Wednesday, December 21, 2005

The Collective 2005 Awards


Our friends across the pond at The Collective have released their 2005 movie awards. Among the winners:

The Sylvester StalloneWHY? Award
Marvel Comics movies – That grating sound you hear is the rear end of their particular barrel being ravaged. After Daredevil, who needed Elektra? And after the genius of The Incredibles, how can they justify the dire Fantastic Four?

Definitely worth a read.

Monday, December 19, 2005

Golden Globes Eye on Indies

True to form, Globes embrace indie films
Big-budget movies such as ‘Munich,’ ‘King Kong’ denied best movie nods


Big-money films left out
This (year's Golden Globe nominated) collection of mostly independent movies leaves out several costly Hollywood productions, including such franchises as “Star Wars” and “Harry Potter,” Peter Jackson’s acclaimed remake of “King Kong,” the political thriller “Syriana,” and Steven Spielberg’s “Munich,” which deals with the revenge killings that followed after the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. Also missing are the musical “Rent” and such summer comedy smashes as “Wedding Crashers” and “The 40-Year-Old Virgin.”

Full Story

Sunday, December 18, 2005

Flattening the Bell Curve

From Today's NY Times ...

Given that so much human endeavor is condemned to mediocrity - like it or not, we spend most of our lives in the fat, undistinguished middle of the bell curve - it is hardly surprising that many of these pictures turn out not to be very good. But the very worst films achieve a special distinction, soliciting membership in a kind of negative canon, an empyrean of anti-masterpieces. It is this kind of bad movie - the train wreck, the catastrophe, the utter and absolute artistic disaster - that seems to be in short supply.

And this is very bad news. Disasters and masterpieces, after all, often arise from the same impulses: extravagant ambition, irrational risk, pure chutzpah, a synergistic blend of vanity, vision and self-delusion. The tiniest miscalculation on the part of the artist - or of the audience - can mean the difference between adulation and derision. So in the realm of creative achievement, the worst is not just the opposite of the best, but also its neighbor. This year has produced plenty of candidates for a Bottom 10 (or 30 or 100) list, but I fear that none of the bad movies are truly worthy of being called the worst. And this may be why so few are worthy of being considered for the best.

Full Story

Saturday, December 17, 2005

Howard Stern


I promise, this will make sense when you read the script.

Howard Stern says goodbye to terrestrial radio

Reaping What They Sow

Theater owners are trying to figure out how to lure people back.

According to this article in Today's NY Times, they're getting more creative.

Here's a revolutionary concept: Stop showing the crap Hollywood forces down your throats! People aren't willing to pay $30 for a trip to the theater to watch crap - no matter how nice the theater or how wide the assortment of Milk Duds.

What will it take for the major motion picture studios to realize, it doesn't matter how many millions they spend on the latest formulaic watered-down remake? Stop insulting our intelligence, and give us something worth seeing.

Friday, December 16, 2005

Scraping the bottom of the barrel

Are you F'ing kidding me?

I guess since S.W.A.T. was such a fantastic film, CHiPs was inevitable ... right?

Big Hollywood's lack of creativity continues to astound. I can't wait for the movie version of Charles in Charge.

Slamdance Announces Line-up

The 2006 Slamdance Film Festival will screen twenty competition feature films (11 narrative and 9 doc) this year, along with six special screenings, with the festival kicking off on January 19th with Larry Clark's "Wassup Rockers." Fifty-seven short films are set for this year's festival, organizers said Tuesday in announcing the fill lineup for the 12th annual, which takes place alongside the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, UT. The festival will run through January 27th, including expanded screenings in Salt Lake City this year.

"Following the success of 'Mad Hot Ballroom's' festival premiere, its big sale and box office results people are sensing the true value of a Slamdance film," said Peter Baxter, Slamdance President/Co-Founder, in a statement. "And this success has not altered our overall direction for 2006. Slamdance Number 12 will celebrate, as always, our original mission of showcasing emerging filmmaking talent. If you want to see true independent film Slamdance is the place to be."
Slamdance director of programming Sarah Diamond said that she received more than 3,000 submissions for the festival's total of under 100 slots.

