Michael Gondry is a marvel—and I would have loved a longer chat than this flip-cam quickie, which skates across his SXSW doc A Thorn in My Heart, about his school teacher aunt Suzette, who the family used to visit deep in the country in the summer. He wanted partly to capture a vanishing world.
Gondry also talked about making his video Open Your Heart and working with Seth Rogen and Christoph Waltz in The Green Hornet, which he first wanted to make 13 years ago. Gondry was just starting to talk about his new animated feature Megalomania, a futuristic teen rebel adventure written by Daniel Clowes (Ghost World) as an alternative to the skuttled big-budget Master of Space and Time that never got off the ground at DreamWorks. The animation will be based on designs by Gondry’s son Paul, who is charming in Thorn in My Heart.
Eugene Hernandez got to ask him more questions during a longer Q & A, in which Gondry revealed more details. Hornet’s Rogen, Steve Buscemi and Juliette Lewis are tagged as voice stars. And The Playlist dragged even more info out of the man about other new projects—details here.
Read Moreby Anne Thompson, posted to Festivals, SXSW, Video, Interviews on March 15, 2010 at 9:59am PDT | Permalink | Comments (0)
Foreign sales company Cinema Management Group has acquired all rights outside America for Will Canon’s college thriller Brotherhood, which premiered at SXSW Saturday night. The film began ten years ago as Canon’s NYU short film Roslyn. He co-wrote Brotherhood, about a frat initiation ritual gone wrong, with Doug Simon. Chris Pollack, Jason Croft, Steven Hein and Tim O’Hair produced with executive producers Jamie Patricof, Kevin Iwashina, Darryn Welch and Chris Ouwinga.
CMG acquired two titles at this year’s Sundance Film Festival: The Perfect Host, and Josh Fox’s doc Gasland, which won the doc Special Jury Prize.
by Anne Thompson, posted to Festivals, SXSW, Genres, Independents on March 14, 2010 at 2:49pm PDT | Permalink | Comments (0)
At the SXSW opening night party, Jason Reitman showed me the trailer (below) for Aaron Katz’s third feature Cold Weather on his iPhone. Reitman was psyched to see it, and I was intrigued, but it was up against Michel Gondry’s Cannes doc Thorn in My Heart, which I needed to see in order to interview him Sunday.
Sure enough, Reitman was right: the LAT’s Mark Olsen, LA Weekly’s Karina Longworth and indieWIRE’s own Eric Kohn have all raved.
At a provocative panel Sunday, “Saving Cinema in the Digital Era,” IFC’s Ryan Werner said he was interested in the movie, but that it was just this sort of indie American drama that was the toughest to market these days. Local exhibitor Tim League of the Alamo Drafthouse agreed, saying that he markets films at his two local cinemas via twitter and facebook, not print and radio. The message of the panel—well-moderated by indieWIRE’s Eugene Hernandez, who recognized that some of the most interesting things were brought up by questioners from the interactive side—was that everyone needs to get as much publicity as possible by any means necessary. What’s exciting about SXSW is the way that the interactive/music/film/online worlds collide and cross-pollinate and inform. The networking and panels are fab.
Katz posted his YouTube trailer well in advance of the fest—which obviously started the process of grabbing notice.
Read Moreby Anne Thompson, posted to Festivals, SXSW, Genres, Independents, Reviews, Video, Trailers, Web/Tech, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube on March 14, 2010 at 12:50pm PDT | Permalink | Comments (0)
SXSW has a casual young, male vibe. At the Kick-Ass opener, the fest’s Janet Pierson and director Matthew Vaughn were both wearing jeans and sneakers. So it makes sense SXSW was perfect venue for Kick-Ass, which has a primarily young male—and less female—appeal. It’s a nasty hard-R super-hero spoof designed to outrage and delight. And it will destroy at the b.o. when Liongsate opens it April. (It opens first in the U.K. in two weeks.)
