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Chris Eska's August Evening: The Little Indie That Could
A multi-generational tale about an undocumented farm worker and his widowed daughter-in-law could be the unexpected box office hit of the Fall. Or, at least, that's what writer-director Chris Eska is hoping for when his first feature film, August Evening begins rolling out in theaters September 5. Winner of the 2008 Spirit Awards’ John Cassavetes Award and the Best Film Awards at the Los Angeles and Woodstock Film Festivals, August Evening has already acquired buzz on the festival circuit. Now, it awaits a larger national audience.
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Young People Fucking: Or, Ways Tease Your Audience
If you're in the process of making a movie right now, you might want to pause and learn a quick marketing lesson from Martin Gero, director and co-writer of the new comedy Young People Fucking. Yep, that's the lesson right there: Grab people's attention with your title. The Canadian film, which hit select U.S. theaters Friday, August 29, 2008, is as honest and unflinching as the title, but the chances of many people seeing it, let alone $400,000 worth in Canada, would have been slim were it not for the intriguing title. Gero himself admits as much. "At the end of the day, we're a Canadian film, we really have no bankable stars, so to speak, and certainly no one's like, 'Oh awesome! Another Martin Gero movie!'"
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What Happens in Toronto Affects the World
With the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival kicking off September 4 and recent productions that include Blindness, The Rocker, Lars and the Real Girl and A History of Violence Toronto is fast becoming the apex of moviemaking: A great place to film and get your movie screened.
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Aaron Wiederspahn Explores The Sensation of Sight
For his first feature, writer-director Aaron Wiederspahn has made a winding drama of epic proportions. The challenge, Wiederspahn says, was clear from the beginning: He must take the difficult route if he were to really bring this screenplay to life. In the end that means a movie that revolves around six main characters looking for resolutions to their shared problems. From the estranged father and son to the son’s problems with the law and his own young family, from a mourning brother to a lonely mother, the relationships Wiederspahn created weave a complicated tale of loss and rebirth.
Like the misplaced souls of its story, The Sensation of Sight has gone through a period of uncertainty when after many festival screenings it ended up with a rather unconventional distribution deal. It is this and more that Wiederspahn explains to MovieMaker on the occasion of the movie’s DVD release.
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10 Disaster Movies to Die For
A cruise ship filled with joyous passengers gets caught in a tsunami and rapidly starts sinking. A catastrophic asteroid, with the power to wipe out the entire human race, hurtles towards Earth. An underground volcano, dormant for thousands of years, unexpectedly sputters back to life in New York City, while a deadly virus is simultaneously unleashed on the population in the midst of a record-shattering earthquake... These are just a few of the common scenarios found in a disaster movie, one of the most audacious and crowd-pleasing subgenres of Hollywood moviemaking.
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David Kaplan Celebrates Year of the Fish
David Kaplan’s first feature film, Year of the Fish, may be a retelling of Cinderella. But with the title character toiling away in a Chinatown massage parlor while her “stepsisters” engage in sex work, it’s a far cry from the Disney classic. The animated movie (live-action sequences were shot and then digitally painted over, giving it a look similar to Richard Linklater's Waking Life) is an updated retelling of the oldest known Cinderella story, a Chinese version recorded circa 850 A.D.
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Warner Bros. Remains Firm on Towelhead
Recently the Council on American-Islam Relations (CAIR) asked Warner Bros. and Warner Independent Pictures to change the title of Alan Ball's upcoming film, Towelhead. Warner Bros. has refused to change the name and, several days ago, writer-director Alan Ball expressed in a statement why the title would remain. Now, Alicia Erian, author of the novel on which the film is based, and Warner Independent Pictures have released their own statements explaining the reasoning behind their decision.
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Neal McDonough’s Golden Rules
Neal McDonough has come a long way since his debut film role as Dockworker #2 in Sam Raimi's 1990 comic book adaptation Darkman. After brief appearances on a bevy of television shows, including "Murphy Brown," "NYPD Blue" and "Murder One," McDonough landed a starring role in the Steven Spielberg-produced miniseries "Band of Brothers." Spielberg liked the actor's work on the project so much that he asked McDonough to act in his then-upcoming futuristic flick, Minority Report. Since then McDonough has enjoyed more starring TV roles, in the Peabody Award-winning "Boomtown" and the Wizard of Oz-reworking "Tin Man," as well as parts in Flags of Our Fathers, The Guardian, 88 Minutes and Jeffrey Nachmanoff's Traitor, which is in theaters now.
