When news broke that Dave Eggers and Spike Jonze would adapt the classic Where the Wild Things Are-what 5 years a go?..:) folks got pretty excited. 9-foot tall animal costumes with animatronic faces and a gazillion fights with Warner Brothers later and still no firmed-up film, Jonze sat down with Drew of AICN and..cleared things up?

Our chum Sujewa Ekanayake's new doc is nearing launch. Go here to learn more about Indie Film Blogger Road Trip. Here is his description: This group is for people interested in the 2009 documentary Indie Film Blogger Road Trip (IFBRT). IFBRT follows filmmaker & blogger Sujewa Ekanayake as he travels to several US cities and interviews other bloggers who write about independent film & related matters. Film is being submitted to film festivals at the moment.

NBC Honcho Ben Silvermen was on Charlie Rose talking about NBC's scattershot approach to programming. Something about "throwing something and see what sticks.." Kidding for the most part.

Finally, a writer and book that is close to my heart, body, abd soul. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates moved me to no end-still does, esp. when one is smack dab in the middle it still so to speak-I just hope they haven't screwed it up. I look forward to this one and for once, Dicaprio might not have been miscast. Tim Grierson logs in a review.

Ever wonder what became of the Writer/Director of Teenagers From Outerspace? Yea, me too. Tom Graeff's story is not unique but fasinating for several reasons.LA CityBeat's Ron Garmon posts a good article on some of the background and a forthcoming bio from Doc filmmaker Jim Tushinski

Tom Graeff was a charming fellow. He was handsome and chiseled, a would-be sci-fi auteur whose biggest contribution to filmdom was, according to one trusted critic “silly, ponderous, and trite.” He was called the gay Ed Wood, but that misses the point of a real, if misapplied, talent. Also, he was sadder.

Openly gay long before Stonewall, preaching bisexuality on the radio as a panacea for our sexual ills, he tried to legally change his name to Jesus Christ II. Quakers had him committed. (via greencine)

And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate.

So here I am, in the middle way, having had
twenty years -
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of
l’entre deux guerres -
Trying to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind
of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better
of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or
the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so
each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate,
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what
there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already
been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom
one cannot hope
To emulate - but there is no competition -
There is only the fight to recover
what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now,
under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither
gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not
our business.

–T. S. Eliot
East Coker
Four Quartets

The Story of Director Dave McLaughlin and Producer Lance Greene's indie film is increasingly what it is about when it comes to getting your film to screen, especially if you still keep hanging on to the idea of Multinational corporate filmmaking here in Hollywood.

Indiewire interviews the guys about the whole process.

How did the idea for "On Broadway" came about?

Dave McLaughlin: I started to write "On Broadway" as a direct response to my frustration as a screenwriter in LA. I had co-written the movie "Southie," and I was dissatisfied with the finished film, with my work on it and with my lack of a voice in the making of it. I wrote a whole bunch of unproduced stuff that couldn't seem to find a home with producers. And then I wrote a really strong spec script that immediately generated tons of meetings. It was powerful and I thought it was successful in being a very masculine movie without being macho. But all the development execs kept telling me that it was not something they could make - and I just thought, "this is bullshit." I just spent two years or more on this thing and nobody has anything invested except me and now I'm in a position where I'm dependent on some multi-national conglomerate to say yes or else this effort, this anguish, this emotion was all for naught. I don't want to be in this position ever again. I'm going to write something that's cheaper to film, where I can take the bull by the horns and raise the money myself.

http://www.mediafire.com/?jnoa4gjjzmb  LISTEN!!

Seriously, one of the most arresting music vids I have seen in quiet awhile. Take a moment to watch it.

The creative crayz folks at machine need some help for their LACMA Show

 We are looking for the ultimate black/speed/grind/doom metal guitarist to perform 1 minute of speed metal, every hour on the hour, beneath a remotely located replica of a gothic arch during Machine Project’s show at LACMA on November 15th. Pays $100 for the day. Must be able to play riffs along the lines of Cradle of Filth, Gorgoroth, Children of Bodom, Celtic Frost, Slayer, Napalm Death. Must be able to play beyond fast. Must be able to sound insane. Must have own guitar and amp.

