http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/ SCREEN RUSH en Copyright 2009 2009-10-29T13:51:45+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/ti_wests_cut_is_back_in_action/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/ti_wests_cut_is_back_in_action/ I was a big fan of The House of the Devil, Ti West’s neatly executed slice of old school horror, when it premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year. But Ti was not, complaining in a retroactively controversial interview with Spout about four minutes that were missing from his version of the movie. I spoke with Ti for The Wall Street Journal this week. In the midst of our conversation, he revealed that Magnolia agreed to put those hotly contested four minutes back in the movie after they bought it a few months out of Tribeca. So now… Independent Cinema 2009-10-29T14:51:45+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/product_placement_ought_to_know_where_its_being_placed/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/product_placement_ought_to_know_where_its_being_placed/ Earlier this year, I was contacted by a start-up called Filmmortal that had an interesting agenda: The site serves as a middleman between filmmakers and companies interested in product placement. It helps producers build their budgets with sponsorships while connecting companies selling products that might fit the movie environments. Naturally, the driving motive here is capitalistic rather than creative, but it does help filmmakers in desperate need of financial assistance—and there are ways to place a product without necessarily degrading the quality of the movie itself (as far as I know, only Wayne’s World got away with combining sly self-parody… Hollywood, Independent Cinema, New Media 2009-10-27T15:16:28+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/paranormal_marketing_campaigns/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/paranormal_marketing_campaigns/ Am I late to the game on the whole Paranormal Activity marketing story? Actually, I was early. Really early. I first saw this lo-fi spookfest back the Slamdance Film Festival in 2008, when director Oren Peli was still building early momentum for it. When we met on Main Street, he revealed the complex strategy he had in mind for tricking people into believing the movie’s content—“found footage” of a couple filming dangerous supernatural activity in their home—had a basis in real life. Things moved slowly for Peli after that. It seemed like a big deal when Dreamworks bought the remake… 2009-10-22T16:19:29+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/critical_chatter/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/critical_chatter/ An apparently random tangent during a recent film critics panel in the Hamptons sucked up more attention than anybody thought it needed, as I’m sure many more valuable ideas arose during the conversation beyond any sort of dubious “ranking” of critics. That said, Karina’s response was amusing, thoughtful and—for me and many of my colleagues, I’m sure—all too familiar. (How does one become a “professional”? Not simply with a salary, as I’m sure some of the critics on the Hamptons panel who freelance would agree.) Unfortunately, the attention given to this isolated incident overshadowed a much more valuable panel that… 2009-10-13T20:27:46+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/harmony_korine_on_trash_humpers/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/harmony_korine_on_trash_humpers/ I guess it wasn’t surprising that most New York critics had negative reactions to Harmony Korine’s Trash Humpers at yesterday’s New York Film Festival. This is a movie with incredible avant garde aspirations—a first-person movie assembled out of morbid imagery and feelings of isolation. As Korine intended, it does play like found footage by leaving out a generic narrative or mythology to guide its characters. It also works as a provocation, pushing audience’s limits as far as what they’re willing to endure, but if you jive with the rhythm of this playfully bizarre experiment (and I do), it’s no less… 2009-10-01T15:29:44+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/a_serious_man_and_serious_layoffs1/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/a_serious_man_and_serious_layoffs1/ Is Michael Stuhlbarg the face of modern times? I’ve always enjoyed the Coen brothers in one fashion or another, even when their movies are uneven or hopelessly muddled, simply because of the sheer individualistic zest that they bring to each project. A Serious Man, however, needs no disclaimers. This movie is a darkly comic blast that takes spirited jabs at religion while smartly avoiding polemics, and generates real emotional weight and pathos for its put-upon lead that suggest a greater depth than anything in the Coens’ output since Fargo (although you could make the case for No Country, but it’s… 2009-09-28T14:16:35+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/a_herzogian_manifesto/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/a_herzogian_manifesto/ From the TIFF premiere of Werner Herzog’s My Son, My Son, What Ye Done? last Wednesday: The movie, by most accounts, simply doesn’t work. But hey, you’ve gotta enjoy this man’s devotion to “bold designs” and whatnot. 