ARTHOUSE FILM NEWS - Cosmic Disco Detective Rene at Facets, Chicago 11/29/23

Read about it at The Hollywood Reporter . This bit of news doesn't affect DIY/real indie filmmakers but I thought I'd post the link in case this blog is read by minority and or female screenwriters who want Hollywood work. - Sujewa

In this latest conversation that we are having right now at several places on the web re: internet based film criticism & review (here, at Anthony Kaufman's blog , also at The Chutry Experiment , UPDATE: also at Doc It Out and All These Wonderful Things ) one of the ideas that has arisen is that it might help an audience member experience a movie better if he or she knew what the intentions of the director are/where the director is coming from or what they might be attempting to do or say with a film. This review of Hannah Takes the Stairs at ShortEnd Magazine takes the time to think about some of those things, and to look beyond the surface of the movie a little. When dealing with art (specially film art/entertainment) it is easy to say that the movie made no sense or it sucked or the filmmaker failed and move on, but I think the audience is better served by deeper contemplation & analysis of the work by reviewers. Regular audience members (people who are not critics or

I have not yet seen any movies by Rivette, but I just read a list of his movies & some of them sound very interesting, need to check them out. Rivette is credited as director on 31 movies, with their dates of release ranging from 1949 to 2007, at this IMDB page . This International Herald Tribune article from February of this year was, for me, a good introduction to the filmmaker. Here is the first paragraph from the article: "Jacques Rivette's movies, like the legendary 12- hour "Out 1" (1971), have heroes who seem to belong to secret societies, characters as enigmatic as their quests: they skate out of control and bump each other in play, or treachery." Read the rest of the article here . - Sujewa

Matt Dentler reports from a University of Texas event featuring Francis Ford Coppola : " He [Coppola] said the realization of a planned adaptation of Jack Kerouac's On the Road (which he is set to produce and Walter Salles will direct) will entirely depend on who is cast in the lead roles." Read the full entry here , some interesting stuff re: Coppola's new film Youth Without Youth there. - Sujewa i think i can file this post under the Beats & Film Blog-A-Thon

Don't know much about it, but here is pretty much all I know re: Todd Verow's new/recent cellphone camera shot movie Hooks To The Left, from the Bangor Films site: " HOOKS TO THE LEFT : "...one of the most interesting cinematic experiments of the year: Director Todd Verow filmed a auto-biographic travel diary with the camera of a Nokia cellphone ... The result is a mysterious, deeply personal and fascinating masterwork of no-budget film - and proof that creating film art has nothing to do with money..." Goon Magazine " Anyone who reads German, follow the links & check out the article. And let me know if there is an English translation around. - Sujewa

Well, their exact words are: "The film itself was funny, smart, and shows New York at her finest." From an interview with Burns , read it here . Thanks GreenCine Daily for the link. I've enjoyed, to various degrees, pretty much all of the Burns films I've seen (i think that's all of them except Ash Wednesday ). Looking forward to checking out Purple Violets. - Sujewa

ON for '07: * Date Number One distribution coming up: - party to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of the World Premiere of DNO (5/13/06) on May 12 (next Sat!), an event for cast & crew & significant others & close friends - DVDs will be available for sale from Wild Diner Store starting on May 13 - 1 week run in Kensington , MD: July 12 - 18 - lots more screenings ! info. coming soon ** Start of the 10/30 (making & releasing 10 features in 30 months) project - shoot feature 1 - working title: Filmmaking For The Poor (FFTP), starting in August, complete editing & start distribution in October/before November :: OFF for '07: KRIFF It is possible to shoot a film part time & also distribute another film PT, while maintaining a FT day job, but I think it would be difficult to produce a film festival while working a FT job and while producing and distributing features. So, The Kensington Real Independent Film Festival (KRIFF) will have to wait until nex

this Salon article was a delight to read. extremely well written. about SXSW '07. - Sujewa

:) Yeah, the joke is old now (although, I just saw that episode of Entourage for the second time a few days ago), sorry, could not resist. - Sujewa

