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Lights! Camera! Geritol!
Are audiences ready for a rickety Indiana Jones?
Today’s stars keep themselves in better shape than ever before, and audiences seem to like that. In fact, box office receipts for recent flicks featuring some of our favorite aging action heroes are so encouraging that studio execs are practically rubbing their hands together in anticipation of the new Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) and Sylvester Stallone (Rambo) vehicles. Stallone certainly didn’t hurt himself when his more famous screen persona—Rocky Balboa—earned critical acclaim and a respectable $70 million in last year’s titular blockbuster, chasing doubts that the actor-director was simply giving himself a starring role in order to slow a career slide.
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Last Exit to Film Geekdom
Film geeks like to show off; it's in their job description. Whether it's debating the merits of Lars von Trier or discussing which Evil Dead film is the true masterpiece, it's just what they do. Well, thanks to entrepreneur Mike Ford, what they do has just gotten a bit easier to show off. Ford's UK-based company, Last Exit to Nowhere, sells T-shirts based on fictional companies and locations from films. And although the movies represented tend to skew a bit toward cult favorites (designs include the Winchester Tavern from Shaun of the Dead, the Urban Achievers from The Big Lebowski and Jaws' Amity Island), Ford says this was not deliberate.
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David Mamet in Pictures
There isn't anyone quite like David Mamet, the American writer who brought us such films as the steamy 1981 remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice and the groundbreaking 1996 film American Buffalo. More than just a screenwriter, Mamet has brought his characters to life on screen as a director and on stage as a Tony Award-nominated playwright. This week, as audiences prepare for his latest directorial effort, Redbelt, MM revisits some of the work that made him the moviemaker we know today.
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Harmony Korine’s Golden Rules
Harmony Korine first gained notoriety at the age of 22, when his screenplay for Kids, about 24 hours in the life of an HIV-positive teen, was made into a feature film by Larry Clark. Two years later, Korine made his debut as a writer-director with the feature film Gummo, followed by Julien Donkey-Boy in 1999. Nine years later, Korine has returned to the indie film landscape with Mister Lonely, in theaters now courtesy of IFC. Here, Korine shares his 10 "Golden Rules" of moviemaking.
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Harry Potter’s World Comes to a City Near You
It’s really impossible to hear something like “sorting hat” or “invisibility cloak” and not feel at least a little of the allure of Harry Potter's universe. When the films brought the J.K. Rowling books to life, it was through the costuming, set design and props. In 2009, “Harry Potter: The Exhibition” will bring 10,000 square feet of artifacts from the enchanting films to 10 or more cities around the world over a five-year period.
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Nancy Oliver Gets Real
The story of a man and his blow-up doll isn't the first logline that comes to mind when thinking "Oscar nominee," but that's been the real-life experience of screenwriter Nancy Oliver. "It’s been a total trip and surprise and my mind is blown that it all happened," admits Oliver of her script for Lars and the Real Girl, which scored a nomination for Best Original Screenplay earlier this year. Though it's her debut as a feature film scribe, Oliver is no stranger to the writing game. In 2005, she became a co-producer and writer on HBO's "Six Feet Under," a show created by her longtime friend Alan Ball. Today, Oliver's busy collaborating with Ball once again, this time on the new HBO series, "True Blood," and is in the early stages of another film project.
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Tom McCarthy Welcomes The Visitor
It’s worth recounting the central premise of Tom McCarthy’s The Visitor to emphasize that what sounds potentially cloying or cringe-worthy on the page, and would probably sound like fingernails on a chalkboard to studio executives in a pitch meeting, can become something graceful, intimate and incredibly moving in the right hands.
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Independent Spirit
Independent moviemakers explain the inspirations behind their most recent films.
Six independent moviemakers talk of the state of independent moviemaking today and explain the inspirations behind their most recent films.
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Paula Mazur Imagines Nim's Island
For most moviemakers, the only place to go after winning an Oscar, ACE and Emmy award is down—or rehab. But multi-hyphenate Paula Mazur is changing the rules. Best known as a producer, Mazur has spent the last three decades building a reputation as a moviemaker with a discerning eye for high-quality content, whether in television or film, fiction or documentary. After shifting gears to make her directorial debut in 1992, Mazur is adding a new title to her business card, this time as a screenwriter on Nim’s Island.
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Anthony MInghella: 1954 - 2008
Sometimes an artist creates a work you love so much that he or she just become an integral part of your life, etched in your psyche and on your heart, without your ever even having come into actual contact with the person. That is an artist's job—to move and in many ways define you—and when you have a true artist, as Anthony Minghella was, they leave an imprint on your life that never fades.
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Newmarket Press Publishes Best Scripts of 2008
The acclaimed Newmarket Shooting Script series, known for publishing books of renowned screenplays, offers several of this year’s Academy Award-nominated scripts, including Atonement, Juno, The Savages and Michael Clayton. Other 2007 Shooting Scripts include Knocked Up, Dan in Real Life and Margot at the Wedding. In addition to the screenplay itself, Newmarket Shooting Scripts include introductions, still photos and full cast and crew credits. Many books in the series also include interviews with the screenwriter.