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Jeffrey Nachmanoff Discovers a Traitor
After working as a script doctor for several years, Jeffrey Nachmanoff got his first major credit as the screenwriter of the box office hit The Day After Tomorrow, which he co-wrote with director Roland Emmerich. Now he's getting a chance to show he can do it all himself with the release of Traitor, which hits theaters on August 27th. The film, which stemmed from an idea from Steve Martin (yes, Three Amigos Steve Martin), was written and directed by Nachmanoff and stars Don Cheadle and Guy Pearce. Shortly before the film's release, Nachmanoff talked with MM about the luxury of starting a screenplay with the end already in place and the challenges (and perks) of directing actors who only speak Arabic.
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Rainn Wilson’s Big Break
It’s hit or miss when cast members from NBC’s “The Office” land themselves a lead role in a big-screen comedy. Steve Carell’s turn as The 40-Year-Old Virgin propelled his already growing popularity while John Krasinski, the show’s romantic everyman, just couldn’t appeal to enough swooning fans to make License to Wed a box office success. But like Carell, Rainn Wilson’s television alter-ago, beet farmer Dwight Schrute, is not exactly the most respected employee at Dunder Mifflin. Maybe that bodes well for the Seattle native, who will next be seen as the star of Peter Cattaneo’s The Rocker.
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The House Bunny Visits the Playboy Mansion
Scantily clad girls running around in pink miniskirts, ultra high heels and little white bunny ears: Does this image sound familiar? Probably not from firsthand experience—only a select few have breached those exclusive gates—but it's certainly a known piece of pop culture trivia. The notorious Playboy Mansion, home to the ultimate playboy, Hugh Hefner, and his buxom blonde girlfriends, is known around the world with help from its various film and TV appearances. This week's release, The House Bunny, takes the idea of the Playboy empire to another level.
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Paul W.S. Anderson’s Rules Can Be Deadly
British action director Paul W.S. Anderson shares his Golden Rules for Making Movies
British action master Paul W.S. Anderson reveals his Golden Rules for Moviemaking just as his latest film, Death Race, hits theaters.
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Kodak Announces Eastman Scholarships and Faculty Scholars
The winners of the 2008 Eastman Scholarship and the Kodak Faculty Scholars Program were announced at the 62nd annual University Film & Video Association Conference in Colorado on August 13th.
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Rocco DeVilliers Takes Off With The Flyboys
The Flyboys is not your typical coming of age story. This adventure movie follows the story of two young boys who accidentally end up aboard an airplane that just so happens to be owned by the mob. Writer, director and producer Rocco DeVilliers took charge of the film, which stars young actor Jesse James and the veteran Stephen Baldwin. DeVillliers has taken The Flyboys around the festival circuit this summer and has already generated positive feedback, garnering more than 45 awards so far.
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Elizabeth Chandler Sticks with the Sisterhood
From A Little Princess to What a Girl Wants to The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Elizabeth Chandler has made a career out of writing movies that feature female protagonists. Her latest project, this summer’s The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, is the story of “four young women who share an unbreakable bond” and was adapted from Ann Brashares’ best-selling book series. Previously, it was Chandler who brought Sarah Crewe of the Frances Hodgson Burnett classic A Little Princess to the screen for the 1995 film of the same name. And it was her again who adapted Laura Zigman’s novel Animal Husbandry into 2001’s Someone Like You, starring Ashley Judd as the lovelorn Jane Goodale, who takes romantic matters into her own hands. Throughout her career Chandler has managed to adeptly adapt plucky heroines from the page to the screen. This year proves no different.
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Shakespeare on Film: Titus
In MM's 12th week of Shakespeare on Film, Julie Taymor's imagination takes viewers through Shakespeare's darkest hour
Evoking A Clockwork Orange and The Silence of the Lambs, Julie Taymor's Titus reveals that the horrors of Shakespeare's play are matched only by the play's compassion. In her feature film debut, Taymor, who based the movie on her off-Broadway production of Shakespeare's darkest play, combines ancient horrors with more recent history or cinematic fiction. The writer-director fashioned a masterpiece not from an inherently cinematic, fast-paced drama such as Macbeth or Romeo and Juliet, but a play that in the theater may seem purely horrific or excessively comic, devoid of emotional or intellectual meaning.
