to them.”

WSJ: What about in the music industry?

Brin: “The music industry faces a lot of similar problems. There has been a lot of litigating and lack of trust, and it is not something that we have pursued much because there do seem to be other parties that are trying to sort it out. In general, we do want to be comprehensive and we have agreements with many music companies for music videos on YouTube. It is definitely something that is within our sphere”.

Comments Castle:

Regulators should care who controls the Google Books registry because it can easily reach out to other content. Google is well on its way to dominating all search and advertising, and now maybe a significant share of online content. Google’s ability to accomplish transparent accounting is definitely in doubt.

And he concludes:

The plaintiffs got it half right - our business needs a registry. But that registry ought to be independent, and opt-in. If the Google class action settlement is approved, US courts will essentially create the opposite - an opt-out registry controlled by a dominant player with "most favoured nation" price protection. It is a fundamental principle of international law that an author should not be compelled to submit to formalities (such as an opt-out registry) in order to enjoy their rights.

But the borderless Internet drives creators toward at least pan-economic area licensing to encourage and facilitate competition among legitimate businesses. It is hard to see how a single-purpose opt-out books registry with a goodie-laden court-ordered license reached in the context of unequal litigation furthers any worthwhile public policy.

Regulators urgently need to take a closer look at this settlement. A win-win resolution of the harms done by Google to the authors and publishers would be to make Google pay for (or at least pay to start) a truly independent registry in line with current policy trends that could further these goals of cultural protections for all authors and citizens, voluntary opt-in licensing regimes that promote competition, and royalties for creators.

Related is this article about Google generally, "Google the Destroyer," by James V. DeLong, special counsel and chairman of the Intellectual Property practice area in the Washington, D.C. office of Kamlet Shepherd & Reichert. While I don't agree with everything in his piece, his discussion of Google's interests in promoting ad-supported content models is interesting:

Several ways of financing the creation and distribution of content exist. Consumers can pay directly, either per ticket (a movie) or for a subscription (XM Radio). Ads can be sold, either combined with a payment (magazines) or stand-alone (broadcast TV). Or a distribution company can sell raw access to the network, and let the users worry about the content (telephone). And of course there are hybrids, where basic service is sold cheaply, and premium offerings bundled on top of it (cell phones, plus ringtones).

Of all of these, advertising is the least satisfactory. In a system based on advertising, the consumer is a product, not a customer. His eyeballs and ears are sold to an advertiser. The link between the value a customer places on a piece of content and the money available to fund its creation becomes slender indeed. I might be willing to pay $100 for a particular performance, while the value of my eyeballs to advertiser is a mere dime. In an advertising-based system, only the latter counts.

There is nothing wrong with advertising-based systems, but they should not be allowed to crowd out other forms of financing, in which the consumers of content are actually the customers (and thus the kings).

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/04/2009 04:34:00 PM Comments (0)

I was kind of perplexed by Michael Glitz's piece on The Huffington Post entitled "DVDS -- How and Why You Should Switch to BluRay." He runs through all the standard arguments -- they look better, that's the way the industry is heading, you can play your standard-def DVDs on a BluRay player, and if you have a 1080p flat-screen you're getting the most out if it with BluRay. All reasonable arguments, and, in fact, while I don't have a BluRay player I spent an evening with a friend the other day who has one and the picture quality of remastered old films like The Searchers was incredible.

But I guess the tone of the piece struck me as odd; it's something that I'd expect to read in a home video magazine rather than the Huffington Post. I don't think anybody's doubting that BluRay disks look better; the question for people today is both whether they can afford to buy a player and a modest number of disks to make it worthwhile, or, perhaps more importantly, if they feel like investing in a new physical media format. Because, the struggle to get consumers to adopt BluRay is being complicated by the growth of digital downloads and streaming from iTunes store, Netflix, etc. Sure, they don't look as good, even when they are touted as HD, but they are more convenient, can be transferred to a handheld device, and they don't junk up your living room or basement.

The argument is playing out in the comments section, which I found of more interest than the article itself. Some samples:

"The Blurays are slowly taking over the dvd section at Best Buy. Personally I'm just downloading all of my movies digitally these days. Digital downloads are the future ..." -- davism97

"Pay a few more bucks for cable, and you can get all the movies your heart desires either for free, or for $5, on the spot, just by hitting the ">" key on your remote!

