ONE - ARTHOUSE FILM NEWS - Cosmic Disco Detective Rene at Film Noir Cinema, NYC starting 7/12/24

From Criterion . Very exciting. Looking forward to finding out more about (& seeing the work of) Robeson & some of his contemporaries such as Oscar Micheaux. Here's the synopsis for the box set, from Criterion: " All-American athlete, scholar, renowned baritone, stage actor, and social activist, Paul Robeson (1898-1976) was a towering figure and a trailblazer many times over. He was perhaps most groundbreaking, however, in the medium of film. The son of an escaped slave, Robeson managed to become a top-billed movie star during the time of Jim Crow America, headlining everything from fellow pioneer Oscar Micheaux's silent drama Body and Soul to British studio showcases to socially engaged documentaries, always striving to project positive images of black characters. Increasingly politically minded, Robeson eventually left movies behind, using his international celebrity to speak for those denied their civil liberties around the world and ultimately becoming a victim...

Jonas Mekas is planning on releasing 365 short films this year, 1 a day. The first two are available here. - Sujewa

Next movie/"Untitled January 07 Production" update: Jennifer Blakemore (pictured) from Date Number One (Jen played Sunshine in Story 2 of DNO) will be one of the lead actors in my next movie (for some appreciation of her acting work, check here and here ). I have two completed scripts (one from '96, one from '98) & one of these will be updated & produced, with pre-production starting around January 15, 2007. It will be a no budget DV feature. A comedy/comedy-drama. And I hope to make it available on DVD (mail-order & through some retail stores) in the first quarter of '07, while it screens wherever I can get it to screen. :: Previous movie/"Date Number One" update: My May '06 completed feature Date Number One will be available on DVD (mail-order & through some retail stores) starting at some point in January '07. Will know the exact date in a few days - w/ in the first week of January - will announce the exact availability dat...

" Happy New Year Baby!" (click on the words to see who said them)

Well, overactive bloggers might be stretching things a bit, but this blog, Indie Features blog & The Workbook does get a fair amount of traffic & stuff we talk about in those blogs get mentioned in other indie film blogs sooner or later, so, indie screening venue owners (including microcinemas) who might want to get the attention of motivated new filmmakers & new & old bloggers might want to go here on Workbook blog & add their venue's info. & booking contact info. One great way for real indie venues to compete with the Landmarks of America is to offer totally unique programming (as Pioneer in NYC & a few other real indie venues do) and that means being in the lookout for good films that either never made it to the festivals or did well at festivals but did not get distributor attention. Indie filmmakers & indie theaters dealing directly with each other can perhaps offer a competitive advantage to some indie venues. Sure it's a bit of extra work...

I think I read about 20 - 30 film blogs on a regular basis (let's say every week). One that I should read more but didn't get in the habit of doing so in '06 is Cinematical . Also, The House Next Door . Perhaps in '07 I can work Cinematical & House Next Door in more. So, out of the ones I read frequently, here are my favorite blogs from this year. I am treating the indieWIRE's blogs page as a blog because some days I just go there & read parts of posts from several blogs. Looking forward to discovering more good film blogs in '07 (feel free to suggest some in Comments). OK, the '06 faves list: 1. GreenCine Daily 2. IndieWIRE's Blogs page 3. Anthony Kaufman's blog 4. Filmmaker Magazine's Blog AND Hollywood Is Talking (we've got a tie here, Filmmaker's got some solid indie coverage, & H.I.T.'s got a nice mixture of DIY/Indie & Hollywood film stuff/sensational Hollywood stuff, equally rewarding reading) 5. The Chutry Expe...

Cool DC movie theaters that are no longer there. Nice to think back on them though, as some people in the comments section of the following pages have done: Biograph i was in their projector room once The Janus saw several movies there, saw Hi Fidelity in their theater with the "column" Outer Circle (didn't find a page i can link to) where i saw Amelie about 5 times when it first came out Visions where i screened my film 17 DC Poets - Sujewa

Read about it here . Thanks indieWIRE for the link. - Sujewa

I just watched the movie The Great New Wonderful, a movie that Vivendi Visual Entertainment is pushing as a comedy (on the DVD box front they call it: A Brilliant Comedy, and on the back they forget to mention the real story of the movie). Wonderful is a drama about several New Yorkers dealing with the aftershock of the 9-11 attacks. It is a good drama, with some humor, and a diverse cast. But definitely not a comedy. Also not brilliant. Vivendi or whoever OK'd the DVD box packaging owes me a comedy. - Sujewa

For one, it may end up being a 90 minute film as opposed to the 115 minute film that it was in '06. After not touching the Final Cut Express files for a couple of months & just thinking about the movie, I think I've come up with several ways to polish up the movie (so that the very rough edges mentioned in several reviews can be gotten rid of) and make it flow faster & better. Also, any scenes with significant/un-fixable visual or audio problems will be cut out & the stories will be re-written through editing so that they still make sense. Also, one whole story may be taken out of the movie or one story may be drastically shortened (so, as opposed to 5 stories, we may end up with 4 stories or 4.25 stories). Back to editing. The Date Number One that people will see in '07 will be a vastly different (& hopefully much better) movie than the one they saw in '06. Very exciting. On the distribution/exhibition front I will be submitting to some festivals in ...