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The Ballerina Ballroom: The Place of Moviemakers’ Dreams
From the minds of Academy Award-winning actress Tilda Swinton and director-producer Mark Cousins has sprung a rather unconventional film festival that combines everything from fairy cakes to Singin’ in the Rain to Joel Coen. Opening on Friday, August 15th and running until August 23rd, the Ballerina Ballroom Cinema of Dreams was conceived on what Swinton calls a “quixotic seizure” when she first stumbled upon, and subsequently fell in love, with an endearing ballroom—called “The Ballerina”—nestled in Nairn, Scotland. Together, Swinton and Cousins have developed an exciting new event that rids itself of red carpets and press conferences, A-list pretension and superficiality, in order to simply appreciate, celebrate and fall in love with the magic of moviemaking.
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Ben Stiller's Days of Thunder
Reluctant funnyman still doing his own thing with Tropic Thunder
Best-known as one of Hollywood's most bankable funnymen, Ben Stiller has always been more interested in what's going on behind the camera. His upcoming slate of films, including Tropic Thunder, which he produced, directed and stars in, is proof positive.
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Tropic Thunder Creates Storm of Controversy
When Ben Stiller was penning his latest film, Tropic Thunder, he probably never imagined the kind of controversy a subplot would create: A call to boycott the film from more than 20 disability advocacy organizations, just days before Tropic Thunder’s August 13th premiere.
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NCSA Becomes UNCSA
Some may not see a big difference between “North Carolina School of the Arts” and “The University of North Carolina School of the Arts,” but the school’s chancellor, John Mauceri, explains that the recent name change “is emblematic, in every sense, of a larger and, for us, deeply important shift in the attitude of our university and state leaders toward the School of the Arts.” The North Carolina School of the Arts became The University of North Carolina School of the Arts after the Governor gave his stamp of approval and signed it into law on August 8th (the bill had previously passed unanimously in the Senate and by a margin of 115 to 1 in the House).
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Stephen Susco Sees Red
Drunk with ideals of fame and fortune like many film industry wannabes who come to Los Angeles mesmerized by the expansive back lots and star-seeking paparazzi on Robinson Blvd., writer-director Stephen Susco quickly realized that he needed to pull his head out of the clouds if he wanted to make it any further in Hollywood. As a graduate student at USC's School of Cinematic Arts, Susco immersed himself in the craft of screenwriting and wrote away, day in and day out. His unrelenting discipline and passion for the craft eventually lead him to his first professional job, with director Ted Demme, before he even received his diploma from USC.
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Isabel Coixet’s Cinematic Poem
Known for her strong female leads, Coixet takes on Philip Roth and misogyny with Elegy
A director best known for her strong female leads wouldn't be the first choice to adapt a novel from one of today's most misogynistic novelists. But Elegy, Isabel Coixet's adaptation of Philip Roth's The Dying Animal, just may surprise you.
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Aaron Rose : Writer, Director, Beautiful Loser
The pied piper of Manhattan's 1990s Lower East Side artist's movement, Aaron Rose breaks into film this year with his documentary, Beautiful Losers. The movie, which features interviews with the people behind the "Beautiful Losers" traveling exhibition—among them Mike Mills, (Thumbsucker) and Harmony Korine (Kids, Mister Lonely)—was six years in the making. Rose, who had previously worked in short form video, recently spoke with MM about putting together this feature project, how he struggled staying true to the art of it and what is on tap for the future.
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Shakespeare on Film: William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet
Baz Luhrmann attempts a modern-day retelling of Romeo and Juliet in MM's 11th week of Shakespeare on Film
By making rapiers a brand of automatic pistol, Paul Sorvino's Fulgencio Capulet a Godfather-like character and sixteenth-century Verona into 1990s Verona Beach, a Miami-like city, Baz Luhrmann made Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet leap off the screen with unprecedented energy and immediacy. No other director, before or since, has managed to erase young cinemagoers’ resistance to Shakespeare’s language so effectively, by producing a movie that sounds like original-text Shakespeare but looks and feels like a genre adaptation—and succeeds as both.
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A Return to the Hallowed Halls of Hogwarts
The sixth film in the franchise, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, doesn’t hit theaters until November but with newly released photos from the film, the recently-announced plans for a Universal Studios theme park dedicated to the franchise and the latest Rowling book, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, ready for order nationwide, MM thought it would be a good exercise to recap the past while we preview what’s to come.
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Enzo Castellari's Inglorious Past
Italian drive-in king gets royal treatment for cult classic
When cult moviemaker Enzo G. Castellari, hailed as the “70s Italian Drive-In God” by L.A. Weekly, embarked on his 1978 World War II adventure, Inglorious Bastards, he had little idea that, 30 years later, his film would still be loved and appreciated by a new generation of enthusiastic fans.
