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This article at Gizmodo says much of Cloverfield was not shot on a cheap, tiny consumer camera as they show in the movie, but the very expensive & top of the line pro camera Sony CineAlta F23 . - Sujewa

Check it out at Hollywood Is Talking . 3 people are made to look like thousands of soldiers landing at a beach, under fire. - Sujewa

At LAist . - Sujewa

Nice conversation with Woody Allen at IFC's site . - Sujewa

Saw it tonight. Loved it (as much as you can love a movie that reminds you of Godzilla). Camera work & editing awesome. If you were personally & deeply affected by the 9/11 attacks, you might not enjoy this movie. If a friend or someone you love died in those attacks, you probably will not enjoy this movie. Cloverfield is a monster movie, but it is also about something like a surprise attack from terrorists hell-bent on carnage & destruction. If Cloverfield is on one level a 9/11 story, is it in favor of the War on Terror? I think so. Yeah, it's a pro-war movie, specifically the War on Terror. See it in the theater, with a big audience if possible, for the full monster movie effect. And don't believe anything that you hear about the ending until you see it for yourself. If you are sensitive to motion sickness, you probably need to skip this movie. It's shakier than Blair Witch. Clips from the movie could also work as a good ad for the army or the national ...

Not sure how true or how current the info. is, but this 2005 article about the indie film business by Edward Jay Epstein is an interesting, & perhaps useful, read for filmmakers who might want to make an indiewood movie - an independent movie that, among other things, features some recognizable Hollywood actors. From the article: "The genius of the indie film business lies in its use of Hollywood stars. The same actors and actresses who quote Hollywood studios $20 million per movie will work on indie films for a small fraction of that fee. Often they accept “scale,” as the Screen Actors Guild’s minimum wage of $788 a day is called, or “near scale” of about $10,000 a week plus overtime." Read the rest here . - Sujewa

Hopefully soon the whole island will be free from the LTTE menace. But for now, some good news; from a Bloomberg article : "Sri Lanka began the process of holding elections in the Eastern Province, the region captured by the army from the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam last July after 14 years of fighting." And: "President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government is seeking $1.8 billion in aid to meet its pledge to rebuild the Eastern Province and encourage investment and tourism in a region that has a 462-kilometer (287-mile) coastline of white sands. The LTTE's defeat left the group with bases only in the north to continue its fight for a separate homeland in Sri Lanka. ``We can bring democracy and peace to the region,'' Media Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa said at a briefing in Colombo earlier this week." Read the rest here . - Sujewa

First, here's the site; New York City Coalition Against Hunger A brief description of the organization, from the NYCCAH site: "The New York City Coalition Against Hunger (NYCCAH) represents the more than 1,200 nonprofit soup kitchens and food pantries in New York City and the more than one million low-income New Yorkers who are forced to use them. The Coalition works to meet the immediate food needs of low-income New Yorkers and enact innovative solutions to help them move "beyond the soup kitchen" to self-sufficiency." And about the match system, from this page : "New Yorkers are now able to search by neighborhood, nearby subways lines, available times, and personal skills sets, etc. to find the anti-hunger volunteer opportunities that fit best with their schedules and abilities. New Yorkers with special skills such as expertise in computers, accounting, public relations, web development, law, strategic planning, or graphic design can also use the system ...

That's from an article about a very funny review of Cloverfield. Check it out here . :) :) :) :)

One of my favorite characters from Tom DiCillo's indie filmmaking comedy Living In Oblivion is the eye-patch & leather wearing cinematographer Wolf. Apparently that character was inspired by a real cinematographer; first a little back story from Johnny Suede (DiCillo's first feature) days: "I still quake in fear in memory of it. On top of stolen wardrobe and collapsing buildings I was dealing with a very talented Director of Photography who later confided to me he was so jealous I was directing my first feature he couldn't’t stop himself from intentionally sabotaging the shoot." Read more at the Jan 14, 11:18 PM comment by Tom at this post . And now, on to Wolf: "I based the wardrobe of Wolf (the cameraman in Living In Oblivion) on this guy’s clothes. He had everything; the leather beret, the black, half-fingered gloves, the sleeveless leather vest, the motorcycle boots. He thought the camera was a weapon. He didn’t know he looked (and acted) like a cross...

A new distribution outlet for festival films. Check out the Variety article here . Thanks Matt Dentler's blog for the link. - Sujewa

Interview is at Film Publicity Help . From the interview : "John Sayles: My feeling is that t he distributors who exist now who have any size to them look at a film as how much work would this be to get a bunch of people to see it. They’re only going to put out X number of movies a year and is this one that’s going to be a lot of work? Will we have to hire more people to think up new ideas, or can we just put this out the way we always put things out and look at the opening weekend and then react to whether the opening weekend is good or bad, which is pretty much what Sumner Redstone and the guys that run the huge studios do. They just look at the numbers. When we first started, it was a much more labor-intensive process. I don’t really think it’s a problem of the big studios getting into it, I think everybody is looking for that home run that just falls in their lap." Read the rest here . - Sujewa

Check Filmlinker out here . - Sujewa

Wow, this one's got it all folks; discovering Brad Pitt, & Catherine Keener, first time feature filmmaking trouble, an un-gentrified Williamsburg, Harvey Weinstein & a lot more, read it here at DiCillo's blog . Here is a segment: "I took another look at the photo Marcia had handed me and said, “What the fuck, bring him in.” The actor’s name was Brad Pitt. Call me an idiot if you want but I was certain of 2 things the moment he walked in: 1. He was Johnny. 2. He was going to be a star. He did his audition without me saying a word to him. And without me saying a word to him he understood that beneath the posturing exterior Johnny was really a lost soul–someone who literally had no idea who he was. This lead Brad to a brave acting choice; to bring a hesitant vulnerability to the character–something no one else had been able to do; even with my prompting." Read the rest here . Johnny Suede was one of the first indie films I saw, upon discovering the existence of i...

That is of course by mainstream US standards. But sounds pretty convincing to me, check out more here . Here is a segment from the article: "Could the Danes really be the happiest people in the world? When ABC News anchor Bill Weir traveled there to find out, he asked random Danes to rate themselves in terms of happiness, on a scale of one to 10. Many people rated themselves at least an eight, and there were several nines and 10s. Finally, one grouchy Dane came along who said she didn't believe Danes were so happy. But then she quickly conceded that she herself felt rather content with her life, and said Danes in general had very little to complain about. Danes do have one potential complaint: high taxes. The happiest people in the world pay some of the highest taxes in the world -- between 50 percent and 70 percent of their incomes. In exchange, the government covers all health care and education, and spends more on children and the elderly than any country in the world per ...