Stull: The Comic-Con Submission

Since a major component of my film festival strategy is to submit to genre festivals, I thought I'd kick off with a submission to Comic-Con. I happen to know a couple of filmmakers who have gotten in to Comic-Con's International Film Festival, so it comes recommended. I can't think of a better place to get my movie in front of a ton of genre fans. Also, if you get in, you get a bunch of VIP passes to the Con! I've never been, but always wanted to go.

Their submission guidelines couldn't have looked simpler when I printed them out, but I had a bit of an ordeal gathering everything together. Firstly, I have a whole packet of press material written for "Stull" but they only needed a short synopsis and a filmmaker bio. Cutting your synopsis down to 50 words is an art in itself. Here's what I came up with:

In 1993, four teens visited an abandoned church in Stull, Kansas, a place reputed to be a gate to Hell. They were never heard from again.

“Stull” recounts the supernatural events leading up to their disappearance, including encounter with a strange man who might just be the Devil himself.

There was no word limit on the bio, but I kept that short too.

Secondly, they want four DVD copies of movie. No problem, except I was a bit wary of sending out my nicely-packaged version. A quick call to filmmaker Alex Horwitz, whose "Alice Jacobs is Dead" played the Con last year, confirmed my hesitancy. He said he's heard many a festival programmer say that they discriminate against slick packaging. But he also said not to use paper labels on DVDs. He uses Lightscribe, which I don't have. But I do already have my nicely-pressed DVDs. I ended up cracking open four boxes and putting them generic plastic cases. Nice, but not too slick.

Finally, they require one production still. No problem, right? I have a whole gallery of them online. Well, the problem is I don't have any of them physically printed. I thought everyone would only want digital files these days.

Anyway, I planned to print a still out on my little Canon CP-200 photo-printer that I haven't used in ages. After four hours, I concluded that it is either broken or non-compatible with Snow Leopard.

So I went to FedEx Kinko's with a USB stick with some images on it. Turns out the Sony copy station can't read a Mac-formatted stick. I went back home, moved the files over to the FAT32 partition on the stick and went back. I printed a bunch out and none of them came out very good. It's dye-sub printing and there must be a bunch of hairs and dust, because there are all kinds of dots and curly lines that are yellow, magenta or green. Anyway, I picked the best of a bad bunch and included that, making sure there was a little line at the bottom of my info sheet saying that digital files were available.

The packet is all together. I'm very proud. If I get in, you can bet there will be an excited post right here.

Meta: Posting will be sporadic during move

Hi loyal readers. I promise to post something on filmmaking soon. But this is just a quick note to let you know that I expect my usual pace of one-post-a-day will fall off in the coming weeks as I figure out how to port this blog over to Wordpress or some other blogging engine.

Since 2004, I've been using Blogger, but they are no longer going to support FTP posting, which is the way I'm able to have the blog publish directly to the URL makingthemovie.info. Obviously, I don't want to change the URL.

However, moving to another platform will probably mean changing the look and layout of the blog, and it may cause a number of broken links that I'll have to fix manually. I thank you in advance for your patience.

-JO

2010 Oscars Post-Mortem

Well, I've had a bit of time to digest and discuss the Academy Awards. I think the gathering consensus is that the writing/producing has been much better in recent memory. Even if there are people out there (not me) who loved the poplocking to Best Original Scores.

Nevertheless, the show was more than carried for me by the epic battle between the battle epic and the battle indie. Avatar vs. Hurt Locker.

Not to knock Hurt Locker, because it is a deserving film and I was glad it won. But I do think Avatar was hampered by the new preferential voting system, which penalizes more divisive movies. And certainly the older Academy membership thought Avatar's use of stereoscopic was innovative enough to give it the cinematography award over movies that were shot more in the real world. But they ultimately couldn't reward the world's biggest movie with the world's biggest movie honor.

Avatar had a deeper message than most blockbusters, but it's characters were one dimensional. Compare to Hurt Locker, whose characters seemed to leap from real life (and, if the lawsuit against screenwriter Mark Boal has merit, did). Anyway, Avatar didn't need the Academy's validation. The Hurt Locker, as the lowest-grossing Best Picture winner (ever? - people keep throwing out this statistic, surely adjusting for more than inflation), it could use some help getting audiences.

As I wrote when I first saw it, the subject matter is a turnoff. Which is too bad. But I was wrong about one thing in my original review. I called Hurt Locker a movie ten years ahead of its time, a sober look at a war that is too close and too continuing to see clearly. The Academy didn't see it that way. They ignored the bandages and ripped off the scab. Good for them.