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Get Your Summer Fix with 10 Beach Flix
A day at the beach spans a number of genres
While the beach’s natural beauty may seem like a cinematographer’s dream, the truth is, it’s one of the most difficult locations to film. Mother Nature unfortunately takes over as assistant director when it comes to scheduling shoots, as uncontrollable conditions—the burning sun, unrelenting wind and loose, unstable sand—often cause delays in production. Yet screenwriters can’t get enough of the beach as a backdrop for their stories and as a result, numerous moviemakers have braved the rough conditions in order to capture the shoreline’s effortless beauty. From here to eternity, MM counts down the best beach films of all-time.
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It’s Bikes, Camera, Action! for Female Moviemakers
The open road has long been at the center of Hollywood films and road movies are showing no sign of decline with everything from College Road Trip to Wild Hogs hitting theaters in the past two years. Even in this age of inflated gas prices, audiences find themselves captivated by the ability of the open road to stimulate untouched dreams and desires, create hope when all is lost and promise a freedom that knows no boundaries. Sometimes, there’s just no better feeling than having your hair dancing in the wind as you careen down a vast, desolate and seemingly endless highway... or watching that on screen.
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Israel Offers Moviemakers A Little Bit of Everything
If you’re searching for the world’s most diverse landscape to film your next production, set your sights on Israel. With four climate regions, from snow peaks to sand dunes and unique plant and animal life mixing and crossing over three continents, Israel has a climate and landscape to accommodate all kinds of moviemaking—from sand-and-sandals historical epics to snow-covered mountain disaster movies.
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Anton Diether and Writers Literary: Your Screenplay Connection
Let’s face it: Without the help of a high-profile agent, a famous uncle or a replenishing bank account, it can be extremely tough to “make it” as a Hollywood screenwriter. As most production companies refuse unsolicited scripts, agencies keep their contact information hidden and nearly everyone you meet in Los Angeles claims to have a screenplay (or even multiple) in the works, the odds of standing out from the rest of the starry-eyed crowd seem like they are hardly ever in your favor.
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Shakespeare on Film: Othello
The language of Shakespeare trips up the actors in MM's 10th week of Shakespeare on Film
Othello director Oliver Parker trims about 50 percent of the text, delivering an audience-friendly two-hour running time without muddling the play’s clear plotting. His script severely restricts the dialogue entrusted to Desdemona (played by Irène Jacob) and handicaps Laurence Fishburne, who exudes hearty sexual swagger and adopts a rich, almost Caribbean accent, but pentameters are alien to an actor more at home in the expletive-ridden worlds of 1990s thrillers like King of New York.
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Is Horror Dead?
Does a changing of the guard mean the end of a genre as we know it?
Freddy, Jason and Leatherface have packed it up—and horror legends like George Romero are having a tough time at the box office. What does the future hold for the horror genre?
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Jerry Rudes Bids Bon Voyage to Avignon
After 25 years of celebrating cinema and connect moviemakers the world over, Avignon Film Festival founder Jerry Rudes bids bon voyage to the cherished event.
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Giuseppe Tornatore Dives Into the Great Unknown
He may be best known for the beloved Cinema Paradiso, but Giuseppe Tornatore's The Unknown Woman, his first film since 2000's Malena, is a substantial departure from that bittersweet love song to cinema. The Unknown Woman stars Russian actress Xenia Rappaport as Irena, a mysterious Ukrainian woman who ingratiates herself with a prosperous Italian family, taking care of their young daughter. Is she after blackmail? Revenge? Lightning-quick flashbacks provide hints of terrible secrets from her past, andThe Unknown Woman constantly keeps us off-balance with its blend of suspense and melodrama, and its mingling of past and present into one continuous stream.
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Man on Wire Reaches Box Office Heights
A new daredevil conquered the box office this past weekend, without the help of any flashy tricks or high-tech gadgets. After opening on only two screens in New York City on July 25th, Magnolia Pictures’ latest documentary, Man on Wire, grossed an impressive $51,392 over the weekend (Friday to Sunday), averaging $25,696 per screen. The highest per screen average of any film currently playing in the United States, Man on Wire even overtook this summer’s blockbuster sensation The Dark Knight, which had a per screen average of $17,000.
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James Schamus Honored with Trailblazer Award at Woodstock
James Schamus, the man behind Focus Features (think The Constant Gardener, Atonement), was chosen to receive the 2008 Trailblazer Award from the Woodstock Film Festival. Prior to working at Focus he was co-president of independent production company Good Machine for 11 years and won numerous awards for his own work, including the award for Best Screenplay at the 1997 Cannes International Film Festival for The Ice Storm.
Posted 09.5.08 | No comments yet...
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