2009-09-21T19:12:26+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/tim_burton_on_the_age_of_the_movie_trailer/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/tim_burton_on_the_age_of_the_movie_trailer/ I had the opportunity to speak with Tim Burton a few weeks back while he was in town doing double duty as a producer on Shane Acker’s 9 and prepping an upcoming exhibit of his work at MoMA. A few days earlier, the trailer for his developing Alice in Wonderland adaptation leaked online a day early, prompting a flurry of reactions across the blogosphere. I found Burton’s animosity (not only toward the leak but toward the trailer itself) to be very telling: “I come from the olden days where you like to see a movie and be surprised,” he told… Hollywood 2009-09-09T15:20:32+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/why_extract_is_worth_your_time/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/why_extract_is_worth_your_time/ I originally became interested in film criticism when I moved beyond a simplistic interest in Hollywood spectacles and developed a fascination with the way movies tapped into human psychology and sociological forces. I was smitten with romantic comedies of the thirties and forties because they elevated the plight of the everyman to a level of creative scrutiny that revealed something honest and insightful about the American mindset. Although he doesn’t make romantic comedies, Mike Judge does continue that tradition with his generally understated and always astute observations of lonely protagonists faced with seemingly mundane tribulations. I’ve been a Judge fan… New Releases 2009-09-04T16:35:01+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/xbox_vs_ps3/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/xbox_vs_ps3/ The door to a Gamespot in Brooklyn showcases new competition. Microsoft and Sony have been competing for a long time over gamer interest in their respective platforms, the XBOX 360 and the Playstation 3, but the battle just went up a notch. Last week, Sony dropped the price of the PS3 by $100, down to $299. Yesterday, XBOX decided to follow suit. Now, there are two high-priced entertainment consoles available for the same amount. That means we can play the compare-and-contrast game! At this point, the appeal of these systems goes far beyond which games they play (especially since most… New Media, New Releases 2009-08-28T15:37:00+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/redland/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/redland/ While recently sitting through the desolate world of The Road, I couldn’t help thinking of another recent exploration of isolation and dismay in the middle of nowhere: Asiel Norton‘s Redland, a visually fascinating portrait of families struggling along in the wilderness of Great Depression-era rural America. It’s unquestionably one of the more fascinating cinematic visions of life amidst nature that I’ve seen in years. (Think Terrence Malick meets There Will Be Blood.) Here’s the trailer: The movie plays this Friday and Saturday at the Montreal Film Festival. Film Festivals, Hollywood, Independent Cinema 2009-08-27T17:56:33+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/adventureland_on_dvd/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/adventureland_on_dvd/ Studio-produced American comedies rarely leave me satisfied these days. It often seems as though Hollywood has outsourced its sense of humor to the indies: Humpday and Big Fan both contain observant portraits of flawed personalities capable of generating serious pathos without disabusing viewers of the right to laugh at their true-to-life flaws. But The Ugly Truth and Post-Grad are gleefully oblivious. Greg Mottola’s Adventureland, which hit DVD today, briefly restored my faith in big budget comedies when I saw it at Sundance in January. Mottola, the director with Superbad and Daytrippers on his resume (not to mention the recently completed… Hollywood, Independent Cinema, New Media, New Releases 2009-08-25T19:27:07+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/from_the_director_of_the_popular_video_game/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/from_the_director_of_the_popular_video_game/ This e-mail just caught my eye: Although I haven’t played Splinter Cell, I understand that the hyperrealistic action and nail-biting black ops drama had its cinematic moments. Still, “video game” is frequently used as a derogatory term when applied to movies. It usually means the title in question lacks intelligence, places spectacle over substance, etc. That’s a troublesome comparison, since many video games possess fantastic storylines, performances, and other important forms of engagement. This has been the case at least since text adventures in the eighties. But I’m wondering if we’ve reached a point now where actually promoting a movie… Independent Cinema, New Media, New Releases 2009-08-24T16:48:28+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/thoughts_on_avatar_day/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/thoughts_on_avatar_day/ The theatrical experience is in a unique state of evolution, both technologically and financially, causing the industry to continue experimenting with new ways of getting audiences into seats. While not perfect, James Cameron’s “Avatar Day,” wherein 15 minutes of his 3-D sci-fi action movie were previewed for audiences around the country, may actually qualify as a greater nugget of history than the supposedly groundbreaking technology behind the production. Here are my thoughts on the footage and the event from The Wrap: The man who famously declared himself King of the World on Oscar night 10 years ago has now become… Hollywood, Independent Cinema, New Media, New Releases 2009-08-22T02:34:29+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/bobcat_goldthwait_a_lot_of_people_think_im_dead/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/kohn/archives/bobcat_goldthwait_a_lot_of_people_think_im_dead/ Few comics have followed the same unique trajectory as Bobcat Goldthwait. Those of us who have appreciated his recent work behind the camera recognize the extraordinary freedom with which he manages to express comedic ideas. I have interviewed Goldthwait a few times since his fourth feature, World’s Greatest Dad, premiered at Sundance in January. Here’s my festival review and a piece I wrote for The Wrap where Goldthwait discussed a Kinks album that he wants to turn into a movie musical. Check out my new interview with him below, and follow the link for more at New York‘s Vulture blog. … 2009-08-20T16:37:01+00:00