Oscars 2010 Liveblog

Oscars Liveblog here start 8pm Eastern / 7pm Central / 6pm Mountain / 5pm Los Angeles time. I'll be using Twitter to cross post.

On either the site here or any Twitter-enabled device you'll be able to get my live commentary on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science's big show -- who won, who should've won, and analysis that will help you enjoy this festival of Hollywood self-congratulation!

Go to the liveblog!Hit your browser's Refresh or Reload button to keep up.



Extended red carpet coverage is about to start. I'll leave the fashion analysis to others. Send me any good links.
That a sketch with Sacha Baron Cohen making fun of Avatar was cut is a non-story. (It wasn't funny.) But Tiger Woods... http://ow.ly/1flEw
The Oscar.com online coverage is different than the tv coverage. They just did a loooong interview with Wolfgang Puck.
I love that James Cameron got put picture-in-picture to show Zak Efron. True priorities revealed.
True dat! RT @Philontilt: I love the Oscars. Today for me is like the Superbowl for most of my friends.
You can say it's ridiculous to rank movies, an experience that is entirely subjective. But people naturally do it.
The Oscars are a second draft of what movies deserve to remembered and shared. Box office is the first. The final draft is up to cineastes.
Tina Fey in the background behind Sigourney. Hope she's presenting again this year.
Christoph Waltz: "32 years brewing as an overnight sensation, makes the brew stronger"
Right now a flurry of Oscar dress designs are being sent to factories around the world to outpace the knockoff merchants http://ow.ly/1fkPP
Samsung really pushing their 3D tvs in the ads. Are they betting a lot of #avatar fans are watching, do you think?
I promise my liveblogging will make the #Oscar ceremony less boring. I wish I could promise the same for the red carpet show.
Explaining the new 'preferential voting system.' I blogged about that in my Oscar Pool Tips: http://ow.ly/1fmtR
We know there will be slow moments in the show tonight, but Hurt Locker vs. Avatar has to be one of the best #Oscar battles of all-time.
RT @slashfilm: Avatar producer Jon Landau's son (?) caught making faces behind Sandra Bullock on the red carpet http://yfrog.com/j9hzrj
Clooney looks tired. He was more joyful when he was waving at fans and signing autographs. You get the sense he hates red carpet.
RT @kmk_: why is miley cyrus even at the academy awards? i didnt understand why she was there last year. this year isnt much better..
Samuel L. Jackson says he will present UP. I hope the speech is written by Tarantino.
Have to give props to UP for being an animated film about an 80-yr-old man with a dead wife and a fat kid with an absent father. Very indie.
Jackie Harvey: "When the red carpet is trod & the curtain goes up, it will be The Two Steves hosting, Martin and Baldwin" http://ow.ly/1fmWP
I hate this. Every year I think the Red Carpet is ending, then I remember there's another 1/2 of it. Forget about shortening the ceremony.
Still no deal for NYC. RT @SurvivingNYC: Note to #Cablevision - no one wants to watch a free movie tonight, people want to watch the Oscars!
Identical questions, identical answers as the previous red carpet show. Yawn. Going to get food and drink ready for the long haul.
RT @ElliottKalan: Why does ABC's pre-Oscars introduction feel like it was produced by WLIW21 public television in 1987?
This sums up the twitter opinion... RT @JillFilipovic: J-Lo's dress: HATE.
Nathan Rabin: "It's weird to see Taylor Lautner with his shirt on."
RT @thejohnblog: A million dollars to anyone that can produce a photo of Jeff Bridges NOT squinting.
It's official, Kathy Ireland stands 2-Sherri-Shepards tall.
Bladder check. Here we go.
Glitzy stage. The Best Actor/Actress nominees right up front. Very American Idol-style opening.
If I could hear the applause better, might get a hint of who has more fans in the Acad membership.
Neil Patrick Harris???? No knock on him but wow, this is a terrible start.
Everything that was bad about the movie NINE just happened to the Oscars.
Steve Martin: "Streep holds record for nominations as actress, or as I like to think of it, most losses."
Steve Martin: Everyone who meets her says the same thing about Meryl Streep, 'What's up with all that Hitler memorabilia.'
Steve Martin comparing PRECIOUS to THE JERK. Baldwin: That cutaway of James Cameron just earned $3M.
