Any horror fan knows it: We love to watch. Perhaps through giddy fingers; maybe with a stomach-kick queasiness. But horror film is, at heart, deliberately looking at the worst possible things, and not looking away. Director JT Petty knows it; his first film, Soft for Digging, was a low-budget, high-ambition horror film made for less than $6,000; his next directorial gig was Mimic: Sentinel. "I make my living making scary movies," he explains early on in S&MAN, "but this is going to be about scary movies." Opening with a nod to a few classics -- Peeping Tom, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer -- Petty introduces us to three different filmmakers working in what he calls 'underground horror" -- a shot-on-video world of cheap thrills and cheaper production budgets, sold on-line, at conventions or by mail. As Petty explains, "It's not snuff" -- the unholy grail of long-rumored real-life death caught on film for purposes of entertainment -- "but it's close."
In the uneven (but not uninteresting) S&MAN, Petty introduces us to three separate film makers: Fred Vogel, who creates gonzo horror films under the August Underground banner; Erik Rost, who creates stalker/snuff-themed films in the S&MAN series; and Bill Zebub, the creative force behind slasher flicks like Kill the Scream Queen and The Crucifier. Vogel looks like a well-groomed sports buff; Rost is a self-deprecating, self-promoting craftsman; Zebub looks like he was peeled off the bottom of a cab in his native New Jersey after a particularly rockin' Sammy Hagar show. And they make films about killing people. Zebub says it best, and bluntly: "I don't shoot movies to make art; I shoot movies so perverts will give me money."
Though they won't even announced the nominees for their competitive awards until October, the folks at IFP (a group, for the non-independent film freaks among, you dedicated to "serving the independent film community as a source for networking and support while promoting film as a vital and influential public art form") have announced that they will honor Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner of 2929 Entertainment at their annual Gotham Awards this fall. According to IFP exec director Michelle Byrd, the pair are being recognized for their consistent willingness to think outside the box when it comes to film production and distribution. Though their day-and-date release strategy has received significant opposition from theater owners, it's starting to be adopted by other distributors, and seems to have been embraced, at least to a degree, by the viewing public. Said Byrd of the pair, "They are visionaries who have introduced exciting and new distribution models, and who continue to showcase tremendous diversity in the films they produce, release and exhibit." So yeah, she thinks they're pretty cool.
Though the awards ceremony doesn't take place until late November, does anyone really think Cuban will have cooled off enough by then NOT to talk about the NBA refs? I'm saying he's got to at least slip in a David Stern reference.
Even though IMDB lists Zach Braff as its director, Barry Sonnenfeld is in
final negotiations to helm Andrew Henry's Meadow
for 20th Century Fox. Pic, which is based on the popular children's book, follows a boy inventor who escapes
suburbia and travels to a meadow. There, he sets up some sort of community where he eventually teams up with other
outcasts on a mission to save their parents. Braff, along with his brother Adam, originally set up the pic and developed the story while Adam wrote
the script. Perhaps, since Zach is now off directing a Danish re-make, he has relinquished his director's
hat.
Who knew Catherine Zeta-Jones was so into magic. Apparently,
the actress is in
talks to star opposite Guy Pearce in biopic about the one and
only Harry Houdini. Set in the mid-twenties, Death Defying
Acts will pick up Houdini's story while he's at the height of his career, touring the country and amazing the
public with his brilliant escape acts. That's right folks, David Blane has nothing on this guy. Zeta-Jones will play an
exotic psychic (I wonder if that means she tells your fortune while in her underwear?) who seduces Houdini into a
passionate affair.
Well, it looks like HDNet Films is really starting to make some moves. Not long after Todd Wagner and Mark
Cuban's company decided to up its budget cap from under $2 million to under $5 million (assuming the right talent
was attached), comes word that Zoe Cassavetes'Broken
English has wrapped up its stars
and will become the latest HDNet venture to head into production. Onboard what appears to be a quirky romantic comedy
about a woman lost in her 30's and looking for love, will be Parker
Posey, Drea de Matteo, Gena Rowlands, Jeanne
Moreau, Justin Theroux and Josh Hamilton.