How often do people really watch Batman on DVD, or BluRay anyway? 10 times a month? I doubt it. Just watch it On Demand, through your cable subscription. It's so much greener than buying all new BluRays. What a colossal waste, replacing everything.

Also, Netflix, under certain plans, lets you watch movies on your computer! Hook up your computer to your TV, and you're good to go!" -- Truth and Theory

"Unless we plan on waiting for about 2 more years when hard goods are dead. Apple TV, OnDemand, Netfilx... all will allow you to just download movies, buy them or rent them. No need to store countless DVDs that just take up room gather dust, clutter up the living room, make you look like a geek and slowly become obsolete." -- Skudgobang

"Hey in 3 years I can put that Bluray player in the garage with my useless DVD player and other out of date electronics that were over priced and now useless because technology moved beyond it. Are you a salesman for BestBuy or something? Let me know when a BluRay player is down below 50 dollars, but spending 200 for something that will be obsolete in a few years is not practical. Besides I am using that money to buy things I need like food. But thanks for the heads up." -- jdenham

"This does sound like a commercial from a troubled industry. I recently bought a dvd player with up-converting feature for less than $90, it has fantastic image, nothing else needed. I have no need, no intention to pay extra for blu-ray player or discs." -- racom

"Please. BluRay will be passed over in favor of downloaded media. It's already happened for music and it is beginning to happen with video. New devices that do exactly this are popping up like weeds every day. Apple, Net Flix, and Block Buster already have attractive products for downloading and streaming videos to rent or own.

Why would I want to keep a discrete piece of plastic lying around in my home for each video I purchase when I can just download it without having to go to a store and pay retail costs for shipping, storage, and shelf space? Why would I want to have to return a rental to a store, vending machine, or mail them back and forth?

Furthermore, the technological jump from DVD to BluRay is nowhere near the magnitude of change that was seen going from VHS to DVD. All you're getting with BluRay is more density, more unwanted DRM, and more cost. There is no compelling need to upgrade. This lesser technological difference will only slow Blu Ray adoption rates, giving the systems for downloaded video an easier path to market saturation.

Downloaded video becomes more viable as magnetic storage becomes cheaper and home broadband increases in bandwidth and penetration in major consumer markets.

Sony is feeling the pain of having invested so many resources in a format that is not needed and already outdated.

This article is so patently ridiculous one must wonder how much you were paid to shill for them." -- generalstore

Okay, I cherry-picked these quotes, but I'd say the comments thread ran about two to one against the author's call for us to immediately buy BluRay.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/04/2009 02:26:00 PM Comments (6)

I just came across on the Interview magazine site this talk between director Harmony Korine and artist photographer William Eggleston, whose "William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, 1961- 80" is up now and essential at New York's Whitney Museum. (A slide show of some of his images is above.)

An excerpt:

HK: Would you take photos of a Kroger today?

WE: Certainly.

HK: And do you think it would have that same effect looking at it 20 years from now?

WE: I think so.

HK: So you think time makes things more exotic?

WE: I don't think exotic is the word.

HK: So what do you think happens?

WE: Well, probably the best way to put it might be that at some time, not just in an instant, but over some period of time I became aware of the fact that I wanted to document examples like Kroger or Piggly Wiggly in the late '50s, early '60s. I had the attitude that I would work with this present-day material and do the best I could to describe it with photography, not intending to make any particular comment about whether it was good or bad or whether I liked it or not. It was just there, and I was interested in it. That's what I still do today.

Director Michael Almereyda made a documentary about Eggleston, William Eggleston and the Real World, and the Whitney asked him to speak with the artist in this short video shot on the eve of the exhibition.



Finally, over at FilmInFocus, Eggleston riffs off five influential films. Here are his thoughts on one, Gone with the Wind.

Technicolor was used just perfectly in it. It's like a dye transfer. Hell, it is a dye-transfer. Tutwiler [Mississippi] was about five miles from [my childhood home of] Sumner, and we'd go once a week or so when I was a boy. Movies were never a visual influence on me. I never really go to them, even now. There was an art theater in Memphis that Rosa and I went to in the mid-’60s to see European and black-and-white movies. I am sure there must have been some in color but I can't drum one up.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/03/2009 09:18:00 PM Comments (0)

Ted Hope has been running on his blog an upbeat series of posts in which he finds reasons to be optimistic about change in the independent film business. Check out his first post here , his most recent post ((22-25) here, and scroll in between for the rest.

