Yes, it is now official. The Avatar tsunami is over. The waters are receding and we can finally observe the debris field. Though Anderson Cooper has yet to cover this disaster, he might as well start interviewing the survivors. Heck, George Clooney could turn it...
Alfred Hitchcock did not say that actors were cattle. He simply advised that they should be treated as such. OK, it's not that big of a difference, and you've really got to be Hitchcock to get away with this attitude. For independent filmmakers, actors are people...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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....
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...
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...
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...