If interested, please email us a sample at machine@machineproject.com. Video footage is preferred, but we’ll also take a picture and mp3. Auditions are on Saturday at Machine Project

Indie feature Donovan Slacks is to have its East Coast Premiere at the upcoming Queens International Film Festival (November 6-9, 2008).

The New York screening caps a remarkable festival run for this micro-budget feature which has seen it play in competition at Sofia International Film Festival and Bucharest International Film Festival amongst others.
Set in 1920s England, Donovan Slacks tells the story of a sea bathing hospital patient who discovers the bitter truth about his past and leads a fishermen’s uprising against the government.

Shot half as a silent film, half as a ‘talkie’, the movie proved to be a last glorious swansong for Kodak’s Super 8 film, Kodachrome 40, beloved by so many filmmakers and now discontinued.

For half-Iranian, half-English debut director, Kivmars Bowling, the format’s demise was a case of life imitating art:

"Donovan Slacks pays the ultimate price for daring to speak out but he lives defiantly to the last. It’s fitting that even the very film stock on which he finds his voice has met a similarly sad end – and that it had a last chance to shine brightly in this film."

What festival selectors have been saying about Donovan Slacks:

          "A really surprising and innovative film of the highest artistic quality"

          "A unique and special quality that most filmmakers these days are afraid to approach"

Details of the Donovan Slacks East Coast premiere:

Queens International Film Festival
Date: Sat 8th November
Time: 12.30 pm
Location: Jackson Room, Crowne Plaza, 104-04 Ditmars Blvd, Queens, NY 11369

This experimental feature received backing from Screen South and the UK Film Council.

The Electronic Press Kit, movie trailer and more can be downloaded.

Looks like Tim Robbins might have gotten his free Starbucks coffee before he voted..

A guy who was volunteering at the polling place asked Tim to move so they could make more room in the polling space and let more voters in. Apparently, Tim had been sitting inside the voting area for some time. Tim completely flipped out on the guy and accused him of trying to intimidate him by asking him to move, thus "infringing upon his freedom to vote," and then he demanded to speak to the highest level of management in the Election Board. The volunteer was beside himself, because here was this celeb-loon going off on him. The volunteer left and after about 5 mins the cops showed. At that point I had cast my ballot and had to vacate the premises."

Relax man, Obamma's gonna take it. Maybe he was having flashbacks to 2004??

One of the good things about these internets is you run across mash-ups like this one. Funniest thing I have seen/heard in a awhile.

Here's a scary idea for you. Try to go without ANY media-TV, Net, Books, DVDS, CDS, etc.- for 1 week and see how you do. I have been mulling over trying it; not on vacation mind you, but in my normal home-office routine.

I dunno.

Will it make me lose mental weight? Will me eyeballs sharpen and protrude? Will I become strangely silent, like a Zombie with nothing to talk about?

“One good, simple, modern story would go like this: ‘A lovely, talented personality fell victim to a severe chemical imbalance in his brain. There was the person of Dave, and then there was the disease, and the disease killed the man as surely as cancer might have.’ This story is at once sort of true and totally inadequate. If you’re satisfied with this story, you don’t need the stories that Dave wrote—particularly not those many, many stories in which the duality, the separateness, of person and disease is problematized or outright mocked. One obvious paradox, of course, is that Dave himself, at the end, did become, in a sense, satisfied with this simple story and stopped connecting with any of those more interesting stories he’d written in the past and might have written in the future. His suicidality got the upper hand and made everything in the world of the living irrelevant.

Jonathan Franzen remebering his friend Wallace at a memoriial at NYU along with other very famous authors.

Alex and the Gang are some of the coolest indie filmmakers around and now we can add game developers to their extensive resume. As they work on getting the animated feature film up, RPB: The Book Of Violence, they decided to do something I think is the best thing they can do both business and creative-wise.

