http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/ wherein I rant about all things film and film industry unfit to publish in any official capacity. Email Anthony en-us 2008-12-02T11:34:39-05:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 This is an XML content feed. It is intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AnthonyKaufmansWeblog/~3/472640200/019282.html The Gotham Independent Film Awards launches tonight at new digs Cipriani's (one might wonder if the famous Wall Street eatery is wanting of clients these days). Anyway, with indieWIRE's old interview with leading contender Lance Hammer up today, I felt like sharing some additional updates about the art-director-turned-auteur's must-see and much-missed debut "Ballast." For a Variety preview on the Gothams published today ("Gotham Awards Go Back to Basics"), I caught up with Hammer as the film had just left New York screens. Not that anyone may have noticed, but I saw a couple weeks ago that "Ballast" popped up again... 19282@http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/ 2008-12-02T11:34:39-05:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/archives/019282.html http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AnthonyKaufmansWeblog/~3/468535672/019255.html "Silent Light," Carlos Reygadas' luminous, mystifying and now somewhat legendary unreleased Mennonite Mexican drama, is finally coming to theaters. After first reporting in July that the film would get released by Palisades Pictures this winter and then receiving info from the film's foreign sales company that contradicted my earlier report, it turns out I may have been right in the first place. Palisades, an entertainment company that bought the rights to Tartan's library after the company went under, has booked "Silent Light" at the Film Forum for a January 7 opening. Currently, there are no other venues set, so this... 19255@http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/ 2008-11-28T12:24:14-05:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/archives/019255.html http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AnthonyKaufmansWeblog/~3/440988912/019008.html I have two stories out recently on how the tumultuous economy is affecting the state of indie film financing, one focusing on low-budget indies (for indieWIRE, "Cash Crunch") and another on higher-budget indies (for Variety, "Indie film financing still in good shape"). After talking with producers on the low-end and bankers and investment specialists on the high-end, I was suprised to discover how little people are worrying. Is the movie business recession-proof? Not quite, but according to many people I spoke with, it is consistent, which can't be said for Wall Street right now. Most surprising to me was the... 19008@http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/ 2008-11-03T09:02:02-05:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/archives/019008.html http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AnthonyKaufmansWeblog/~3/436368794/018970.html For more on the history of "real people" campaign ads, check out Morris' latest blog entry at the New York Times. And to help out with the Obama campaign in these next most vital days before the election, go to http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/givebarackaday... 18970@http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/ 2008-10-29T20:59:27-05:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/archives/018970.html http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AnthonyKaufmansWeblog/~3/407729774/018611.html Just when you think bold, challenging, artful filmmaking has left the Amer-indie landscape altogether, there's always a film or two every year that comes along to re-energize your faith in domestic cinema. And I'm not talking about those film festival breakouts that cross over into the mainstream or into Academy recognition. I'm talking about films that aspire to and even attain the heights of international art film -- rarefied, perhaps, but groundbreakers all the same. (Past year's examples include "In Between Days," "Day Night, Day Night," "Munyurangabo," "Chop Shop," et. al. -- all directed by filmmakers I'm happy to say... 18611@http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/ 2008-09-30T20:18:34-05:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/archives/018611.html http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AnthonyKaufmansWeblog/~3/394204599/018496.html With all this indieWIRE reporting on VOD -- the launch of the Sundance Channel's new VOD platform Sundance Selects and Peter Broderick's now familiar touting of self- and internet- distribution models -- I thought it important to temper some of the enthusiasm for the "New World" of distribution, as Broderick calls it. If you didn't see it in Variety's Global Independents issue, I wrote up what I think to be one of the more detailed, albeit brief reports on the current state of VOD and simultaneous distribution options for filmmakers. Thanks to IFC President Jonathan Sehring, who was forthcoming with... 18496@http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/ 2008-09-16T10:10:58-05:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/archives/018496.html http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AnthonyKaufmansWeblog/~3/393415729/018494.html If Kathyn Bigelow weren't at the helm of the most testosterone-fueled movie of the year "The Hurt Locker," my criticisms would probably be more scathing of the much-hyped Toronto picture. Still, I can't help but take a few moments here to counter some of the positive buzz. Sure, "The Hurt Locker" is not like other Iraq war films; for one, it's an edge-of-your-seat thriller that has nothing to do with the war. But that's the problem. It's pretty easy to transplant maverick, bomb-defusing renegade Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner) for Patrick Swayze's maverick surfer criminal renegade Bodhi in "Point Break."... 18494@http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/ 2008-09-15T13:53:19-05:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/archives/018494.html http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AnthonyKaufmansWeblog/~3/388697334/018433.html Toronto isn't officially over, but for me, 5 days is always enough to get a sense of a film festival's offerings. By day 6, everything starts to take on a stale air. Looking back from the comforts of home, this year's fest was actually one of the better than I can remember. The fest's premieres usuallly don't hold a candle to Cannes', and while I can't say anything was utterly transformative, I saw a solid batch of films. Even those that tested my patience, such as the arty Belgian film "Unspoken" or the minimalist Uruguayan teen coming-of-ager "Acne" (a Cannes... 