And here's one sample:

22. Financiers are collaborating with each other. Groups like Impact Partners that provide regular deal flow, vetting, and producerial oversight for investors with common interests lowers the threshold number for investors interested in entering the film business. IndieVest is another model based on subscription, deal flow, and perqs. The high amount of capital needed to enter the film business has limited its participants. The film business has its own vernacular, and mysterious business practices. It is an industry of relationships. Collaborative ventures like this help to solve many of these threshold issues.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/03/2009 04:20:00 PM Comments (0)

Via Boing Boing and Constant Seige comes this fun YouTube clip with Andy Warhol, Steven Spielberg and Bianca Jagger talking about tv static, ghosts, and the future.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/03/2009 02:14:00 PM Comments (0)

The issue of Filmmaker that's at the printer right now has a piece by Lance Weiler about data portability -- how we should be advocating for our right to carry with us our social network data as we trek across the 'net. In the piece he mentions the filmmaker Arin Crumley and his recently deleted Facebook page. Writes Arin on his new Facebook profile, "The old one was disabled by Facebook because I had over 2,000 friends, so for this one, we have to have met in person for me to add you." Lance's warning resonated today once more as, over at Ain't It Cool News, Harry Knowles notes that his Facebook page has been disabled:

Well, apparently my account had too much "activity" around my Birthday. I had received a couple of thousand Birthday well-wishes, and apparently FACEBOOK admins have some kneejerk to accounts that have that level of activity. I don't know if this is the case, but as I hadn't violated any of their "codes of conduct" I can't imagine what else it could be. And FACEBOOK doesn't seem to want to repond to inquiries of any kind

.

So, as our company seems to be pretty decent, this is as good a time as any to note that Filmmaker's Facebook profile got deleted this past week as well. Now, our first Facebook profile was as a person, which is something you're not supposed to do when you're a company or organization. We didn't know that when we signed up, and when we did, we came up with a fan page and asked everyone to join that instead. Still, we had way more people on the profile page (almost 5,000) than we do on the fan site, and that's probably why it was deleted. Anyway, if you are on Facebook and you liked getting the occasional posting or piece of news from us, consider searching for us (or clicking here) and becoming a fan so you'll receive them once more.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/02/2009 10:14:00 PM Comments (5)

It seems whenever the economy is down you'll hear some rose-colored-glasses wearing producer saying, "Great, now that stocks and real estates are no longer offering investors a return, they'll turn to film!"

Well, for those of you waiting to see how the economic collapse will affect independent filmmakers, Hannah Seligson in The New York Times offers one possibility: there may soon be more of us.

From the piece:

With Wall Street hemorrhaging jobs, bonuses disappearing and the financial sector going through a seismic shift, some bankers and lawyers are switching lanes to more creative career paths. They are putting down their Wall Street Journals and picking up Variety as they try their hands at comedy, filmmaking and writing.

Harry B. Weiner, a partner at On-Ramps, a recruiting and consulting firm that works with financial professionals, says the economic downturn is creating a new psychology of career transition.

“People feel there’s nothing to lose in terms of taking a risk and pursuing a new direction, especially when you have a résumé that says ‘banking’ and no banks are hiring,” Mr. Weiner said.

That was certainly the calculus for Benjamin Cox, 33. After leaving his job as a vice president at Goldman Sachs in August, he immediately began incubating his plans to work on his screenplay — he calls it a cross between Swingers and Annie Hall — and start a production company.

Mr. Cox said that with the upheaval on Wall Street, he feels relieved to have a backup plan. “I’m seeing a lot of people who never thought of an alternative to banking.”

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/01/2009 11:32:00 PM Comments (1)

For a final post of '08, I'll note the closing of the Kim's Video rental store on St. Marks Place, that home of region-free art cinema, scuzzed-out sexploitation VHS, and the occasional bootleg. As noted in Jeremiah's Vanishing New York, the collection is being packed up and shipped... to Salemi, Italy.

From the blog post:

According to the extensive informational poster on display in Mondo Kim's on St. Marks, "The town of Salemi is planning to launch the Neverending Festival, a non-stop public projection of Kim's Video Collection DVDs in their new home."