Full Story

Thursday, December 15, 2005

AE: Artificial Ebert


In case you worried Hollywood films weren't formulaic enough:

Computer spots a blockbuster from box office flop

"Sharda applied seven criteria to each movie: its rating by censors, competition from other films at the time of release, strength of the cast, genre, special effects, whether it is a sequel and the number of theatres it opens in."

Too bad there's not a program to evaluate quality.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Starbox Gear Review


Just ordered more of your gear,
and now it suddenly occurs to me that maybe I should have just sent the bucks to
you, but this promotional sidewalk sign advertising does something to me, and I
can make weird gifts out of it.

Questioning leads to awareness that
leads to interest that leads to anticipation that leads to either satisfaction
or disappointment. The really nice hooded sweatshirts point out, in red, on the
rear, the suicide option for let downs, which it is after the full frontal joy
of an exploding box of stars on the glowing hail and well salute: very two faced
garment. Kind of a trick rip on Oscar Wilde's "every saint has a future and
every sinner a past" but wait we know it is the other way around, and in fact it
is and that converse is the truth while the above mirror makes more sense to
idiots because it is just apparently true. Of course the best Oscar quote of all
time: "Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast".


From G.B. Hopper II
Loyal Suicide Squad Supporter
& Patron Saint of Independent Film


Get your own punch in the gut

NY Times: Doing the Hollywood Math: What Slump?

In an age of hundreds of cable channels, video games and other distractions, the domestic box office so far this year is down about 6 percent from the same time period in 2004, and off from 2003 and 2002 levels. But the money flowing into the coffers of movie studios is greater than ever.

Full Article

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

When Media Collide

Made-by-Viewers TV
Seeking a Youthful Audience, Little Cable Channel Presents Features Filmed by Neophytes

By CHRISTOPHER LAWTON
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL December 13, 2005

What some people really want to do is direct.

After a decade of the Internet revolutionizing the way people communicate and spend their leisure time, a growing number of consumers are going further -- creating entertainment and other media "content" on their own.

Cable networks, radio stations -- even advertisers -- are embracing such "user-generated content" and serving it up, hoping to appeal to new and younger audiences that are impatient with standard media fare.

This new genre of Do-It-Yourself Media harks back in some ways to public-access cable TV, to funny home videos and radio call-in shows. But it's slicker and more sophisticated. For a generation of young people raised on the Internet, it is second nature to express themselves in new ways.

These aren't passive consumers: They think they have something to say and they don't see why they can't do what the big media companies are doing.

In a series this week, The Wall Street Journal explores how Do-It-Yourself Media in various forms is creating a kind of parallel media universe.

Today's article describes Al Gore's Current TV, which is helping to fill its 24 hours of daily programming with films made by viewers. Subsequent articles will look at how advertisers are soliciting ad ideas from their consumers, how cable operators are asking viewers to contribute material for dating services and real-estate channels and how phone companies are encouraging contributions to video logs.

The cable channel's offerings are best described as eclectic: among them, a profile of a man who jumps from cliffs and bridges, produced by 30-year-old viewer Mark Rinehart; a first-person account of rescuing Hurricane Katrina survivors in a flooded New Orleans by 24-year-old viewer Jared Arsement; and a feature produced by San Francisco college student Aaron Nemoyten about a local rock band.

Such is television à la Current, the cable channel partly owned by former Vice President Al Gore. Hoping to lure young viewers who have grown disillusioned with traditional media outlets, Current is taking a different approach to current-affairs TV -- one that goes well beyond news and into lifestyle and other subjects. Rather than relying solely on reporters and editors to produce stories, the channel is trying to generate up to half of its programming from members of the public. It uses its Web site to gather feedback from the public on what it should air and pays modestly for those videos it chooses to run.

Current's unorthodox approach shows the effect of the Internet on media habits. Use of blogs and community Web sites have changed attitudes to journalism: Young people now frequently use the Web to post material ranging from diaries about their lives to comments on news events -- sometimes even stitching together video clips to enhance their commentary. Blogs offer interactive and unfiltered content very different from the rigorously edited and highly polished news coverage offered by the mainstream media.

"The Internet is a welcome breath of fresh air which re-establishes a highly interactive participatory medium that has even lower barriers to entry than the print medium," said Mr. Gore in an interview. He added that a "growing number of talented young people in their 20s...have videocameras and laptop editing systems and are increasingly conversant with how to express themselves in the television medium."