Stars Aaron Johnson and Christopher Mintz-Platz were in attendance; Chloe Moretz’s plane was delayed, while Nic Cage was filming Drive Angry in Shreveport. (A full report later after I talk to Vaughn Saturday.)
Note to SXSW: casual doesn’t mean that the opening night bash (comme toujours, at Buffalo Billiards) has to be utterly inedible!
by Anne Thompson, posted to Festivals, SXSW, Headliners, Nic Cage, Independents, Lionsgate/Roadside on March 13, 2010 at 6:10am PST | Permalink | Comments (0)
Gold Film/Interactive Badge and packet of party tickets in hand, I’m plugged into a power strip in the main courtyard at the Austin Convention Center. (The wi-fi sucks.) On my way downtown, I drove the wrong way onto several one-way streets, including a train track. I am safely parked in the convention lot, which costs $7 a day, but the guy let me in for free when I offered an out-of-state check.
The interactive panels are the most compelling; the interactive/film dynamic is exciting here. I’ll watch some new films, sure, and interview folks along the way, but I have the luxury of knowing that indieWIRE is covering the films like a blanket. Kick-Ass starts things off Friday night; I’ll talk to director Matthew Vaughn tomorrow, and producer Robert Rodriguez is previewing footage from Predators at 10 PM and again tomorrow, with a press conference. I spoke to Rodriguez last night at the Texas Film Hall of Fame; he says Predators is not a remake but more of a reinvention inspired by the title, which is owned by Fox. According to @theplaylist, who has read the script, it’s a sequel set in the same world. Rodriguez shot both Predators and his own Machete at Austin’s thriving Troublemaker Studios, which he founded ten years ago after El Mariachi.
At the Texas Film Hall of Fame, I videoed Rodriguez and talked SXSW with the fest’s Rebecca Feferman and The Dallas/Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Chris Kelly, on the jump.
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by Anne Thompson, posted to Festivals, SXSW, Video, Interviews on March 12, 2010 at 4:06pm PST | Permalink | Comments (1)
For ten years the Austin Film Society’s Texas Film Hall of Fame has handed out awards to the state’s own—and deserving outsiders like Quentin Tarantino, who after 17 years of premiering his films and doing his QT Fests in Austin, was inducted by best buds Richard Linklater and Robert Rodriguez, who gave him a cowboy hat. (His speech is below.) “I start relaxing tomorrow,” he said. Another refugee from the exhausting Oscar race was Jason Reitman, who on a whim took off in his car to decompress and wound up here to watch some movies (he’s shown his shorts here in the past) before heading home to rework the first draft of his new screenplay.
Piggybacking on the giant SXSW, which opens Friday with Kick-Ass, the Hall of Fame is a chance for the local community to party and raise funds. Austin Society executive director Rebecca Campbell estimates that the event, hosted by the genial Thomas Hayden Church, netted about $300,000. Over nine years they have raised $2.5 million to benefit local filmmakers with outreach and education, plus exhibition programs.
Read Moreby Anne Thompson, posted to Awards, Directors, Quentin Tarantino, Festivals, SXSW on March 12, 2010 at 6:33am PST | Permalink | Comments (1)
Todd McCarthy got some good news and bad news Monday. While he lost his job (after 31 years) as chief critic at venerable trade Variety, he will go to the Cannes International Film Festival as the newest member of the New York Film Festival selection committee. The official announcement is expected shortly came Friday. McCarthy talks to the NYT.
Last year the Film Society added two film critics, ex-Time Out New York reviewer Melissa Anderson and ex-Voice film editor Dennis Lim, to the committee, joining LA Weekly film editor Scott Foundas (who has since joined the Film Society of Lincoln Center as an associate programmer) and Voice critic Jim Hoberman, whose term has since expired and was not extended. There had been speculation that Film Society director Mara Manus would rejigger the composition of the committee in hope of winding up with a more audience-friendly NYFF programme.