According to director Alex Steyermark, day-and-date releasing (or something close to it) is
totally cool -- "just not for his film." Steyermark, whose One Last Thing ... is being theatrically released by Mark Cuban's
Magnolia Pictures on May 5, is concerned that his film's television and DVD debuts (on May 19 and 23, respectively)
will come too soon for necessary interest in the project to build. Despite the fact that he knew from day one that a
day-and-date release was possible, Steyermark spent a lot of time last week complaining to The Hollywood Reporterabout the situation, and (in a hilarious way, of course) described it as "day-and-date rape."
One Last Thing ... is Steyermark's second directorial effort (his first, Prey for Rock and Roll, starred Gina Gershon and Lori
Petty), and tells the story of "a terminally ill teen who makes a provocative final wish." Starring
Will & Grace's Michael Angarano as the kid and Cynthia Nixon as his mom (Gershon and Ethan Hawke also appear, among
others), the film played at Toronto last fall where it received mixed reviews, but it has a great rating on the IMDb.
Steyermark's bellyaching aside, his film is expect to hit screens in about 25 different markets on May 5.
After over fifteen years in the making -- and making Malick look rushed -- Caveh Zahedi's I Am a Sex Addict opened in
Zahedi's own Bay Area this week, at the Balboa. The notable, quotable Neva Chonin has the best piece, from The Chronicle. The first weekend's screenings also include an extensive series of
in-person appearances by Zahedi and his fellow filmmakers from in front and behind the camera; The Balboa's Website has more information. And,
fascinatingly, the release of I Am a Sex Addict also had the nice side-effect of inducing a media-mogul
slapfight that's based around ownership of the film's future rights; we have the story, if that
look behind the curtain appeals to you in any way, shape or form.
Plus, Adam and Steve opens at The Castro, with writer-director-actor Craig Chester and actor Chris Kattan in
attendance Friday night; man, can you go to a movie in this city without the director present this weekend?
And, sure, you can; I was just exaggerating for effect.
San Francisco had 25 days of rain in March.
Twenty-five days of rain.
Despite the fact that over 70 million homes receive his
HDNet channel, Mark Cuban is still not making any money on his HD dream.
Part of the problem (I'm not going to get into how many/few homes have HD TVs and receivers) is that some major cable
companies -- including Comcast -- still refuse to carry either HDNet or its sister channel, HDNet Movies. In fact, a
couple of years ago, Comcast, Cox, and Time Warner collectively created an HD channel of their own called INHD, which they conceived as "a Cuban-killer." (He's still here. As is HDNet.)
Because
of Cuban's feud with Comcast, as Karina mentioned in
her column, there were rumblings that
his Landmark Theaters, the biggest independent chain in the country, might refuse to show films that were part of
distributor IFC Films' day/date release
deal with Comcast. No official, public statements were made, however, so things continued as normal, and Caveh
Zahedi's I
Am a Sex Addict (part of the day/date deal) was scheduled to open at a Landmark theater in Berkeley on Friday,
April 7. Then, yesterday, Zahedi heard from IFC that the film had been pulled by the theater because of Cuban's beef
with Comcast. Not surprisingly, Zahedi was upset,
and (quite reasonably, it would seem) blamed Cuban for the affair. According to Cuban's comment on the above post
(scroll down the page a little, and you'll find it), however, IFC knew the film would not be screened at any Landmark
theaters and schedule it anyway. Hmm.
No matter who's to blame, the fact is that a little indie film is
caught up in something much, much bigger than it is. Can you even imagine how frustrating this must be for the
filmmakers who, after IFC's deal with Comcast, were thrilled at the prospect of (relatively) wide distribution for the
babies, only to run into this roadblock? Man alive, what a nightmare.