Baldwin v. Clooney, the showdown. Clooney wins.
Not sure what the Baldwin/Martin dynamic is adding. Compare Martin's opening monologue in 2001 http://ow.ly/1fny7
Stanley Tucci just mouthed "horrible" when they showed clips of his performance.
Winner: Christoph Waltz. That's a bingo!
Waltz is turning his list of thanks into a narrative. Very practiced read. I guess he's won a lot of awards this year leading up ot this.
Ryan Reynolds introducing THE BLIND SIDE. A Canadian saying "American as football"?
Audio problems for Cameron Diaz and Steve Carrell. Another condescending Animation category intro.
Like the Princess Frog bit. Hope that Eric Goldberg came back to do the animation on Lewis the gator. He won an Annie award for it.
UP wins! Not a surprise. Would have been weird if it was nominated for Best Picture and didn't win here.
I wonder if they put the categories that were most predictable up top intentionally.
Nice speech by Pete Docter and very touching to see his wife's tears after he thanks her.
Miley Cyrus looks slouchy announcing Original Song with the alien Amanda Seyfried.
Down in New Orleans was the best of not great from PRINCESS FROG. If "Weary Kind" from CRAZY doesn't win, I'll be shocked.
Winner: Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett for CRAZY HEART's 'Weary Kind'
Ceremony moving along at a great clip. T Bone doing his part by not thanking anyone.
District 9 is the most popular of the Best Picture nominees on BitTorrent. The Blind Side and An Education are the least. http://ow.ly/1fi96
Disney/ABC let Cablevision broadcast again, 17 minutes into the Oscars.
RT @ElliottKalan: With a name like "T-Bone Burnett", he really should have an enormous beard full of porkchops.
Donna Bowman: Someday a bold production designer will eschew the use of giant Oscar statues at Academy Awards, and everything will change.
Nikki Finke: Producers Bill Mechanic and Adam Shankman won't get hired for the Covina Dinner Theater when this broadcast is over.
Robert Downey, Jr. and Tina Fey - Best Original Screenplay - funny intro. Downey calls writers "sickly little mole people"
They should've shown story sketches for UP. That's really where an animated movie is "written"
Winner: Iraq journalist-turned-screenwriter Mark Boal.
This augurs well for HURT LOCKER for other awards tonight. Boal's script was turned down by everyone in Hollywood, by the way. All but one.
Molly Ringwald and Matthew Broderick honor John Hughes. Nice. But didn't other people die this year?
Wow. Is this the John Hughes tribute show? I love his movies, but correct me if I'm wrong, are any of them nominated?
Sam Jackson intros UP. Again, the copy demeans the characters of anim films by saying they are not "real people" - is Clooney's character?
RT @ElliottKalan: Samuel L. Jackson: "Get this motherf--kin' bird off my motherf--kin' house!"
Carey Mulligan and Zoe Saldana - Short Film categories. Making the case for why this award is done onscreen.
Favored: A Case of Loaf and Death
Winner: Logorama. Wow! A bigger middle finger to corporate law than CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY
Now for documentary shorts. China's Unnatural Disaster is favored.
Winner: Music by Prudence. A lot of Oscar Pool ballots have just been won/lost in these last two categories.
Wow, who let this lady out of the asylum? First play-off of the night?
Live-action short... dare I name a favorite?
Winner "The New Tenants" - they should really break these up. The momentum of the show has gone out.
Ben Stiller in Na'vi drag.
Best Makeup - favored would probably be Star Trek.
Winner: Star Trek. I want the fat Kirk hands!
Sad music cue playing off the Makeup winners... or playing on Jeff Bridges?
A Serious Man... the least-deserving of the Best Picture nominees? It's very good, but I hate the pretentious ending.
RT @johnaugust: Yeah, that Prudence thing was super awkward in person, too.
Rachel McAdams &Jake Gyllenhall - boring writing for the Best Adapted Screenplay introduction. Favored perhaps AN EDUCATION. Hard to call.
Winner: PRECIOUS! I did not expect Precious to win except for Mo'Nique's performance. Fletcher is apparently an egotist in talkbacks.
Steve Martin: "I wrote that speech for him." Mocking Fletcher's emotional inarticulateness.
Queen Latifah - Governor's award event... Roger Corman, Gordon Willis, Lauren Bacall, John Calley (Irving G. Thalberg winner).