Not that Swanberg's new movie needs any more blog attention (it's gotten quite a bit of blog & other press mentions since its premiere at SXSW in March) but, to sort of wrap up a topic I opened with this post/frustrated rant earlier today, I finally found a more or less traditional movie review of Hannah Takes the Stairs that talks about the movie in a way that provides enough & a right mix of information and opinion that helps me decide, as an audience member, whether I want to check out the movie or not. The review is at Cinematical , written by Jette Kernion. Here is a paragraph: "Hannah ( Greta Gerwig ) seems to be drifting through life. She has a boyfriend, Mike ( Mark Duplass ) whom she seems to like, but suddenly breaks up with him because "he's the funny one. I want to be the funny one." She works for a production company of some sort -- I never quite understood what was going on over there -- with a pair of guys, Paul ( Andrew Bujalski ) and

Cynthia Rockwell's "review" of Hannah Takes The Stairs is depressing not because she didn't like the movie but because after reading the entire thing, 6 small to medium sized paragraphs, I can't figure out the following: the plot of the movie or the situation or roughly what happens for 70 - 90 minutes, the main characters & any significant minor characters, who plays the characters, ideas that may have been expressed in the movie, similar ideas and situations that may have been explored in other movies or other art/entertainment and how those compare with the film being reviewed, the reviewer's opinion of the technical craftsmanship of the movie, how real life compares to the world being depicted in the movie. At the very least I would like to learn a few of those things about a movie from a review. (and yes, Rockwell does consider her post re: Hannah a review, as noted here , not just a blog entry reflecting on the lack of female participation in indie

Yes, perhaps just a coincidence, 'cause there are only a couple of colors to depict a character's transformation to evil: black or green or red mostly, maybe even purple. But, the mega movie Spider Man 3 (which i will be seeing next weekend) exists in American history and in this same body of ideas, in the same society we have a history of casually identifying African-Americans and many other non-European/non-"white" people with the color black and also attributing negative human qualities to those people. So, given this history, is it somewhat insensitive to use a black suit to symbolize Spidey's turn towards the dark side? Probably. Specially when there doesn't seem to be any African-American or other dark skinned characters in heroic & positive & significant/major roles in Spidey 3? Yup, probably. But I guess the blame should go to the comic book, since Venom has always been depicted in that medium the way he is being depicted in Spidey 3. Didn'

CA based (i think somewhere near LA) talented & prolific DIY indie filmmaker/musician/actor Amir Motlagh (directed shorts Still Lover, My Break Ups into a Million Pieces, plays in the band Shanks and the Dreamers , stars in his & other's movies; see below for a longer list of work) is currently editing his first feature Whale. Amir also recently announced that he will be directing a new feature this year; a micro-budget feature called Micro - a comedy about a filmmaker who is making an ultra-low budget feature. I like movies about making movies, and I like most of Amir's movies that I've seen, so I am looking forward to checking out Micro. I may have a tiny role to play in making Micro; will have more on that in early June. Check out Amir's blog for updates on his projects. I interviewed Amir in '05, read that interview here . Read a more recent interview with Amir, from '06, here . And here's that list of Amir's work that I mentioned on paragr

Because of this review , I definitely want to see it. In Search of a Midnight Kiss ( MySpace ) sounds like a well/interestingly shot (although i hate to use the term) "slacker" comedy/comedy-drama/maybe even a little bit of romantic comedy. Here is a description of the story from Kiss's MySpace page : "Wilson (Scoot McNairy), a twenty-nine-year old guy who has just had the worst year of his life, is new to Los Angeles, has no date, no concrete plans and every intention of locking the doors and forgetting the last year ever happened. That is until his best friend, Jacob (Brian McGuire), browbeats him into posting a personal ad on Craig's List. When Vivian (Sara Simmonds), a strong-willed woman hell bent on being with the right guy at the stroke of midnight responds, a chaotic, sometimes hilarious, sometimes touching journey through the black and white streets of L.A. begins. In the waning hours of the year, emotional vulnerability and bitterly honest humor seem

i think i am about to enter a 70's stories phase in movie watching. saw 1/2 of a flick about the Watergate scandal a couple of nights ago on TV, looked very interesting, it is on my list to watch. also, Getting Straight sounds very interesting, read about it here . - sujewa