Despite the insistence of theater
owners that the multi-platform "super release" of Bubble
was a complete disaster, 2929 is trying again with another niche film. Magnolia Pictures (a company that is under the
2929 umbrella) will release Herbie Hancock: Possibilities in theaters (just NY and LA) on April 14 and have it
out on DVD four days later; the movie will air on Mark Cuban's HDNet TV channel on April 23. The film is a documentary
that both explores Hancock's past and offers a detailed look at the recording of his most recent album on which folks
like Sting, Annie Lennox, and Christina Aguilera appear.
While this film and its release schedule seems
likely to affect only a tiny group of people (who, admittedly, will be incredibly happy), the small audience isn't a
problem for 2929. According to Magnolia's VP of home entertainment Randy Wells, despite Bubble's
"failure" at the box office, the total take from the theatrical and DVD sales, combined with PPV income, was
about $5 million. Though that number is small compared to the profits pulled in by major studio releases, it's a huge
success when one considers that the movie only cost about $1.5 million to make. Additionally, Wells maintains that
releasing films on DVD and PPV or cable while they're still in theaters dramatically reduces advertising costs because
the various releases can "draft" off of one another's hype.
A Landmark Business, moderated by indieWIRE's Eugene Hernandez, brought together representatives from all aspects of
Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner's vertically integrated filmmaking factory, now called Wagner/Cuban Companies: Ted Mundorff,
film buyer for Landmark Theaters; Tom Quinn, acquisition exec for Magnolia Pictures; Eammon Bowles, President of
Magnolia; Elizabeth Glass, buyer for HD Net and HDNet Movies; Bill Banowsky, head of the new distribution initiative,
Truly Indie; and Wagner himself, who easily stole the show by spouting his party's platform. Wagner's rhetoric was
probably pre-packaged but undeniably convincing nonetheless.
Wagner/Cuban's various distribution
revolutions were the order of the day. In all the hype surrounding the conglomerate's groundbreaking day/date strategy,
their equally ballsy Truly
Indie program has been somewhat overlooked. Banowsky described it as a "producer empowered distribution
alternative." The concept came from the exhibition sector: Landmark shows a couple hundred films on its 300
screens a year, but half of its profits come from about 20 titles. In fact, the bottom 50-70 films, as Banowsky
explained it, actually lose money for the chain. So the various sectors of the company got together and came up with
Truly Indie, which essentially allows producers to pay a single fee to rent space at a Landmark Theater, and
simultaneously hire Truly Indie to market and promote their film. It's sort of a second (last?) chance, for filmmakers
who, say, come off the festival circuit without a viable theatrical option. Truly Indie will allow such
filmmakers to buy themselves a brief theatrical run, and still have the opportunity to cash in on the DVD rights.
Wagner elaborates on the mission:
"We should be listening to the voice of independent cinema. I'd go to
fests like this one [and hear filmmakers say], "I'm shut out of the system!" So what we're trying to do is
open up the system. If you believe in your product, you should have a chance to release it."
The
conversation soon, predictably, turned to day/date, and the company men are, rightfully, defensive. Here's where the
Wagner quips really start to heat up. Some excerpts after the jump.
The most shocking moment of Sunday night's Oscar ceremony came early in the evening, long before Three 6 Mafia
or Crash scored their twin victories for mediocrity. An hour or so after losing
the night's first award to George Clooney, Jake Gyllenhaal trotted out on
stage to ostensibly announce one of the night's many disposable montages. "They're called epics," he
near-monotoned. "Extravaganzas. Spectacles." With that last one, Jake's voice took an unexpected up-turn. He
went on to list a few (oddly amalgamated for mass cross-generational appeal) examples of the genre in question –
"West Side Story. Star Wars. Ben-Hur." – before delivering the kicker: "You can't
properly watch these on a television set, and good luck trying to enjoy them on a portable DVD." Gyllenhaal
punctuated that embarrassingly over-scripted slice of Academy propaganda with a desperate, self-referential giggle
– a composure break that lasted long enough for an insert shot of Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams,
Gyllenhaal's Brokeback Mountain co-stars, just two members of what sounded like a large chunk of the audience
laughing along with him. It was rather amazing, a pure, bumbling moment of transparency that neatly struck down
whatever was left of Sid Gannis' sad house of cards. The new takeaway for the evening: If Hollywood can't take its own
last-ditch propaganda seriously, how can we?