Wow.

In addition, "For paid-up Kim's members, access to the collection will always be free of charge. Furthermore, Salemi will provide accommodations to both Kim's members and students who want to have access to the collection at minimum charge."

Hear that? Let's go to Sicily and watch Teenage Devil Dolls and Delinquent Daughters!

I didn't stop to think tonight whether I had any money left on account.

The Daily News is covering this as well. From Lauren Johnston's article:

For owner Yongman Kim, losing his video collection marks the end of an era. "I think my passion in loving film to share and introduce to New Yorkers is no longer valid,"he told the Daily News via e-mail.

Kim cited the "so-called Internet revolution"as one cause of the store's demise. Online rental services like Netflix hurt business, and Kim also blames digital distractions like e-mail and YouTube – activities he says occupy the time people once spent watching movies at home....

"I now do not want to fight against the new stream,"Kim said. "I just want to disappear calmly."

So, tonight, let's toast Mr. Kim and the end of a downtown cultural institution. He had a great run, and if I'm ever in Salemi I'll be sure to stop by.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 12/31/2008 08:11:00 PM Comments (0)

Before I say a few words about my favorite films of 2008, let me mention my favorite films of 2007.

Film critics often write about “the movies” or “directors” as if annual changes in quality or taste or choice of material are solely the result of artistic decision – that if the films of a given year aren’t up the ones of the year before it must have something to do with the filmmakers not being sufficiently serious-minded enough. Looking back on 2007, however, from the viewpoint of 2008, favorites like There Will be Blood, Zodiac and I’m Not There seem like pictures enabled by not only creative vision but also the availability of capital and the presence of executives willing to take financial risks in the hopes of making not just a profit but also a mark, a name, or their company a beacon for talent. In other words, these were the pictures of an “up” economy in which spending (and overspending) were seen as shrewd actions.

As 2008 ends, the world is clearly and suddenly in a “down” economy, although independent film got there first. The trades were full of Sundance doom’n’gloom last winter, noting the decline in top-dollar sales from the fest. Shortly thereafter producers were stunned by the bankruptcy of Axium payroll. And then there was the slow-speed crumbling of THINKfilm, a meltdown marked by unpaid advances, litigious filmmakers, and an overleveraged owner who seemed to view his company’s unmet promises as just the normal economic churn of some industry of widget-makers. Through it all was the slow disappearance of producer overhead deals and the vanishing of even more studio specialty divisions and distributors (Picturehouse, Warner Independent, Yari Releasing and Tartan, among them).

The result of all this is an independent economy that is actively disincentivizing investment. Private money is sometimes snarkily called “dumb money” because, presumably, non-industry investors are thought to be unmindful of the business’s economic underpinnings. I’d call such investment “idealistic money.” From my experience, investors know perfectly well the vicissitudes of film investing. They are people with high risk tolerances, but they are also people who expect that fairness and honest rules of business be present when they do invest. When a distribution promise is broken and a film is dumped to video, or when a minimum advance doesn’t even get paid, these people more often than not don’t get mad, and they usually don’t sue. It’s not worth their time and money. They just never invest in a film again.

Okay, aggrieved producer rant over. When I look at my list of favorite ’08 films, I appropriately see a list that almost (but not entirely) neatly divides between films from two film economies not dependent on either specialty division largesse or large-scale private investment. (Like other respondents, I’m not calling this list a “best of” – there is simply far too much I haven’t seen yet, like most of the year-end stuff, including Gran Torino, as well as Happy-Go-Lucky and Waltz with Bashir.) The films I liked a lot this year seemed to be, with an occasional exception like The Dark Knight, either rigorous international art films supported by European broadcasters and funds, or else small-scale, very-low-budget American indies made by filmmakers who were able to build their own sustaining communities of willing collaborators and crew. I loved There Will be Blood, and I love these smaller films too. They represent their own moment in time just as much as Anderson’s film represented his, and they may point towards a more realistic model for readers of this magazine going forward.

My 2008 favorites (that had some kind of release this year): Hunger (pictured), The Pleasure of Being Robbed, My Winnipeg, Trouble the Water, The Edge of Heaven, The Class, Wendy and Lucy, Paranoid Park, The Wrestler, Frownland, Momma’s Man, Silent Light, The Dark Knight, Mister Lonely, Reprise, Milk, Mary, Be Kind, Rewind, Ballast, WALL E, Frozen River.