Highlight montage is better than a rambling speech... but still show is dragging again. Robin Williams low-key intro to Best Supp Actress
Just give it to Mo'Nique already.
Big cheers from the audience. PRECIOUS is clearly the indie darling of this year.
Mo'Nique takes a big jab at people who campaign to win. She refused to campaign for her Oscar, and won anyway.
Colin Firth introduces AN EDUCATION. A good movie, this montage doesn't do it justice.
Oooh... coming up, a salute to horror films. So TRANSFORMERS 2 will finally be honored.
@ElliottKalan Well, I haven't seen THE BLINDSIDE. I was just asking the question. I would love a close-watched of the end of SERIOUS MAN.
Sigourney Weaver announces Art Direction. Here is where Avatar could get its first win.
Winner: Avatar. Sigourney happy for her art directors.
One of the art directors got a mortal diagnosis 13 years ago, sounds like a story. Any chance the Olympics producers around to do a package?
Tom Ford and Sara Jessica Parker intro costume design. Coco Before Chanel could upset period flick Young Victoria... nope.
Sandy Powell makes it a thrillogy. Classily recognizes costume designer who do contempo films but don't get recognition.
Charlize Theron intros PRECIOUS. Between winning the aud award at Sundance 2 yrs ago & Spirit Award last night, it may won more than Avatar.
Most categories left are predictable. But the big one isn't.
I guess the "tribute to horror movies" was just a PARANORMAL ACTIVITY skit.
Oh, wait, there's more...
Peter Bart sees the battle between Hurt Locker and Avatar as emblematic of two different movie businesses http://ow.ly/1fkLK
Silence of the Lambs is in the horror montage, won Best Picture, yet wasn't counted as horror by presenters?
@ElliottKalan Your horror montage would've been better :)
Hey, remember that DARK KNIGHT film everyone thought should've been Best Picture last year? It just got a nice fat ad this year.
Sound Editing Winner: Paul NJ Ottison. The Hurt Locker. He looks like he doesn't get out of the ProTools bay much.
This is an upset. Most expected regular Editing to go to Hurt Locker, but the sound categories are traditionally the province of action.
Hurt Locker wins again for Sound Mixing. Sweeps are common for these two - they should combine into a single Sound oscar that honors team.
Fair play... There's no Oscar for Colorist - the visual equiv of Sound Mixer.
RT @ElliottKalan: As someone who's produced an Academy Awards montage, that horror montage was a real disappointment.
Sandra Bullock dull intro of Cinematography. WHITE RIBBON won the guild award but Avatar could win for 3D.
Winner: Mauro Fiore - Avatar. If you're keeping count, PRECIOUS 2, AVATAR 2, HURT LOCKER 3.
"The gifts they shared with us in front of the camera and behind" sounded like an innuendo coming from Demi Moore.
James Taylor doing The Beatles "Places I Remember" - very nice. Lots of great writers lost - Larry Gelbart, Bud Schulberg, Horton Foote
James Taylor looks like a slightly less corpsey Robert Duvall.
RT @ElliottKalan: There's no suspense for the In Memoriam now that we know John Hughes won for Best Dead Filmmaker.
Best Original Score... if UP doesn't win, I'll be sad.
They replaced the song performances with breakdancers and ballerinas dancing to a medley of scores?????
I can't even begin to describe how wrong this is. This is the thalidomide baby of Oscar dances.
Yes! Michael Giacchino for UP. Such a great score, and such a wonderful man.
That guy they were showing clapping is Jonas Rivera, producer of UP.
Visual Effects. Avatar almost certain to win.
Winner... Avatar. They did amazing work and pushed the envelope... the question is whether Jim Cameron will honored for the same.
Jason Bateman leaves himself out of the list of excellent performances in UP IN THE AIR.
"Will the Best Director be the first vagina-boobs-person, the first black dude or just another white guy?"
Best Documentary - favored is The Cove, but it may be too overproduced for the few Acad documentary fans who were allowed to vote.
Winner: The Cove. Have heard a lot of recommendations for this. Super-well-produced action movie-style doc.
They cut away when a producer held up a sign saying something like "Text Dolphin to 44144"
Tyler Perry introducing Editing. Do we really need an explanation of what it is, and a bad one at that?
Best Editing Winner: The Hurt Locker. Well-deserved. That movie is built on the incredible tension of not cutting.