Mr. Gore, who is chairman of Current, said he and entrepreneur Joel Hyatt came up with the idea of a channel relying on consumer contributions. The two first met to discuss working together after Mr. Gore's campaign for president in 2000. Last year, backed by a group of investors, they bought a little-known cable channel from Vivendi Universal SA for about $70 million. They are now working to make it widely available: Current can be seen in only about 20 million homes, whereas most major cable channels are available in 80 million.

The channel isn't yet rated by Nielsen Media Research, which makes it a tougher sell for advertisers. While Current has had some luck getting distribution with Time Warner Inc. and satellite-TV company DirecTV Group Inc., it hasn't yet won over Comcast Corp., the biggest cable operator. To put pressure on Comcast, Current held a rally outside Comcast headquarters in Philadelphia. Mr. Hyatt, Current's chief executive, says the channel's problem is that it lacks the leverage of a larger media company to urge cable companies to carry the new channels.

Comcast says that Current is available in some of its homes and that the company is in discussions with Current about their interest in additional distribution.

To implement the consumer-generated programming approach, Messrs. Gore and Hyatt are relying on David Neuman, a onetime NBC entertainment executive who oversaw programming at Time Warner's CNN in 2001 to 2003. Mr. Neuman, programming president at Current, contends that young people can't relate to mainstream TV news because its coverage of issues is too "inside baseball."

He promises that Current will "cover the big picture" for its target audience of 18- to 34-year-olds.

Mr. Neuman says he doesn't want the channel to look like public-access television, where anyone who wants to be on TV can broadcast whatever they want. He promises that Current will carefully select only compelling stories that are as "truthful" as those aired on the major broadcast networks -- although that doesn't necessarily mean highly polished. Current employs three creative executives who help viewers put the finishing touches on their videos.

The result is a lively mix of stories aimed at giving viewers a flavor, if not comprehensive coverage, of world events. The quality is uneven. Mr. Arsement's feature on New Orleans looked a little like a home movie, with jerky footage and personal anecdotes of his time spent in the city.

Staff-produced stories, such as a feature about American soldiers who have deserted to Canada rather than follow orders shipping them to Iraq, have a more professional feel. But few pieces match anything seen on established TV networks.

The mixed bag of Current's journalism highlights a challenge facing the channel as it tries to make viewer-contributed journalism into an advertiser-supported business. What attracts young people -- a raw unpolished look -- may not be to an advertiser's liking.

"Most traditional marketers will be challenged by the notion of consumer-generated content, because it is so foreign to the media world we know, where studios and networks create content that is effectively approved by advertisers," says Tim Hanlon, senior vice president/director for the Starcom MediaVest Group, the media-buying unit of Publicis.

Current's sales and marketing president, Anne Zehren, acknowledges that some marketers were initially skeptical about the concept for the channel, but she says those concerns have passed since Current was launched. A few prominent marketers have signed on as sponsors including L'Oréal Paris, a unit of L'Oréal USA Inc., and Sony Electronics, a unit of Sony Corp. Both say they trust Current to weed out inappropriate material. It remains to be seen how long they will stick around if Current fails to expand.

Ms. Zehren says a major priority of the channel is to broaden the types of people who contribute. So far, only about one-third of Current's programming is coming from outsiders, many of whom are filmmakers or free-lance journalists.

To attract new talent, Current has been visiting public venues such as clubs, film festivals and concerts in major cities around the country. At one such event recently, the Big Apple Film Festival in New York, representatives circulated through a crowd leaving a movie, handing out fliers and directing people to a Current van parked outside where more information was available. On this particular night, it was too cold for more than a handful of people to stop by.

Contributors needn't be viewers. Mr. Nemoyten, the college student who profiled a rock band, doesn't even have cable and learned about Current this year in part from an ad posted on the Internet announcing a contest for the best five-minute video. The prize: a $3,000 budget to produce segments to air on Current.

A 21-year-old cinema major at San Francisco State University, Mr. Nemoyten saw an opportunity. He shot footage of a local band, interviewed its members and entered a video in the contest. He didn't win the prize, but Current selected the piece to run on the channel, paying him $250. The video subsequently aired more than a dozen times a week for six weeks.