Favorite 2008 Fest Films Due for Release in ’09: Goodbye, Solo; Medicine for Melancholy; Loot; Examined Life; Soul Power, Summer Hours.

Favorite Undistributed Film: Wellness.

Favorite Performances: Eleonore Hendricks (The Pleasure of Being Robbed, pictured), Sean Penn (Milk); Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler), Misty Upham (Frozen River); Ken and Flo Jacobs (Momma’s Man); Sara Simmonds (In Search of a Midnight Kiss); Dore Mann (Frownland); Souleymane Sy Savane (Goodbye, Solo); Beyonce Knowles (Cadillac Records).

Favorite Screenplay: Reprise.

Favorite Narrators: Guy Maddin (My Winnipeg); Taylor Greeson (Meadowlark).

Favorite Cinematography: Sean Bobbitt (Hunger); Christopher Doyle and Rain Li (Paranoid Park).

Favorite Criterion Reissue: Blast of Silence.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 12/31/2008 03:02:00 PM Comments (7)

Here's Managing Editor Jason Guerrasio's take on '08.


I always find it difficult to put together a “Best of” list every year because no matter how many films I see I always feel I haven’t seen enough to make an honest list. This year has been even more difficult because so many titles have been pushed to the end of the year. So with that said here’s a collection of titles in no particular order that I enjoyed (most of them really loved), but I feel there are so many more I still need to watch (particularly, Frost/Nixon, Gran Torino and Ballast – yes, still haven’t seen it):

The Class (pictured), Milk, Elegy, Man on Wire, The Dark Knight, The Betrayal, The Wrestler, Wall-E, Momma’s Man, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, Che, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Paranoid Park, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

As you’ve already read by many who’ve contributed to our year end posts, it’s been a strange year for many reasons. For films in particular it all depends on who you talk to when you want to find out how this year was. Some critics (both working and no longer) will tell you it wasn’t a strong year, but if you look at box office numbers as a whole it was a pretty strong year. I don’t rate a year from either. For me, it’s the moments in films that I take away with. And there were many of them. Some from this year that continue to stay in my mind: Marina Zenovich masterful intercutting in Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired of the judge’s bizarre orchestration of how he will rule on the Polanski unlawful intercourse case with Polanski’s short film The Fat and the Lean; the opening bank heist scene in The Dark Knight; the first 20 minutes of Wall-E; the last scene in The Wrestler; the amazing special effects in Benjamin Button; and the 22-minute 1-take scene in Steve McQueen’s Hunger. For those who’ve seen it that’s all I have to type, for those who haven’t this is a little teaser for why you should see this film when it comes out early next year.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 12/31/2008 01:55:00 PM Comments (0)

Matt Dentler of Cinetic Rights Management sent word of two films now online that will be of interest to Filmmaker readers. The first is Randall Sharp's fascinating indie period film Henry May Long, which Alicia Van Couvering covered here on the site in an interview with the writer/director.

From Van Couvering's interview:

Filmmaker: How did the film come together?

Sharp: I made up the story on a car ride to Woodstock one day. I thought, what would happen if someone was willing to do anything to get someone else to pay attention to them? What if that decision led to the other person learning to value their life as if every day was their last? I’ve been running an experimental theatre company, Axis, for about twelve years, and I took it to them. We developed the script almost the same way as our plays – writing parts for certain actors in the company, reading it through together, seeing what worked and what didn’t. I was friends with [executive producer] Wren Arthur who was working for Robert Altman at the time, and slowly it all got pulled together. We shot it in 20 days with a little over $1 million dollars.

Filmmaker: Did people laugh you out of the room when you said you wanted to make a low-budget period piece? How did you accomplish it?

Sharp: It all worked out as sort of a miracle. I’m a first time director with zero film experience, and I’m also like a 19th-century period freak. I wanted it to be as perfectly accurate as it could be. As we started crewing up, people started materializing who were just really interested in reproducing that period on a shoestring. Everyone involved, from the producers to the AD to the DP, everybody – was was so excited by this immense challenge and just pulling for the movie. Especially when these [production and costume] designers who I didn’t even know arrived with this flame of passion to recreate this period for me – that was an incredible gift. They became as obsessive as me.

