I once had a film professor tell me that a paper of mine gave him a “vague sense of nothingness.” I learned several things from this experience. First, he was right. I wasn’t exactly getting the point of “film theory.” Second, the same could be said about many of the lectures. It was the mid-1970s, […]
There are two great things in life: free stuff and stuff that’s almost free. Unfortunately, it seems as if nothing is free in the filmmaking process, and there are plenty of companies looking to make some nice profit from every aspect of the industry. All the more reason why any available freebie is more precious […]
There have been a lot of changes in our society over the past fifty years. Hey, about fifty years ago it was almost impossible for an African-American filmmaker to exist; now it’s merely almost impossible for him (or her) to get a distributor. Well, that’s pretty much the way it works. Nobody will put it that […]
There are many ways to acquire money for a small-budget film. For example, selling your organs on the black market. That should be good for a few thousand bucks. But once you run out of spare kidneys, you’ll have to adopt an alternative strategy. Thank the lord for Google and the Internet. There’s an unlimited number […]
The great thing about predictions is that few people ever go back a year later to find out where you were wrong. For example, I predicted a few months ago that Avatar wouldn’t necessarily make it past the billion dollar mark. OK, I was wrong. Big whoop! The profit from Avatar is pretty meaningless (unless […]
2009 is nearly over, and not a moment too soon. After exhaustive studies, scientists have firmly concluded that 2009 is the crappiest year in living memory. Undoubtedly it is the lousiest year of the 21st Century. It is barely equaled by 1914, 1918 and 1929 in the 20th Century. Heck, it’s almost tempting to say […]
As far as Hollywood is concerned, the red menace is back. Last week, the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation released its report on the impact of low-rent DVDs through the Redbox system, and guess what – Redbox will result in the complete end of civilization. Like a biblical plague, the pesky little vending machines […]
Like any sane person, I hate to keep beating a dead horse. So why does Pamela McClintock at Variety keep propping up the same smoldering corpse. OK, it seems to be her job to keep insisting that Hollywood is having a swell year despite all obvious signs to the contrary. But you would think the […]
In a recent interview, Clint Eastwood referred to the current generation of young Americans as a pack of teenage twits. That may or may not be a fair opinion. Clint may simply be cranky. However, Eastwood just summed up the audience that Hollywood is desperately trying to woo. The teenage twit audience is out there, and […]
Like the old story about the reports of Mark Twain’s “death,” current news stories on the end of independent movies may be slightly exaggerated. Granted, it doesn’t look good and the damage has been absolutely gawd-awful, but indie film is not exactly dead, no matter what Time magazine says. In an article printed in the Nov. […]