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David Magee Lives for Miss Pettigrew
A self-described Midwestern boy from Michigan, screenwriter David Magee is frequenting Hollywood these days. Magee, who actually started as an actor and later honed his writing skills doing novel abridgments, scored both Oscar and Golden Globe nods for his “freshman” feature-length script, Finding Neverland. Now he awaits the release of his “sophomore” effort, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, starring Amy Adams and Frances McDormand, which he calls a lovely, light comedy.
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Oscar’s Biggest Winners
On Oscar night, it's when the telecast ends that the real fun begins. MM catches a glimpse of some of the night's biggest winners—Daniel Day-Lewis, Javier Bardem, Marion Cotillard, Diablo Cody and Joel Coen—at Oscar night's biggest event, the Governors Ball.
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Juno Storms the Spirit Awards
Juno cleaned up at Film Independent's Spirit Awards last night, taking home awards for Best Feature, Best First Screenplay for Diablo Cody and Best Female Lead for Ellen Page. Philip Seymour Hoffman won the Best Male Lead award for Tamara Jenkins' The Savages, with Jenkins herself taking the Best Screenplay Award. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly claimed two of the night's top honors, including Best Director for Julian Schnabel and Best Cinematography for Janusz Kaminski. Irishman John Carney's Once won for Best Foreign Film and Cate Blanchett matched director Todd Haynes' Robert Altman Award with her own for Best Supporting Actress for I'm Not There.
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MovieMaker Goes for the Gold
Academy members may have the final say on who will walk away with the gold at this Sunday’s Oscar ceremony. But that doesn’t mean that we here at MM can’t have a little fun getting in on the action, too. Here, five editors and longtime contributing writers weigh in on Oscar’s hits, misses and most egregious snubs!
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BlueCat Screenwriting Competition Gives Writers Red Carpet Treatment
In an industry that can often feel impersonal and intimidating, the BlueCat Screenwriting Competition is a beacon of humanism. This contest, started in 1998 by Love Liza and A Coat of Snow scribe Gordy Hoffman, places emphasis in all the right places.
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Adapting for the Screen
Paul Thomas Anderson, Joel and Ethan Coen, Christopher Hampton, Ronald Harwood and Sarah Polley breathe new life into the written word
Louisa May Alcott’s novel Little Women has been made for the screen no less than ten times since being published in 1868. It's inevitable that people would want to visually develop the world they had vicariously lived through. But just because it remains one of the most beloved books of all time doesn’t mean that its screen versions have fared as well. When adapting a novel, “determining what to keep and what to lose is unquestionably an angst-inducing exercise,” writes Christina Hamlett in MovieMaker’s Complete Guide to Making Movies 2008. “The bottom line?” asks Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Mark Fergus (Children of Men), “Film is about choices. It’s a brutal medium and the more hard choices that are made, the better the movie.” The nominees for this year’s Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar have undoubtedly found a happy balance.
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BAFTA Award Winners Announced
This year’s British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) award winners are official. In addition to the results that have become commonplace this awards season (Daniel Day-Lewis and Javier Bardem winning Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively), there were a few surprises, namely Atonement’s win for Best Picture. The British romance certainly benefited from a little home field advantage, beating out consistent frontrunners No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood to reclaim some of its post-Golden Globes momentum, right in time for the Oscars.
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Tamara Jenkins Gets Savage
Oscar-nominated writer-director beats the sophomore slump
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A moviemaker workshops a script through the Sundance Institute, the finished feature gets accepted into the prestigious festival and the critical hosannas start pouring in. Then he or she gets courted by a number of studios, several projects stall and years pass… Soon, the moviemaker is regrettably relegated to the “Where are they now?” files, along with a number of other indie film alumni who sprint out of the gate and then find it hard to get a follow-up made.
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Top 10 Movie Cities 2008
MM’s eighth annual countdown of the best places to live, work and make movies
From Austin to Albuquerque and plenty of places in between, MovieMaker's eighth annual countdown of the 10 best places to live, work and make movies in the U.S.
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Jeffrey Blitz Practices Rocket Science
Oscar-nominated documentarian gets fictional
He made spelling cool when he directed the hit documentary Spellbound in 2002 and earned an Oscar nomination for his efforts. Now Jeffrey Blitz is back and taking on the English language from a different angle with the coming-of-age comedy Rocket Science. A hit at last year's Sundance Film Festival, the story of a high school debate team had a limited theatrical release in 2007 and is being released on DVD by HBO Home Video on January 29th. MM spoke with Blitz about the difference between documentary and feature moviemaking, the difficulties in navigating today's distribution process and why adolescent awkwardness makes for fascinating filmmaking.
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Sarah Polley's Uncompromising Vision
In her feature film debut as a writer-director, the Canadian actress creates an astonishing portrait of a couple confronting change in the winter of their marriage.
After becoming a child star in her native Canada, Sarah Polley captured the attention of the world with her quietly powerful performance as a paralyzed girl in Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter. Now she's making her feature film debut as a writer-director and, true to form, her choice of subject matter is against the grain.