The film can be rented or bought at Amazon VOD, where the first two minutes can be streamed for free.

Another film that can also be found at Amazon VOD is Loren Cass, which was one of our nominees for the 2007 "Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You" Gotham Award. Loren Cass is a really intriguing film about violent youth in Jacksonville, Florida. It's got a lot of raw talent behind it and it's own unique tone and rhythms. The trailer is below.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 12/31/2008 01:18:00 PM Comments (1)

Moments after I posted, below, about Roger Ebert's love for Sita Sings the Blues and a day after we shipped the new issue of Filmmaker to the printer -- an issue that contains Karina Longworth's piece on the movie -- Paley has posted on her website a post that updates us all on her plans for distributing the film. Frankly, I found her plan pretty exciting in the way it hybridizes free and for-sale aspects.

When we decided to award her film the Gotham "Best Film at a Theater Near You" Award, the film's distribution woes were a topic of discussion. Was it right to give an award to an undistributed film that had reasons for being undistributed? Well, we liked the film a lot, and we thought the award could help its distribution situation, but we also hoped that Paley would come up with the kind of outside-the-box plan she seems to have come up with.

If you haven't been following her story, check out her blog now. An excerpt:

Which brings us to step two: while making one DVD pressing of 4,999 copies, I will place promotional files of the entire film - at all resolutions, including broadcast-quality, HD, and film-quality image sequences - online at archive.org and as many mirror hosts as volunteer to share it. I will license it either as Creative Commons Share-Alike, or some equivalent of the GNU/Linux license. This will prevent it and any derivative works from ever being copyrighted by anyone. Of course this license won’t apply to the songs, which will remain under copyright by their respective corporate overlords. But clearing the licenses first will decriminalize it, and make it safer to screen in theaters (and theaters will be free to screen it and charge for it without obligation to me). The free online copies are promotional copies.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 12/31/2008 12:10:00 PM Comments (0)

I'm late catching up to some of the things that have been bouncing around the blogosphere, but here the New York Times' A.O. Scott has a nice video essay on Billy Wilder's The Apartment, which is dubbed "a brilliant alternative to classic holiday films" and one that ends on New Year's Eve. (I wish these great Times video pieces were embeddable -- I get that they have to increase traffic, but I'd so love to post them.)

The Apartment was also selected by producer, screenwriter and Focus Features CEO James Schamus as part of a series on the FilmInFocus site in which Focus employees pick their top holiday pictures. Here's what Schamus had to say:

Somewhere between the inevitable It's a Wonderful Life and the creepily campy Ernest Saves Christmas there is a perfect holiday movie for the whole family – one that will keep both the smirk on your teenager's face and the tears flowing from your in-laws' eyes. That movie is Billy Wilder's 1960 masterpiece, The Apartment. Not a classic Christmas movie, you say? Look again.

The action takes place primarily from Christmas Eve to New Year's Eve, with moments that sum up to perfection the Christmas spirit according to Wilder: the despicable Sheldrake (played with greedy zest by Fred MacMurray), handing his downtrodden mistress, Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), her present, a crisp $100 bill; the prolonged Christmas Eve-to-Christmas Day sequence, in which Buddy Baxter (Jack Lemmon, above) finds her, overdosed on sleeping pills, at his apartment and, with the help of his next-door neighbor, force-feeds her coffee and slaps her repeatedly to keep her from collapse; and, most memorably, Sheldrake on the phone in his White Plains house, his children playing with their new toys around the Christmas tree in the background as he heartlessly hears the news of his mistress's suicide attempt. When Fran finally dumps Sheldrake and races back to Buddy's apartment on New Year's Eve, she hears, just as she reaches the door, the loud retort of a suicide shot – only to discover that the sound was Buddy, alone, popping open a magnum of Champagne.

For anyone who has ever been tempted by either the gun or the bottle at the prospect of the enforced joy of the holidays, Wilder's movie is the perfect tonic. In the end Ms. MacLaine, cutting a deck of cards, delivers the movie's final line in both wry acceptance of Buddy's babbling protestations of love and as sage advice to the rest of us enduring the mandatory festivities of the season: "Shut up and deal."

Click on the link above for the rest of the Focus series.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 12/31/2008 11:58:00 AM Comments (0)

Wow -- check out Roger Ebert's love letter to "Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You" Gotham winner Sita Sings the Blues on his blog this week.