18433@http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/ 2008-09-10T10:18:24-05:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/archives/018433.html http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AnthonyKaufmansWeblog/~3/381392462/018300.html As a critic and a cinephile (in addition to my many other hats), I have always felt my job was equal parts analysis, advocacy and education. I'd like to think I'm combining all three in my latest course on the "Contemporary Documentary," which takes place Wednesday nights at New York University (in their School of Continuing and Professional Studies program). Once again, I'm planning to make the course less a history lesson and more an examination of the filmmaking practices and various aesthetic strategies that have gone into the best (primarily American) documentaries, from "Titticut Follies" to "The Thin Blue... 18300@http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/ 2008-09-02T10:02:44-05:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/archives/018300.html http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AnthonyKaufmansWeblog/~3/371852063/018196.html "Momma's Man" has a pretty good shot this weekend at the Angelika Film Center, which by all accounts, and despite the sounds of subways rumbling during screenings since it opened, remains a fine place to open a movie in New York these days. Like many of my fellow writers and bloggers, we've been championing "Momma's Man" since its Sundance premiere (full disclosure: I saw it soonafter on DVD). Opening reviews are stellar across the board among the critics (an 86 so far at metacritic, tying with Up the Yangtze, The Edge of Heaven, and The Flight of the Red Balloon... 18196@http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/ 2008-08-22T09:05:31-05:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/archives/018196.html http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AnthonyKaufmansWeblog/~3/369077067/018178.html Big, big Toronto: too many films, a lot of mediocrity and dreck to sift through, but there are always a few diamonds in the swamp. What world premieres should we look forward to in this year's selection? Here's some educated guesses (descriptions are from festival and PR reps): "Treeless Mountain" - New York filmmaker So Yong Kim's Korea-set follow-up to her Sundance award-winning "In Between Days" tells the intimate story of two little girls abandoned by their mother. "Goodbye Solo" - Ramin Bahrani ("Man Push Cart," "Chop Shop") follows the relationship between a Senagelese taxi driver and an older suicidal... 18178@http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/ 2008-08-19T09:56:33-05:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/archives/018178.html http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AnthonyKaufmansWeblog/~3/365692763/018141.html Everyone's got one: Wong Kar-wai, Ang Lee, Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, and now Hou Hsiao-hsien? After breaking his personal box office record with the French-language "Flight of the Red Balloon," Hou seems to be expanding his artfully composed long-take horizons, according to Variety, with his first big-budget martial arts epic, titled "The Assassin" (aka "The Hidden Heroine"). Backed by the Taiwan government, the film is reported to have a budget of $8.65 million. Pre-production is set for Oct. 1, with an early 2009 start-date, depending on cast and crew availability. Expected actors include Hou's "Three Times" co-stars Shu Qi ("The... 18141@http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/ 2008-08-15T09:56:57-05:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/archives/018141.html http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AnthonyKaufmansWeblog/~3/363844253/018115.html As much as right-wingers would have hoped, Barack Obama will not appear in Lars Von Trier's next project "Antichrist," which finally has all of its stars lined up: Trades report this morning that Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe have been cast as a couple who retreat into an isolated cabin following the death of their child. While Variety bills the film as a "psychological thriller that evolves into a horror film," I'd use the term "horror" loosely if you've seen the way Von Trier employs horror conventions in films such as "Epidemic" or "The Kingdom" series. We're talking strange, supernatural,... 18115@http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/ 2008-08-13T08:18:14-05:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/archives/018115.html http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AnthonyKaufmansWeblog/~3/362309945/018099.html Jaman, The Auteurs, and now iArtHouse -- how many companies does it take to cater to the sliver of the media-consuming public who cares about international art cinema? Don't get me wrong: I'm all for webcos whose mission is to peddle the likes of Tian Zhuangzhuang, Lou Ye, Michael Haneke, Ken Loach and Jacques Rivette. But the cynic in me -- cultivated after decades of watching great movies die in the marketplace -- wonders how many downloaders out there really want to pay $8.98 to get a DVD quality file of Lee Chang Dong's "Oasis"? Unlike Jaman, which solely provides... 18099@http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/ 2008-08-11T17:41:11-05:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/archives/018099.html http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AnthonyKaufmansWeblog/~3/361962358/018088.html If the future of indie film distribution is digital download, do filmmakers have a home at iTunes? CinemaTech's Scott Curtis offers a provocative post that's a bit of a wake-up call for indie filmmakers. I guess it's no surprise that Apple's online mega-retailer is giving truly indies the cold shoulder: Like Blockbuster before them, iTunes doesn't feel the need to cater to content that doesn't already have a major company behind them, be it the Hollywood majors or smaller entities such as IFC or New Video. But unlike Blockbuster, iTunes doesn't have limited shelf space, so why can't they welcome... 18088@http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/ 2008-08-11T09:51:13-05:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/archives/018088.html