Keanu Reeves introducing THE HURT LOCKER. I guess they are trying to handicap the film by giving it the worst public speaker.
Tasha Robinson at The Onion AV Club: Text POINTBREAK to some dolphins
Almodovar and Tarantino to intro Best Foreign Language film. Sadly the only time Quentin will be on stage tonight.
White Ribbon is probably the favorite...
The Winner is El Secreto De Sus Ojos. Nice upset - this is an unpredictable category since they made it so only Academy members can watch.
Sony Pictures Classics had 3/5 of the nominees in this category. The odds paid off.
Wow, I don't believe Steve Martin or Alec Baldwin have said anything funny since the monologue. Is Bruce Villanch napping backstage?
RT @simonmiraudo: I had The White Ribbon, but Michael Haneke is such a jerk I'm happy to see him lose. In your face patronising weirdo!
Best Actor... they have brought back the innovation from last year with other performers congratulating the nominees.
Jeff Bridges will undoubtedly win here. Feel free to go 10-100. Make that 10-200.
RT @JacquesDutronc: un prophete was robbed.
RT @lmcnelly: the Cove has already added "Oscar winner" to their webpage http://bit.ly/w8vWd
Tim Robbins has a funny rib of Morgan Freeman. That's the kind of writing this show has been lacking.
Colin wishes Jeremy Renner good luck, laughing. Yeah, good luck feigning surprise when Bridges wins.
Kate Winslet, looking more beautiful every year, gives the Oscar to a man who looks worse: Bad Blake, er, Jeff Bridges.
Are Jeff Bridges' mom and dad stage hands? Why is he looking up and waving the Oscar like that otherwise?
I think we can all agree that he's really getting this Oscar as an apology for not being recognized for his performance in THE BIG LEBOWSKI.
Jeff Bridges thanks his daughters. Because they taught him what it was like to play an alcoholic, deadbeat father.
Sandra Bullock's Razzie Award acceptance speech http://ow.ly/1fkNX
Oprah points out how crazy it is that Gabourey Sidibe is in same category as Meryl Streep.
I put her in the "happy to be nominated" category, but after PRECIOUS' many wins tonight, Sidibe could have a better chance than Streep.
Lots of love for Sandy... she's the favorite here, despite having perhaps a lesser performance... well-loved by H'wood.
Winner: Sandra Bullock. Let's see how this compares to her Razzie speech.
@ElliottKalan Heaven, is that what they call the lighting grid?
Nice tearful acceptance by Bullock. She has been crowned by Hollywood. I hope she still does comedies after this... er, funny comedies.
If Kathryn Bigelow doesn't win Best Director, I'll be sad. If she does, I'll be annoyed by the inevitable glut of glass ceiling stories.
The winner... Kathryn Bigelow. In case you couldn't tell from Streisand saying ominously, "The time has come."
Bigelow thanks screenwriter Boal who "risked his life for the words on the page." Very classy speech, very well-deserved award.
The question is, does #Avatar still have a chance at Best Picture?
RT @ajschnack: In press room, The Cove director Louie Psihoyas arguing w Japanese reporter. (via @thecarpetbagger)
Wow... and a swift conclusion with THE HURT LOCKER winning Best Picture. Thanking the banned producer Nicholas Chartier.
Dan McCoy: Not my favorite of the nominees, but the best of the ones that had a snowball’s chance of winning. Congrats, Hurt Locker.
Thanks for reading along. Sorry if I clogged up your feed. I'll be doing analysis on makingthemovie.info in the coming week.
How did Hurt Locker become the film with the least box office to win the big award, against Avatar, the film with the biggest BO ever?
RT @zombiespirit: The ride home with James Cameron tonight is going to be a long one.
RT @giteshpandya: 6 Oscars for HurtLocker: Picture, Director, Editing, Orig.Screen, SoundMixing, SoundEditing. $14.7M.
RT @ElliottKalan: Now maybe her mom will respect Kathryn more than her charismatic yet disreputable brother Deuce.
RT @Marcusist: Obviously, the best part of the #Oscars was the Jesse White Tumblers performing to the Best Score nominations.
This Oscars may have better ratings than others, because of trends, but it was the worst in terms of producing in a while.
Nevertheless, the Bigelow-Cameron ex-spouse Hurt Locker v. Avatar indie vs blockbuster battle was riveting. Going to bed satisfied.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope I helped make the show a bit less boring. As I said, I'll be doing more analysis in the coming days.