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Rawson Marshall Thurber Unravels The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
Sophomore writer-director goes from Dodgeball to Sundance
Four years after proving his comedic chops—and box office potential—with the comedy Dodgeball, writer-director Rawson Marshall Thurber is going in a completely different direction. With Michael Chabon's blessing, he's adapted the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelists first book, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, into a feature film starring Jon Foster, Sienna Miller, Peter Sarsgaard and Nick Nolte.
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Micky Levy Works Her Way Up to Rails & Ties
Micky Levy is living the American Dream. Born and raised in Israel, Levy landed on U.S. soil at the age of 17. With $700 to her name, she pulled up her bootstraps, learned how to speak English and began working her way through the often convoluted rungs of the Hollywood ladder. This past year saw the major release of her second feature film, Rails & Ties, for which she took on the roles of both writer and actress. Directed by Alison Eastwood (daughter of the legendary Clint), the movie stars Kevin Bacon as a train conductor who takes to the victim of a rail accident he had unintentionally been a part of. Along with his wife, played by Marcia Gay Harden, he discovers it’s never too late to open your heart—and your life—to someone new. Here, Levy talks to MM about her dual roles and inspirations.
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Writers Strike: Six Weeks Later
After six weeks of tense negotiations, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) remain deadlocked in a heated battle over digital distribution dollars. No, this isn't Perseus versus the Kraken. But it is an epic battle, the end of which will have an enormous impact for Hollywood in the years to come, as the industry moves headfirst into the electronic age.
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Hank Nelken: Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
"Don't believe the hype" and other lessons from the writer-director behind Mama's Boy and Something Borrowed.
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Hank Nelken is a Mama’s Boy
Screenwriter-turned-director Hank Nelken awaits the release of three new movies
If it’s true that people are born to do certain things, then Hank Nelken was born to be a moviemaker. Because whether he was filming Bar Mitzvahs as a kid to fund his own short films or editing wedding videos right out of USC Film School to buy bread, Nelken has always known what he wants to do with his life: Make movies.
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Jason Reitman: Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
Oren Moverman Is Here
The screenwriter partners with Todd Haynes to co-write I'm Not There
I'm Not There, in theaters now, takes an experimental approach to the traditional biopic form by presenting its subject, Bob Dylan, as a variety of personifications.
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Julie Taymor’s Golden Rules
Director Julie Taymor shares her secrets for success at everything from Hollywood to Broadway.
From Oscar to Tony, Julie Taymor has found success in Hollywood and on Broadway as a writer, director, producer and costume designer. In 2003, she received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song for Frida, which she also directed. Her latest film, Across the Universe, starring Evan Rachel Wood, is on DVD now. Here she shares her secrets for success at everything from Hollywood to Broadway.
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Robin Swicord: Things I’ve Learned as a Moviemaker
"When possible, bake cookies in the editing room" and other lessons from one of Hollywood's most prolific writer-producer-directors.
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Robin Swicord Takes on Jane Austen
The longtime writer-producer helms her first feature film with The Jane Austen Book Club
Even as one of Hollywood's most powerful writer-producers, it has taken 15 years for Robin Swicord to get the chance to direct. But she's doing it now with The Jane Austen Book Club.
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Todd Haynes Takes on Bob Dylan
A moviemaker's long journey to bring the life of legendary musician Bob Dylan to the big screen results in the experimental I'm Not There
After the enormous success of recent biopics like Ray and Walk the Line, it should have been easy for writer-director Todd Haynes to make his Bob Dylan-inspired film, I'm Not There. It wasn't.
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David Levien & Brian Koppelman: Ocean’s Two
Longtime friends and writing partners go all in with Ocean's Thirteen
Brian Koppelman and David Levien are among the movie business’ most sought-after screenwriters. If all falls into place, they’ll soon be turning their attention to scripts for Robert De Niro (he’ll reportedly star in the Koppelman/Levien-penned mafia tale The Winter of Frankie Machine) and Brian De Palma (the would-be director of a prequel titled The Untouchables: Capone Rising).
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John Carpenter’s Business of Insanity
With five remakes of his work in two years, John Carpenter is happily riding the Halloween gravy train
In Hollywood these days, it sometimes seems easier to find an actor who’ll admit to having had plastic surgery than it is to find an original idea for a movie. Case in point: Legendary horror director John Carpenter.
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Jaman Launches “Movie Channel for the World”
Jaman.com announced the availability of instantly streamed, HD-quality movies—for free.
With nothing more than a simple click, cineastes can watch one of 100 ad-supported titles from the online distributor's collection of more than 3,000 films at no cost. Alternatively, those viewers who are less inclined to "pay" for the free films by watching the ads can pay just $1.99 to watch them commercial-dree. “By offering a free streaming media service along with our current rental and ownership download options, we are anticipating the future of digital cinema," says Jaman founder and CEO, Gaurav Dhillon. "With streaming, we provide our community with a quality viewing experience that is free and for our advertisers, we deliver a unique audience and premium and targeted placement opportunities.”
Posted 05.15.08 | News/Commentary | 1 comment
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