As McCarthy considers his options, no talks have begun with Variety regarding his freelance status, leaving the trade’s Cannes coverage up in the air. McCarthy used to coordinate a global slate of reviews with London-based Derek Elley. Junior critic and copy editor Justin Chang is the only Variety staffer who is in a position to glue the Cannes coverage together. In other words, if Variety had really wanted to keep on critics McCarthy, Elley and David Rooney as freelance contributors, editor Tim Gray did nothing to set that up in advance and by summarily laying them off (btw, I object to the The Wrap’s over-dramatic use of the word “fired”), alienated the marquee names he says he intended to keep on board.
Read Moreby Anne Thompson, posted to Festivals, Cannes, NYFF, Media, Reviews, Writers, Critics on March 10, 2010 at 12:12pm PST | Permalink | Comments (0)
The hot topic of conversation at this Friday’s Independent Spirit Awards will be the role of film festivals in distribution, as Tribeca Enterprises honchos Jane Rosenthal and ex-Sundance director Geoff Gilmore announce their plans to actively engage in distribution for indie films with backing from investor Jonathan Tisch and American Express. Gilmore has long indicated that this was a direction he wanted to take. Now he’s acting on it. (Here’s the NYT.)
Tribeca Film is taking further what other fests have started, including Sundance (which partnered rather unimpressively with YouTube this year) and SXSW (which works closely with IFC Films). “We’re trying to take it to a whole other level,” Gilmore told indieWIRE. Eugene Hernandez, David Poland and Ted Hope react. Gilmore and Rosenthal want to open up the distribution log jam, primarily via digital distribution. But Hope identifies what I see as the primary road block to instant-fest launches which so far have not been very successful: the marketing gap.
I will get back to this anon.
by Anne Thompson, posted to Exhibition, Festivals, Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca, Genres, Independents, Independents on March 3, 2010 at 6:26pm PST | Permalink | Comments (2)
The SXSW attractions are mounting up. Now Austin-local producer Robert Rodriguez and director Nimrod Antal will unveil footage from their upcoming remake of the Schwarzennegger flick Predators on March 12 at the Alamo Ritz at 10 pm. SXSW will also host the world premiere of Géla Babluani’s 13 as part of the SX Fantastic midnight section. The 2010 SXSW takes place March 12 – March 20.
Rodriguez shot Predators on location at his Austin Troublemaker Studios with director Antal. Mercenary Royce (Adrien Brody) leads a group of warriors who realize they’re assembled on an alien planet as prey (wasn’t this a Twilight Zone episode?). 13 is a remake of the 2005 French film.
UPDATE: Here’s a useful grid view of the SXSW schedule.
by Anne Thompson, posted to Festivals, SXSW, Genres, Remake on March 3, 2010 at 3:59am PST | Permalink | Comments (2)
As she wraps up the 60th Berlinale, Meredith Brody sits down to three squares in one day and remembers her mantra: “We must really love movies.”
Read MoreUsually at one point during a festival one hits a wall and decides, in the interests of sanity, to take a little time off from the inexorable wave of celluloid (or pixels) that’s engulfing you.
Somehow this never happened to me, even with the extra difficulty added by the icy, snowy streets and the fact that I got cocky one early night after navigating them successfully for a time and performed a classic slip-and-fall, turning a corner en route to the Berlinale Palast. I thereby learn what the phrase “to have the wind knocked out of you” means. Nothing really serious seems to have occurred, aside from a persistent ache in my side that makes navigating the stairs to the S and U Bahn and the ones inside the theaters a bit more challenging. It hasn’t slowed me down, just added an extra layer of inconvenience (and the occasional involuntary groan) to the daily rounds of standing in lines, waiting for doors to open, acquiring and relinquishing tickets, having passes checked, achieving a seat, settling one’s bags, taking off and putting on layers of clothing, all the minutiae whose constant repetition engenders my daily mantra: “We must really love movies.”
by Meredith Brody, posted to Festivals, Reviews on February 24, 2010 at 3:16pm PST | Permalink | Comments (0)
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