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ARE YOU OBJECTIFIED?

Scott Macaulay
2ND UPDATE: We have our winners. Thanks, all! UPDATE: To win a digital copy of Objectified, answer the question below and email editor.filmmakermagazine AT gmail.com. Almost three years ago I decided to check out what seemed to be an obscure little documentary about graphic design at SXSW and was surprised to find the line to get in stretching all the way down the length of the convention [continue]

FILMMAKER/APPLE PRESENTS MEET THE FILMMAKER: JASON REITMAN

Jason Guerrasio
Tonight at 7pm head over to the NYC Apple Store in SoHo (103 Prince Street) for what's sure to be a lively and entertaining conversation with director Jason Reitman. He'll be talking about his latest film Up in the Air starring George Clooney as a corporate downsizer whose life of collecting frequent flyer miles, perks and no-strings-attached hookups is in jeopardy. Interviewing Reitman for the [continue]

THE FONT OF ANGER

Scott Macaulay
Aaron Leming, who works as a specialist at the Southlake Town Square Apple Store in Dallas, created this resonant typographic rendition of Paddy Chayefsky's famous Howard Beale "Mad as Hell" speech from Network. Mad As Hell! Kinetic Typography from Aaron Leming on Vimeo.

A CHANGING OF THE GUARD AT OUR DIRECTOR INTERVIEWS COLUMN

Scott Macaulay
Back in March, 2007, with his talk with Color Me Kubrick's Brian Cook, Nick Dawson inaugurated a new column here at Filmmakermagazine.com: the Director Interviews. Over the course of two-and-a-half years, he infallibly spun out thoughtful and provocative discussions with directors ranging from emerging American indies to big-name international auteurs to everyone in between. Viewing the bulk of [continue]

SCHOOL'S OUT: ASTRA TAYLOR ON THE UNSCHOOLED LIFE

Scott Macaulay
Filmmaker Astra Taylor (Examined Life) gave the debut Artist Talk for the Walker Art Center's "Raising Creative Kids" series. The series is described as an initiative "designed to make the Walker a destination and resource for families and parents wanting to creatively engage their children." Here's their description of the talk: Raised by independent-thinking bohemian parents, Taylor was [continue]

SUNDANCE BRINGS 2010 FESTIVAL TO A CITY NEAR YOU

Jason Guerrasio
The Sundance Institute announced today the creation of Sundance Film Festival U.S.A. where direct-from-festival films from the upcoming 2010 festival will be screened nationwide in theaters in eight cities on the Thursday of the festival (Jan. 28). This will conincide with events and premiere screenings back at the festival, including the North American premiere of the socio-political documentary The Shock Doctrine [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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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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