Comcast and IFC Entertainment will today
announce their deal (first outlined by Karina a month
ago) to simultaneously release independent films in theaters and on television, via video-on-demand. Kicking off on
March 24 with American
Gun, the agreement will have films in theaters across the nation (in IFC's theaters as well as in Mark Cuban's
Landmark Theaters; negotiations are on-going with other chains) while they are being offered to Comcast subscribers in
22 major markets for $5.99/viewing. Despite the fact that the agreement lacks a DVD element, Comcast's reach is
dramatically greater than that of the HD Channel on which Bubble
aired, and there's a good chance that Comcast/IFC's films will be seen by a much larger audience than Soderbergh's film.
Because VOD is very hard to pirate, and
because Comcast could theoretically pick and choose the markets in which these films are offered, it's hoped that the
Comcast/IFC approach will be less threatening to supporters of traditional distribution than the Bubble
experiment. IFC actually quietly test the system with a day-date release for C.S.A.:
The Confederate States of America this month, and the film, despite being available via VOD to Cablevision
subscribers, has done record business in IFC theaters - this, too, should suggest to studios and theater owners that
the approach is not necessarily a death knell for exhibition. Among the two dozen or so films IFC and Comcast will
release are I
Am a Sex Addict, Three
Times (by Taiwanese master Hou Hsiao-hsien, whose work is
virtually impossible to see in the US), and The
Russian Dolls, which stars Amelie's Audrey Tautou).
Look, the fact is that fans of independent
film want to see these movies - to some degree, this is going to work. Day-and-date releasing is not going away, and
it's time for theater owners and studios to stop whining and, instead, figure out how they can get involved, and use
the approach to their advantage. Times change. Deal with it.
Magnolia Pictures, the distribution company owned by
2929's Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner, has acquired the rights to a trio of Danish crime films collectively known as The
Pusher Trilogy. All three films - Pusher,
With Blood on My Hands, and The Angel of Death - were directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, and feature overlapping stories: secondary
characters from one film move into the foreground in the others.
While the chance to see these films is more
than enough to make the acquisition newsworthy, Magnolia - the distributor behind Bubble's
simultaneous, multi-media release - plans to experiment with an unconventional release schedule for The Pusher
Trilogy, as well. When the series hits American theaters this summer, different regions will see it in different
ways, depending on "the audiences in each market." Among the options being considered are back-to-back
screenings of all three films, simultaneous screenings in different theaters, and sequential screenings on three
different days. After pissing off theater owners with their approach to Bubble, a Magnolia rep hastened to add
that the Pusher "release pattern also will depend on each theater's preferred release strategy."
Whew.
Regardless of if you agree with what Cuban and Wagner are doing, it's hard not to respect them for
constantly searching for new ways to approach film distribution. Plus, they're giving us the opportunity to see
interesting work from abroad, which is something that shouldn't be lost in the inevitable controversy over the release
of the films.
After months and months of buildup to its multi-platform release, Steven Soderbergh's Bubble opened in 32 theaters. And, on
that all-important, buzz-filled first weekend, it made just $70,664. Ouch. Though of course Mark Cuban, whose 2929 Entertainment is
behind the DVD/HD/theater release technique, tried to convince anyone who would listen that the low returns were of
little consequence, theater owners clearly felt otherwise. In fact, they were so sure that the $70,664 spelled disaster
for the entire simultaneous release concept that they actually released a public statement, crowing over the movie's
failure. Yeah, that's classy. John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners, just wanted to
make sure everyone knew that "the movie has performed very poorly," even with all of the free publicity
granted it by the press. In other words, "Suck it, Cuban!"