RESOURCES:
List of Nominees for 2010 Academy Awards
How to follow the Oscars if you're a Cablevision subscriber

OTHER LIVEBLOGGERS:
WGAeast Comedy Writers at FireDogLake
The Onion
Deadline Hollywood Daily
Defamer
GreenCine
BAM's blog
Entertainment Weekly
Associated Content
Row Three
The Sassy Curmudgeon
SlashFilm

PREVIOUS OSCAR LIVEBLOGS:
Oscars 2009 Liveblog
Oscars 2008 Liveblog
Oscars 2007 Liveblog
Oscars 2006 Liveblog
Oscars 2005 Liveblog

DVD Review: The Secret of Kells (Region 2)

First off, for anyone wondering if this movie is going to pull out a surprise upset in the Best Animated Film category, I doubt it. While it's stunning to look at -- the most successful attempt to bring the style of medieval manuscript to life in animation since Disney's Sleeping Beauty (1961) -- it's a bit rougher around the edges when it comes to the performances and storytelling.

The story weaves real history about The Book of Kells -- its probable origins in Iona Abbey, its loss of golden covers, the viking invasions -- into a story about Brendan, an enthusiastic young boy with some artistic talent who likes to pal around with the manuscript-illuminating monks at the Abbey of Kells circa 800AD. His very serious Uncle is the Abbot Cellach (Brendan Gleeson), and though rumor is that Cellach is a gifted illuminator himself, he is more intent on building a wall to keep out the hordes of Northmen than giving glory to god through decorative writing.

When a legendary illuminator arrives as a refugee from the recently sacked Iona, carrying an incomplete masterpiece of a bible, one which can apparently convert sinners merely through its artwork, Brendan is enraptured. He apprentices himself to Brother Aiden, the erstwhile master, and is soon violating his Uncle's decree to remain within the walls of the abbey in order to find berries for making ink out in the surrounding pagan forest.

While in the forest, he meets an orphan girl named Aisling (pronounced Ashley), who has the ability to turn into a wolf and control animals. Aisling is Irish for "dream" or "vision" and is also the name of a poetic tradition where the spirit of Ireland appears as a supernatural woman with dominion over nature. This Aisling does indeed have dominion over her forest, though she is overmatched by a dark serpent with a magnifying gem for an eye who dwells underground.

It is Brendan who will have to face this dark serpent, and who must choose between saving the Abbey of Kells from the Viking invaders or completing the Chi-Rho page of the great manuscript. As a parable of a blossoming young artist, the movie is a bit clumsy, but it certainly gets points for the remarkable setting, and for using the real book of Kells as visual development. I dare say many visually-dense sequences of this film more than top their inspiration.

I was able to order this DVD directly from Cartoon Saloon, director Tomm Moore's production company, which produced the film using various animation studios throughout Europe, and it comes with a sketch personally signed by Moore (€30 for the package, which becomes $47 to the US with shipping). If, despite the singular artistic vision behind the movie, there was any doubt that this is a independent operation, I can personally attest that it is Tomm Moore himself who answers emails sent to the Cartoon Saloon website.

The disc is Region 2, so you'll need an all-region player to watch it here stateside, or a laptop that has been switched over. Despite being distributed by Buena Vista International, Walt Disney Studios' international arm, the extras on the disc are a bit underproduced. There's a reel that one of the animation studios (a Belgian one) put together that has an introduction by director Tomm Moore that sets it up in basics. It's cool to see how the digital inking and painting process is done, even if I'm not exactly sure specifically what I'm watching. Other pieces could've used introductions or, better yet, full commentary. This is especially true of the extended cuts of scenes, which, lacking musical underscore, are too difficult to watch to spot what has changed. Animation fans will nonetheless enjoy seeing the various layers come together in the work reels and extended scene cuts.

The disc's best bonus feature is probably the inclusion of the short film "Cúilín Dualach" ("Backwards Boy") an Irish-language short about a baby born with his head on backwards that is Moore's only other major IMDb credit. "Cúilín Dualach" also features a very distinctive artistic design, but it is a world away from Kells'. Certainly between these two pieces, I'm excited to see what Moore and his team will do next.

The Secret of Kells opens on March 5th in NYC and March 19th in Boston.

MORE: The Blog of Kells

Oscar Pool Tips

My co-worker decided to run an Oscar pool this year. I'm the reigning office champion, but he's new and he's eager to take me on. I think he got nervous when he saw everyone in the office making a pilgrimage to ask me what I was picking. The last two times we've done Oscar pools in the office, I've won.

To avoid inter-office cribbing, I'll be keeping my picks close to the vest until my annual live-tweeting of the ceremonies. However, sites like movieretriever are handicapping the Oscars in detail to help people out.

Maybe I've only been lucky, and I don't work in a big office. But in case I'm onto something, I thought I'd share some general tips...

1. See as many of the nominees as you can.

It helps to start early -- and there are some movies that you probably won't be able to see because they are released so late and so narrowly -- but like an SAT question, you can improve your percentages dramatically the more answers you can rule out. And even if you still can't decide which category the voters will pick, at least you'll know who you're personally rooting for.

2. Put yourself in the mental space of an average Academy voter.

Academy members are older, on average, than the general population. Many reports guess the average age to be 57, but certain categories (Animated Short Film, Live Action Short Film, Documentary Feature, Documentary Short Subject, and Foreign Language Film) can only be voted on by everyone who has seen all the nominated movies, so this weights the voting even further toward retirees with lots of time on their hands vs. working professionals.

