Category: making movies

Don’t know how I missed this. The Guardian/Observer‘s Damon Wise goes on a revealing to Filmbyen, or Film Town, a Danish hive of suburban movie production, founded by Lars Von Trier and his producing partner, Peter “The Eel” Jensen. (That nickname’ll be TMI in a minute, by the way.) Dogme95 co-conspirator Thomas Vinterberg has also set up shop in “town.”
At the agressively but unsurprisingly unconventional Filmbyen, VT and The Eel insist on various musical and flag-raising rituals and on keeping alive whatever of their communist ideals they can. We’re talking actual, card-carrying communists here, not Fox News slash-and-burn invective-style communists.
And on public nudity. Wise has a hard time maintaining eye contact: “Like ourselves and the rest of the pool’s other patrons Vinterberg is wearing a swimming costume, but Jensen and Von Trier just whip off their clothes and dive in. Jensen’s genitalia are on full display and we escape with just a glimpse of Von Trier’s pallid bottom.” What follows is a discussion Von Trier’s long, hard, sweaty…process of writing, working with actors, and making his latest film, Dogville.
[Dogville opened this weekend in London (and which comes to the US in early April). See Philip French’s dazed Observer review, or the official Dogville UK site.]
While I have nothing to add about communist genitalia, I have seen Dogville and will write about it soon.

After British director James Miller was killed–shot in the neck by an Israeli army sniper in Gaza in May 2003–while filming an HBO documentary, his wife Sophy, field producer Dan Edge and other crew members felt compelled to complete the movie. Her story is in the Telegraph, and Edge writes in the Guardian about making the film–and watching Miller get shot in front of him.

The finished documentary, Death in Gaza, is a fly-on-the-wall account of a young Palestinian boy and his interactions with paramilitaries barely older than himself. The film also includes extended footage of Miller and his translator being shot as they approached an Israeli APC, while shouting “British journalist!” and waving a white flag. Sketches made during an independent investigation bear an eerie resemblance to camera setup diagrams used on the set.
To date, no one has been held accountable for Miller’s death.
The film screened last week as part of the the Berlinale’s Panorama Dokumente.
Related: An account of Miller’s death and an open letter to the Israeli Defense Forces from the Committee to Protect Journalists.
justice4jamesmiller.com, a site set up by his family and friends, which contains the results of an investigation by Chiron Resources, a company which specializes in media support in hostile environments.
Related but lighter: background on the Panorama Dokumente, from Filmmaker Magazine’s blog
David Hudson’s and Cory Vielma’s exhaustive-but-insightful daily coverage from the Berlin Festival, at GreenCine. It’s the next best thing to being there.

[via Gothamist] The Style Section article a few weeks ago where Neil Strauss plays wingman to some David Blaine wannabe named Mystery (Seriously. You think the Times didn’t factcheck something so goofy?) has been optioned by Columbia Pictures (along with a book based on the piece). The price? “In the low six figures.” Strauss will advise, but not adapt.

For the ever-popular Law & Order, the producers mine today’s headlines for new story ideas. HBO’s K Street is just the opposite. Not in the “what, it blew and nobody watched it?” way you’re thinking, in the “life imitates art” way.
In one K Street plotline, the actress and former Cheneyac Mary Matalin worried about being investigated by the Feds for leaking a CIA operative’s identity. At the time, the subject was innocuous or implausible enough to pass the “no substance” filter that actual DC operatives ran their cameo appearances through. But last month, the Washington Post reports, Matalin and several other White House appointees were hauled before a grand jury to testify about who in the administration leaked a CIA operative’s identity. She even wore the same “passes for fashion in Washington” jacket for both gigs. (Hey Mary, I know the IRS now works for you now, but I hope you got a receipt for that thing. Not that HBO wants it back…)
How to tell the truth from the fiction, then? Easy. On K Street, Matalin’s lament rambled on (and on and on) over several episodes. In The Real World, her only line was, “I can’t comment.”

Mary-Ellis Bunim, the co-creator of The Real World, which revolutionized television while destroying civilization, died of breast cancer at age 57.
Bunim also produced The Real Cancun, which, while better than Justin and Kelly, was not as entertaining as the reviews of it. Take some solace, at least, knowing she probably had fun making it.
Very related: Support the fight against breast cancer

If screenwriter/director Avary doesn’t reveal enough for you in his Q&A session with the Guardian, go to his weblog–which he must deplore. And when you view his webcam, he may flip you off personally.
He was working on the script for David Fincher’s remake of Dogtown and Z Boys but the Guardian has him adapting Bret Ellis’s Glamorama now. But since I missed his garage sale (an army of professional rummage sale zombies rummaged it clean as soon as the garage door opened), I’m not the most up-to-date source of Avary goings on.