Here's how he begins:

It hardly ever happens this way. I get a DVD in the mail. I'm told it's an animated film directed by "a girl from Urbana." That's my home town. It is titled Sita Sings the Blues. I know nothing about it, and the plot description on IMDb is not exactly a barn-burner: An animated version of the epic Indian tale of Ramayana set to the 1920's jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw. Uh, huh. I carefully file it with other movies I will watch when they introduce the 8-day week.

I get an e-mail from Betsy, my old pal who worked with me on The News-Gazette. "Did you see the film by the mayor's daughter?" This intrigues me. The daughter is named Nina Paley. I do a Google run and discover that Hiram Paley was mayor from 1973-1977. I am relieved. This means the "girl" probably didn't make the film as a high school class project. In fact, by my rapid mathematical calculations, she may have been conceived in City Hall. I used to cover City Hall. Worse things have happened there.

By this point, I'm hooked. I can't stop now. I put on the DVD and start watching. I am enchanted. I am swept away. I am smiling from one end of the film to the other. It is astonishingly original. It brings together four entirely separate elements and combines them into a great whimsical chord. You might think my attention would flag while watching An animated version of the epic Indian tale of Ramayana set to the 1920's jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw. Quite the opposite. It quickens. I obtain Nina Paley's e-mail address and invite the film to my film festival in April 2009 at the University of Illinois, which by perfect synchronicity is in our home town.

There's a lot more that follows, including a discussion of the film's music rights blues and a comments thread that's up to almost 100 responses.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 12/31/2008 11:48:00 AM Comments (0)

Now that our current issue has shipped to the printer, I'm finishing these blog entries from our writers, editors and contributors on the cinematic year that is coming to a close. Here's Mary Glucksman, who contributes our "In Focus" column each issue as well as the year-end "Hits and Misses" piece.

Real life intervened and I came up woefully short on exhaustive viewing of both foreign films and docs so can I just say my top ten would surely include two Cannes '07 foreign titles that got their nominal U.S. theatrical release this year--XXY and Tell No One. Still waiting with great anticipation to catch up with Silent Light and A Christmas Tale.

Best DIY/no-to-low budget titles have to be Ballast and Chris Smith's The Pool, latter a Sundance '07 title finally out this year.

For sure my absolute favorite three were Wrestler/Slumdog/Rachel, and Mickey Rourke and Sean Penn's Harvey Milk two top performances. Can't understand why Brolin's getting all the love for Milk and not his tour de force turn in W. Also blown away by juvenile Brandon Walters in Australia.

Best first feature and an all around fave has to be Doubt. Most underrated of the year were Towelhead and Miracle at St. Anna. Latter's flaws may be undeniable but it still rates among my top viewing memories of the year. Gran Torino didn't entirely live up to the hype but two hours of Clint the actor still a real joy.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 12/31/2008 11:41:00 AM Comments (0)

In The New York Times, Michael Cieply reports on our declining box office. No, not this year, but over the last decade. The sobering conclusion of his piece is that less of us are going to see movies in theaters. Breathless box office coverage of records broken, The Dark Knight, and lines stretching around the block at midnight for Twilight are just more noise. Read his piece to discover that, when measured by the arbiter of tickets sold, Twister handily outsold Iron Man and that Sex in the City is no bigger than The First Wive's Club.

We are no longer a nation of moviegoers.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 12/28/2008 12:32:00 AM Comments (4)

You might want to bookmark this and come back in mid-January, when he says he'll have finished his tally, but Sujewa Ekanayake is compiling a comprehensive list of indie film blogs. And if you have a blog yourself, let Ekanayake know by posting in his comments section.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 12/27/2008 09:53:00 PM Comments (0)

Over at Slate, Farhad Manjoo has up a nice piece entitled "How to Blog." After noting that the very clever editors of the Huffington Post has published a book, The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging, Manjoo asks some of his own colleagues for their advice on the medium. Here's one useful tip:

Don't worry if your posts suck a little. Unless you're Jeffrey Goldberg, your first blog post is unlikely to be perfect. Indeed, a lot of your posts aren't going to be as great as they could be if you spent many hours on them—and that's OK. Felix Salmon, who writes Portfolio's excellent finance blog Market Movers, puts it this way: "Quantity is more important than quality. Don't be scared of being wrong, or inelegant; you have much less of an idea what your readers are going to like than you possibly imagine. So jump right in, put yourself out there." Nearly every blogger I spoke to agreed with this sentiment. If you're trying to gain an audience, you can't afford to worry over every sentence as if it were ... see, I was going to spend 15 minutes thinking of a hilarious and deeply insightful simile there, but, damn it, I'm in blogging mode and need to move on.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 12/26/2008 10:50:00 PM Comments (0)

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 12/26/2008 10:50:00 PM Comments (0)

Bill Landis, a man who championed the world of underground exploitation moviemaking and exhibition, died this week of a heart attack at 49.

With his wife Michelle Clifford he was the editor of Sleazoid Express, a zine that chronicled the films of the 42nd Street grindhouse scene, which he described in an interview at Nerve.com:

Grind houses were opulent, old-style movie palaces with chandeliers, opera seats and huge screens. They seated several hundred people and played all kinds of films, across genres. A shoebox theater catered to the adult audience, seated eighty to 200, usually on one floor, and was shaped like a rectangular shoebox....

It was a very egalitarian form of entertainment that attracted all sorts — kids cutting school, people on dates, inner-city people escaping the cold or heat. The biggest hits cost five dollars. Certain theaters, like The Ankle, which was across from Port Authority, catered to a more criminal element....

People wanted to get the most bang for their buck. If the movie disappointed them, they'd throw things at the screen.... They became unsafe because of the crack epidemic. Crackheads were insane in their criminality, while the junkies would just pass out.

Simon and Schuster published a Sleazoid Express book. Here is an excerpt from "Chapter 13: Lost in the Roxy":

Located on the south side of the street next to the Cine Twins, it was originally one of the Deuce's grungiest, most pungent smelling, and most dangerous adult houses. Sharing management with the landmark scumatorium Show World, the Roxy spent the 1970s through the mid-1980s showing third-run hardcore porn, hosting a live sex show, and serving as an open stomping ground for quickie prostitution. It attracted the worst, most desperate people on the Deuce. You didn't even stand near the theater unless you wanted a drug addict streetwalker propositioning you as her pimp/live-show partner hung over your shoulder.

In the early to mid-1980s, rare Deuce favorites that had been gone for years were suddenly accessible again because of video, and distributors who hadn't shown some movies in years suddenly saw dollar signs. In 1985, the Roxy was renovated and converted into a multileveled fourplex that showed exploitation double bills on video, becoming a sort of living Sleazoid museum. You could catch every sort of film from every year, including many rough-girl gems from the 1970s, like Fugitive Girls and the Arthur Marks classics Roommates and Centerfold Girls. There were bookings so dissimilar only the Deuce could conceive them, like Superman (1978) and Superfly (1972). Unfortunately, despite the renovation, the Roxy remained devoid of fresh air and retained both its BO aroma and its super-sleazy vibe. Sometimes you'd see the Roxy cashiers -- former live-show workers with names llike Duran -- run into a broom closet with a crack pipe during their breaks.

Remembers Lars Nilsen on his blog:

While the rest of us pick up the latest Blue Underground and Code Red DVD releases and watch this sleaze in the comfort of our homes, Bill and his early collaborator Jimmy McDonough (whom he later had a huge falling-out with, unfortunately) sought these films out on 42nd St. in the last decaying pits of perversion where they unspooled for armed and hostile raincoaters and popeyes. In the pre-video era that was the only way to see them and Sleazoid Express was the Variety of 42nd St. You can feel the thrill of discovery on every page. Landis would review the film AND the experience, so if a glue-sniffing masturbator fell out of the balcony it was recorded for posterity.

Tim Mayer also has posted a remembrance.

In the Nerve interview, Landis lists his top five sleazy movies of all time:

1. The Olga movies (1966-67): Olga's House of Shame; White Slaves of Chinatown; Olga's Girls.

2. The Flesh movies (1967-68): Curse of Her Flesh; Kiss of Her Flesh; Touch of Her Flesh

3. Pets (1974): "A good California girl movie."

4. The Perverse Countess (1973)

5. Ilsa: She Wolf of the S.S. (1975): "For shock value."

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 12/26/2008 03:12:00 PM Comments (2)