The membership is made up of savvy filmmgoers, who watch a movie with an eye towards the history of cinema, and the technical challenges that faced the filmmakers. While pretty much every movie job is represented among member, the largest contingent the actors. A Best Picture choice like Crash is almost certainly aided by it being considered 'an actor's movie.'

3. Factor in the new voting rules.

Along with the addition of five more Best Picture nominees this year, the Academy decided to move the final vote to a preferential system.

In a preferential voting system, votes for the least popular first choice movie are eliminated and those members' second choices are taken into account. The process continues until a nominee receives more than 50% of the votes.

--Company Town

This means that polarizing movies that get lots of 1 votes and 10 votes won't necessarily beat consensus picks that have a lot of twos and threes.

4. Star power still matters.

When an acting category is tough to call, I give the edge to a well-liked Hollywood insider vs. a performance from a newcomer. This rule of thumb hasn't been perfectly true for the supporting statues, but lead roles require a certain glamor, and Hollywood's court likes glamorous royalty.

5. Best Original Screenplay is the place to recognize quirky indies.

Juno, Little Miss Sunshine, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, nuff said.

6. Editing, Sound Editing and Mixing are for blockbusters.

Mostly unfairly, the Academy membership thinks bombastic action movies deserve more honors in the post-production category. While the process for these movies may have more moving parts, it certainly doesn't mean it's more creative. But razzle-dazzle really counts here. Likewise with Costume Design, which invariably goes to a period film.

7. Visual Effects can reward Davids over Goliaths.

In recent memory this category has had some "upsets" that, in retrospect, are not upsetting. Benjamin Button beat out The Dark Knight and Iron Man; The Golden Compass topped Pirates 3 and I'll never forget when The Matrix beat out Star Wars: Episode 1, probably the most lavish special effects movie up to that point. The Academy is not afraid to reward more poetic effects, and effects used in new storytelling ways, as with the seamless digital makeup in Benjamin Button.


Good luck on your picks. And be sure to come back for the liveblog Sunday night!

Movie Review: Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland

He thought he saw an Elephant,
      That practiced on a fife:
He looked again, and found it was
      A letter from his wife.
"At length I realise," he said,
      "The bitterness of Life!"
-- Lewis Carroll

I Thought I Saw an Alice

The scuttlebutt around Hollywood is that Tim Burton despises the Disney cartoon adaptation of Lewis Carroll's classic children's books, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (both public domain and available free online). He always thought Uncle Walt tampered too much with the originals.

The irony is that Walt Disney's version has supplanted the books in the popular imagination, to the point that Burton has no choice but to call this adaptation/re-imagination by the same name as the Walt Disney version, Alice in Wonderland. And with the Disney company footing the bill, he and screenwriter Linda Woolverton have concocted a story that uses many of the beloved characters from the original stories, but which works equally well as a sequel to either the cartoon movie or the books.

Save for an early prologue, this movie's Alice is no child, she's a willful girl of nineteen-going-on-twenty, a ripe old age in Victorian England, seemingly doomed to marry an effete lord with bad indigestion. After a highly-peer-pressured proposal, she escapes down a rabbit hole and into "Underland" -- which she had been to as a young girl, but mis-remembered as Wonderland. (And perhaps the name is a nod to the title of Carroll's first draft of the original book, Alice's Adventures Underground.)

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland doesn't so much adapt Carroll's books or the Disney movie as it does The Wizard of Oz. Like the Wizard of Oz 1939 classic fantasy film, each of the characters of the overworld have Underland analogues. And like Frank L. Baum's Oz book series, the female protagonist becomes a proxy in a conflict between two female power figures and their assorted madcap associates. Here it is the Red Queen (Helena Bonham-Carter, the best performance of the film) and the White Queen (Anne Hathaway, also excellent), both borrowing traits from The Dutchess character of the first Alice book.

Mia Wasikowska, as Alice, would have a tough acting job to do to carry another movie of equal length that didn't have strong performers in outsize roles (Crispin Glover and Johnny Depp are bizarre as usual, but not to great effect). Here she must also compete with fully-digital 3D Burtonesque Wonderland. Her performance did not engage me, and Burton fails to coach even decent line readings from her at several points.

Read the whole review of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (minor spoilers)...

The Visuals

Visually, Burton puts many of his signature design flourishes in, but in the broad strokes the movie relies upon Sir John Tenniel's original and equally classic book illustrations. Other famous visual adaptations, such as Arthur Rackham's are perhaps echoed here and there. The palette of the more apocalyptic scenes seemed very like Rackham's, and some of the awesome expressionist sets looked a bit like the stylized concept art painted by Mary Blair for Walt Disney's version.