Filmmaker reports that in the face of religious boycotts, the missionary-meets-boy tale, Latter Day, was dumped by its Salt Lake venue, Madstone Theaters. Actually, this is good news; it means they might be open to dumping Mel Gibson’s controversy-baiting The Passion of Christ, which is scheduled to open Feb. 25.
In the Village Voice, Ed Halter hears the good news about Mormon Cinema. [O me of little faith…] I think I may have been friends with one of the silly Mormon comedy producers. If not, I’m sure gonna be friends with them soon.
Other things I just posted about that turned up in the Voice [Choire’s making money for this, too. Note to self…]: Independent film’s dead! Long live independent film!, and John Cage festivities, this time at Anthology Film Archive (tomorrow night, tickets available until after the films start, from the sound of things).

Gotta run, but before I do, the fine fine folks at Filmmaker Magazine timed the launch of their weblog to the opening of the under-the-radar Sundance Film Festival. Sundance is not, as its name suggests, held in a warm, sunny place, but in Park City, in the state of Utah. It may not be of any interest to you, but if it is, the festival has a little website.
Also at Filmmaker this month, the makings of a great short film, tips from a festival programmer. [via GreenCine]

I see through fellow Best NY Blog nominee Lockhart Steele‘s feeble ruse to get me to post more non-NYC stuff. Even as I’m powerless to thwart it.
Tommy Ryk’s documentary, Work Sucks, I’m Going Skiing follows the antics of a New York hotel developer in South Beach. No story there, folks. Throw a rock in SoSoHo (as I called it in 1990, when then-friend Tony Goldman put me up in the Park Central) and you’ll hit a New York hotel developer.
No, Ryk’s film is about The Creek, a hostel-turned-hotel, full of wacky young artists, guests, and contractors. It opens at the Made in Miami Film Festival. According to this Herald article, Ryk was hired to shoot web video of artists redoing the guestrooms, but instead turned his cameras on guests who stayed on to help renovate; ersatz security guards auditioning for porn flicks, a cast of characters you could never write without sounding like Weekend at Bernie’s III.

Christopher Guest talks at length with the Guardian‘s Richard Grant about the incredible levels of authenticity required for making fake documentaries.
Hilarious anecdotes from This is Spinal Tap and A Mighty Wind ensue. If Grant’s right when he calls it “the funniest film ever made,” the DVD of Spinal Tap is twice that funny; the outtakes and deleted scenes are easily as long and as good as the original version. A Mighty Wind opens next week in the UK.
Oh, and Jamie Lee Curtis says she gets better dinner reservations when she calls herself Baroness Haden-Guest. I’m sorry, but is that something you actually call yourself? Isn’t that why you employ a herald? I need to check with some titled friends on that and get back to you.

Just ask Dharma. According to the Formula, you can have only one creatively named character per sitcom. Fortunately, Wired Magazine articles have no such limit. And so, in this month’s wacky episode edition, Choire and Xeni team up to report on NYC Midnight, a DV Dojo -sponsored contest to write, shoot, and edit a film in New York, all in 24 hours.
What’s that, the contest was in October? And it started in May with a rewritten press release on Daily Candy? So Choire and Xeni had to sit on this great story for months, at least until the damn check cleared? That’s magazine publishing for you. I’d call it tired, but it’s the end of the year; everything’s tired.

Finally, someone’s asking the right questions in Iraq, like, “how’d they get that shot?” Virginia Heffernan reports in the Times on the ultimate embeds: the soldiers who go into battle armed with digital video cameras (“the camera is our first weapon”) to record US military activity. Like Saddam Hussein’s medical checkup, which includes shots–like the glowing underside of Hussein’s tongue–that Heffernan rates as high art.

what’s the opposite of independent? Film, that is. image: nytimes.com/getty images
These combat camera crews use Sony PD 150’s, just like civilian photojournalists (and the rest of us). In fact, I bought my first camera, a Sony VX-1000, from a war-documenting friend (whose production company, no coincidence, is named Combat Camera), who was supposed to star in Souvenir November 2001 until he got pulled into Tora Bora (ahh, the memories).
Like most documentarians, these filmmakers have a hard time getting distribution; Pentagon suits are even tighter-fisted than Miramax. But if they make a real heartstrings-pulling story –like the Jessica Lynch rescue or the Hussein body cavity search–when it does hit screens, it opens verrry wide.