And that was just the start for Mr. Nemoyten. Current hired him to help shoot a second story, about a group of musicians raising money for charity, which he has completed. Not that he wants to be a journalist long term. His preference, he says, is to produce narrative film.

Sunday, December 11, 2005

Under the Hood at Sundance


From the Dec. 04 edition of the New York Times ...

"EVERY film is seen in its entirety by at least one person, often more. Sundance employs more than a dozen people to go through the features, and then to write a report that rates them on a scale from 1 to 5. (Mr. Gilmore says he tries to get these screeners to distinguish between "the weird and the bad.") In fact, programmers will even review a few of the films rated 1 or 2, just to make sure nothing has been overlooked.

And once the debate about the lineup begins in earnest, a complicated dynamic comes into play. Mr. Gilmore said he was not looking for a consensus but passion from his programmers. If a film gets somebody excited, it is worth considering, even if others disagree.

Discussions take place in Mr. Gilmore's office, where, amid a jumble of chairs, pizza and Diet Cokes, he moves film titles around Mr. Cooper's bulletin board like chess pieces. These meetings occur twice a week for the last month of the process, often lasting three or four hours each time, and increase in intensity and frequency as the hours - and options - dwindle. They are described by Mr. Gilmore as "spirited" and "cerebral," but not bitter. Sometimes these involve different combinations of programmers, although all sit down together when making a final decision. At the end there is no raising of hands. Mr. Gilmore makes the final decision.

Before that decision is made, Mr. Cooper said, his colleagues keep one another grounded when they become too enamored of a film: He will often give a movie about which he has misgivings to a colleague who he thinks will like it, just so they can argue about it."

Read the full article here.

Suicide Squad

For the past four years, they've known each other only by their Internet screen names. But tonight in an abandoned barn a thousand miles from the trappings of their regular lives, a group of social misfits is drawn together on what is to be their last night on earth. Keenly aware of their fast-approaching fate, the group is freed from societal constraints and emboldened to speak the truth. While awaiting the arrival of their mysterious leader and their ultimate demise, the Suicide Squad is forced to explore the beliefs, events, and circumstances that led them here.

Suicide Squad is an allegorical tale of the true coming of age of Generation X through crisis and transformation of our base desires, ego, and place in society. It's about facing your end and finding a new beginning.

Monthly Report for December

Financial Update

We now have over $5,000 in the Suicide Squad, LLC account. We're still shooting to begin production in the first part of March, which means we have about 85 fundraising days left.

Legal Update

We finally have all our paperwork back from the state, and have received final blessing from our legal counsel on all of our contracts, so investor packages will be going out this week (finally).

Artistic Update

Last weekend, I completed Suicide Squad Draft 4.4. This was the draft compiled after the table read of the previous version in LA a few weeks ago. Meeting all the actors and hearing the words read aloud helped a great deal. Our director, Neil Weiss, really helped me nail down the characters, their motivations, their endings, etc. I believe this version is much improved from the previous, which I humbly admit I was actually pretty pleased with. (I got video of about half the table read before Adams' camera died. It's of an old draft, but I'll see what I can do to make some of that footage available on-line.)

Last night, I read the latest version in its entirety, and noticed a couple of areas I still need to clean up, but this is hopefully close to the final version.

Cast Update

Shanola Hampton recently had a GREAT run as the recurring character "Flash" on WB's Related. TJ is now appearing on UPN's Eve. Brandon Gibson is now writing for and starring in Totally Busted. We've recently seen Shelley on West Wing, Adam on Passions, and Cliff seemingly on some show almost daily.

I am so proud of our cast, and so excited to be working with them on this project.

Advertising Update

Thank you to all of our Blogger and MySpace friends who've been helping us promote www.boxofstars.com, and to all of you who've purchased Suicide Squad and McDougal gear at our CafePress store.

Thursday, December 01, 2005

"Hunter of the Dead" Pics



Adam Hatley, who plays Thad (SoCo) in "Suicide Squad" on the set of "Hunter of the Dead," to be released on DVD next Spring.

What sells?

Another TJ pic.



Will this help sell tickets?

Michael



Thomas "TJ" Jones plays Michael (Miles) in "Suicide Squad."

Jerry


Cliff Weissman plays the role of Jerry (LT56) in "Suicide Squad."

To see his reel, click here.