Just a day after Sony's Howard Stringer bragged at CES about bagging Landmark as
the first customer for Sony's high res 4K projector, Landmark announced (also at CES) the indie chain is ditching the
Sony 4K projector in favor of Barco's 2K projectors. Apparently nobody told Stringer. Cinematech reports that in an
email to them in December, Landmark's Mark Cuban said Landmark had installed a couple of Sony's projectors and was
"battle testing" them. Guess that didn't work out so well. Landmark's announcement leaves Sony in a bit
of a lurch, with zero - count 'em, zero - customers for it's projector, which has been plauged with technical and
delivery issues.
2005 didn't really kick into gear until March 11, the day that Jason Calacanis chained me to a
workstation and Cinematical was born. I chewed through the handcuffs in good time, but for some reason kept coming back
to blog – by that point, I had enslaved a good portion of the 13 or so lunatics that you've come to know and love,
and they needed somebody to pace around headquarters worrying about the moral implications of paying the rent by making
fun of Sharon Waxman and exploiting celebrity divorce. So here I sit, nine months later, typing away from my
AOL-financed glass house, and it seems like as good a time as any to reflect on the year that was. And by
"reflect", I basically mean "splooge all over our blogfolio othe way only a loving mother could."
And with that image fresh in your minds, I bring you, in two parts, the Top Seven Cinematical Stories of the Year. Put
on your protective gear ...
There is little to glean from the trailer for Steven Soderbergh's
Bubble - which is just a creepy two minutes of
doll parts set to an Elfman-like score - but it would seem that the mystery is part of the marketing plan for
"Another Steven Soderbergh Experience" (as the trailer puts it). The film, which features a cast of
non-actors (and that worked out so well for Gus Van Sant in the pretentious bowel evac Elephant), is about a
love triangle set in a doll factory which results in murder. The film, produced by Todd Wagner's and Mark Cuban's HDNet Films, will be released simultaneously in theaters (the
duo's 2929 Entertainment owns arthouse chain Landmark Theatres), on DVD and on HDNet
Movies on January 27, 2006. The film marks the first of Soderbergh's contracted six films for HDNet Films.
This window-smashing concept may not register as a blip on the radar of theatrical exhibitors, but if it does catch
on, Wagner and Cuban, as powerful as they are, may end up in the "Where Are They Now?" file...along with the
guy who invented a car engine that gets 200 miles per gallon on sea water and the doctor who cured AIDS and planned on
giving it away free to the suffering people of the world.
Though they won't even announced the nominees for their competitive awards until October, the folks at IFP (a group, for the non-independent film freaks among, you dedicated to "serving the independent film community as a source for networking and support while promoting film as a vital and influential public art form") 
Odds and ends for Thursday:
According to director 
After over fifteen years in the making -- and making Malick look rushed -- Caveh Zahedi's 
Despite the fact that over 70 million homes receive his
HDNet channel, 
Despite the 
Comcast and IFC Entertainment will today
announce their deal (first 
Magnolia Pictures, the distribution company owned by
2929's Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner, has acquired the rights to a trio of Danish crime films collectively known as The
Pusher Trilogy. All three films - 
After months and months of buildup to its multi-platform release, 
Just a day after Sony's Howard Stringer bragged at CES about bagging Landmark as
the first customer for Sony's high res 4K projector, Landmark announced (also at CES) the indie chain is ditching the
Sony 4K projector in favor of Barco's 2K projectors. Apparently nobody told Stringer. Cinematech reports that in an
email to them in December, Landmark's Mark Cuban said Landmark had installed a couple of Sony's projectors and was
"battle testing" them. Guess that didn't work out so well. Landmark's announcement leaves Sony in a bit
of a lurch, with zero - count 'em, zero - customers for it's projector, which has been plauged with technical and
delivery issues. 
There is little to glean from the 