Red Princess- Blade of Vengeance the video game. Sweet!

Benjamin Ray is our attache,screenwriter, jounalist, and much more in Toronto. Here he gives instruction and advise on pitching your projects.

PITCHING  SAMPLE – DON’T KILL YOURSELF

When pitching your script for the first time, the trick is to eliminate stress and anxiety.

One way to do that is two tackle the pitch on two levels.

STEP 1 – ON A PERSONAL LEVEL

Right off the bat, talk about why you wrote the script on a personal level as opposed to a business level.

STEP 2 – CONCISE AND SUSPENSEFUL LOGLINE

Make sure your logline is simple and direct with just a small dose of passion and then conclude with some form of suspense.

Step 1 and Step 2 are good  ice-breakers which makes for a relaxed and productive meeting. Bottom line – if the producer you’re pitching to likes the idea,  the table will be turned around and you’ll have a producer who will extrapolate on your pitch with his or her passionate take of your logline.

Don’t kill yourself with endless notes and business-like marketing pitch techniques.

Here is an example of a recent pitch of mine  using STEP1 and STEP2. I did not memorize the details but  used key points as a guide during the pitch.  The script is called “Marcus and Faith”.

STEP1 – ON A PERSONAL LEVEL

During my college and single lifestyle in Toronto and New York, I became friends with some aspiring performers – dancers, musicians, singers and stand-up comedians. What I learned and experienced during that formative time led me to write the screenplay Marcus and Faith, which reflects my observations of good people enduring and struggling against substance abuse, domestic violence and psychological torture.  But somehow they managed to pull through and subsist, fighting just to pay the rent, in the hopes of one day achieving their desires – not only to find fame, but also true romance and love.  For them, survival is dependent upon having the right partner as a windbreak, preventing each other from falling into the abyss of self-destruction.  Sadly, relationships don’t always work out and can worsen the lives of individuals, leading to desperate times – poverty, hard drugs, alcohol, prostitution and pornography while others struggle with becoming a servant to their lover’s drug-infested lifestyle.  So is there light at the end of this tunnel?  Is this hellish path worth following to become a true artist-performer? These are the concepts and issues addressed in Marcus and Faith.

With this script, I wanted to provide a prescription for survival on a cinematic level, to express a truth that encourages viewers not to escape from life but to find it, and ultimately to touch the heart of the new generation as it comes into its own.

 STEP 2 – CONCISE AND SUSPENSEFUL LOGLINE

The story follows the jagged and disjointed lives of Marcus, a stand-up comedian, and Faith, an aspiring Broadway dancer.  He’s addicted to painkillers and she’s hiding a dirty family secret.  Like two runaway trains, racing into the past as they try to save each other from themselves. Will they survive the ride? Will they jump off before they pass the point of no return? Or are they just awaiting the inevitable fiery crash that lies ahead?

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Benjamin Ray

brscreenwriter@gmail.com

“ all i know is that he left and for a long time i didn’t see him. it certainly wasn’t my intent. i try to hold onto my friends. i try to be pleasant and sociable. i try not to rush the passage from comedy to tragedy. life does a fine job on its own.

HUMANS ARE SUCH EASY PREY DRIVE-IN SERIES
Hollywood MobMov has teamed up with the Steve Allen Theater to give you a spook every Friday till Halloween.

THIS WEEK:
SUSPIRIA
Directed by Dario Argento
A newcomer to a fancy ballet academy gradually comes to realize that the staff of the school are actually a coven of witches bent on chaos and destruction.

The screening begins at 9 p.m. in the parking lot. Screenings also will occur in the theater in case of overflow crowds. Lot opens at 8:30.

Tickets are $5.00 per person, and can be purchased in advance at
https://www.tix.com/Schedule.asp?ActCode=29958

This screening is true drive-in style, so make sure you have a working FM radio in your car.

Info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076786/