This Savage Art

Check out this new global online film collective for cinephiles.

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John Sayles and Maggie Renzi talk about the state of “low” budget film production.

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Creative Cow has a cool profile of the cinematography for The Wire.

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Now that the holidays are here a lot of people are scrambling to get gifts for their family and friends. One gift always undeniably works for the cinephile – a DVD from the Criterion Collection. Looking over the site today I noticed that there is a four disc set of Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor in the works. Nice! As we all know a lot of films are still missing from the catalog. A couple came to mind for me:

• The Landlord – This 1970 Hal Ashby [not the Will Ferrell/Adam McKay wacky short]  satirical gem taking place in pre-gentrified Park Slope, Brooklyn is no where to be found on DVD.
• Angelo My Love – A little seen but excellent film written and directed by Robert Duvall about the rituals of a gypsy community in New York City is also nowhere to be found.

Added:

• Last Year at Marienbad – Alan Resnais’ strange and mysterious classic. How can you go wrong with characters named A, X and M? [screening at the Film Forum in 2008]

Are there any films you would like to see Criterion do a hi-def transfer with all the extras? Which one’s do you think deserve the treatment?

Related: The Criterion Contraption.

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The Armond White saga continues here[2] and here[3] at Big Media Vandalism .

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A good nuts and bolts filmmaking blog from San Francisco digital filmmaker and friend of Stu “Red Giant” Maschwitz, Eric Escobar. [via Making The Movie]

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Big Media Vandalism has an extremely thought provoking interview with film critic Armond White.

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Now Juno will now be connected to the much celebrated first screenplay of one Brook Busey-Hunt. Name doesn’t ring a bell? How about Diablo Cody? Yeah, I thought so. We’ve heard the story. College educated young lady walks into scummy airport strip joint, has a moment of clarity where she wants to be on the pole, works the required amount of time it takes to gather enough information to write about it on a blog which eventually becomes Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper. Attention comes her way, Juno makes the rounds and she lands the white hot Hollywood career you keep wishing you had. The gender neutral nom de plume. The tattoos. The truck-driver mouth. It all strikes me as uh, a little calculated.

Truth is, Juno is a pretty solid film and an impressive achievement for a first-timer. Before I went to see it yesterday I really didn’t want to like it. I thought it was going to be filled with smug, I’m-smarter-than-you-pop-culture-infused-fuck-off-for-not-being-cool-enough-to-be-in-my-world dialogue. That is there, there’s no denying it but it slowly starts to melt away and gets a little more down to earth once we get out of the showy, self-aware first act. The dialogue does crackle and I can see why it is the selling point of her work but the screenplay does go beyond. It works. I noticed a kinship with films like Thumbsucker and Ghost World. Like those two films about teenagers in crisis, the characters ring true and the pressure of their circumstances force them to reveal who they are at the core.

Cody is kind of a polarizing figure in the screenwriting world right now. I mean, how many 13 year old female audience members know who the screenwriter of the film is? Is that necessarily a bad thing? I’m curious to see where her career goes. I know another screenplay of hers is on deck for Jason Reitman to direct again. And oh yeah, there’s the Spielberg television series too. By then we should know if she’s the real deal.

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Mystery Man On Film announces his online revolution by planning to offer his free screenwriting book from his site.

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