Microfinancing is hot. The concept has even made its way to The Simpsons, a show that lost its street cred ages ago but still has Lisa as the closest thing this country's got in the way of rational political discourse. So the concept has just...
The short film, like the short story, normally gets the short end of the stick. For most beginning filmmakers, the short film is the simplest way to get started. The production cost is relatively low and the format is much more flexible than a feature-length...
It is getting pretty hard to keep track of things. Just a year ago, 3D was the impending salvation of commercial cinema. Now, the suits of Hollywood are quaking at the thought that the 3D revolution is dead. OK, some folks predicted the possible short...
Three things are certain in life. Death and taxes are two of them. The other is the recurrence of the bogus claim that a public service can be fairly managed for the greater public good by private business. The whole theory is as harsh as...
If you give an award and nobody comes, does it still make any sense? This ancient philosophical question is about to be tested by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as they attempt to give Jean-Luc Godard an award on Nov. 13. The...
Want to make a movie? Great! Just send me money and I'll "produce" it for you. Maybe I'm being too obvious with the scam, but there may already be several people anxious to know how much and where to send it. So let me right off...
What connects Sylvester Stallone, Paranormal Activity 2 and a Swiss brand of condoms? Not much, since the Harry Popper condom brand is the one Hollywood-related item that seems to be actually making money. OK, the Swiss company claims that the name has nothing to do...
Whoever said you shouldn't beat a dead horse was obviously never in the DVD business. After all, you don't expect people to keep buying the same lousy version of the same crappy film over and over again, do you? Which is why we now have multiple...
If this were France, we all would be on vacation. But it isn't, and the citizens of the U.S. are expected to trudge away through stifling heat and the umpteenth Will Farrell movie like dutiful workers in a redo of Metropolis. It all sounds just...
Life was simpler before the Motion Picture Association of America's rating system. Americans were all married, had 2.5 children, and nobody engaged in sex. Yep, those were the days. But in 1966, the MPAA created the first version of the rating system and thereby opened the...