The digital effects, such as the heart-shaped distortion of the Red Queen's head, or the plumpification of Matt Lucas as Tweedledee and Tweedledum were well done to the point that they just worked for the story; the elongation of Crispin Glover's Knave, on the other hand, felt very awkward. Overall, perhaps the reason the amazing Wonderland world that Burton and his collaborators have created for this movie is not getting much buzz is because of how much like a digital version of the Nightmare Before Christmas world it sometimes is.

As for the use of 3D, it's much more extreme than many recent movies, and this seems about right. Burton is a director known for using wide-angle lenses and favoring extreme or distorted depth. It's only natural that his preferences for stereoscopic photography would run the same way. We're living in a kind of fun time right now, where we get to cross directors off a list. How would Tim Burton use 3D? Now we know. How would David Fincher use 3D? Still waiting.

The Alice Tradition

Many have tried unsuccessfully to apply a Freudian logic to the original free-associative whimsy of Carroll's original, but with this film, those people have found a champion. Alice's adventure in Wonderland this time is clearly about self-actualization and coming of age as a woman. While screenwriter Linda Woolverton puts in many references for Alice fanboys and fangirls, in turning the movie into a basic quest narrative, she chooses to riff on Carrollian characters in an un-Carrollian way.

A few bits of original Carroll-style wordplay, such as the line "you've lost your muchness," get trotted out to be congratulated rather than being integral to the world. Carroll would not have stood for so linear a plot or so coherent of conversations. The one moment that seemed very un-Hollywood and very true to the books is when Alice, against all logic of self-preservation, falls asleep in the presence of a deadly animal.

Alice's inability to remember her previous visit to Underland is a lame contrivance so that she can have identical adventures. Thankfully, only the room with many doors, the Mad Tea Party and a bit of the scene with flamingo-mallet hedgehog-ball croquet are fully derivative. (In the Walt Disney version, the story artists wisely created a new character for the room with many doors, a talking doorknob, which helped to add humor and conflict to the scene's rather dull beginning.)

Alice's inability to remember her previous does get a nice payoff at the end, when (spoiler!) a sad Hatter refuses to be comforted by Alice's assertion she will soon return to see him again. "You'll forget us like you did before," he says.

Speaking of Alice and the Hatter, I'm pretty sure Burton means us to vibe that the Hatter is totally crushing on her. All I can say to that is... ew. I really don't want to think about Depp's semi-Scottish Hatter -- now with tragic backstory! -- in a liplock with the bloodless lolita Wasikowska.

The structure of the movie hinges around the rather literal interpretation of Carroll's famous nonsense poem "Jabberwocky" as a prophecy. "Jabberwocky", though it is included in Through the Looking-Glass, was originally written much earlier and circulated among Carroll's friends and family as a parody of Anglo-Saxon poetry. With its vorpal blades and frumious bandersnatches, the poem is without a doubt Carroll's most famous contribution to English literature, the nonsense words within a grammatical structure used to teach children and linguistics students alike about the deeper nature of nouns and verbs.

A math professor in a time when mathematics were destroying the orthodox view of the world, much of Carroll's oeuvre has a deconstructive bent. The critical interpretation that has most endured is that his nonsensical narratives were a reflection of the intellectual topsy-turviness going on at Oxford College during his tenure there.

Carroll's dissolutions of language and propriety surely felt more anarchic in their heyday, and not all of them have endured quite so well as "Jabberwocky". Few people can recite the episode of "Pig and Pepper" or "The Caucus Race" from memory. When Walt Disney was working on his adaptation, he salted in songs and a more up-to-date sense of whimsy, purposely leaving out chapters like the aforementioned.

The characters Burton and Woolverton omit are equally telling. There's no lizard with a ladder, nor are there any walruses or carpenters playing pied piper to a batch of baby oysters, two episodes from the Walt Disney version that are less memorable. They make their doormouse a female Reepicheep but borrow the cartoon version's deus ex machina appearance of the Cheshire Cat, only this time (spoiler!) it's to help the Hatter evade the executioner's heart-shaped ax.

Not having seen the 1933 live-action version of the film, nor any of the many made-for-t.v.-versions, nonetheless I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that the cartoon version remains on its perch as the most successful screen adaptation. Burton is able to go toe-to-toe on a sheer visual level, but the cartoon version remains truer to the bizarre spirit of Carroll's original, the impossible quality that somehow captivates children and baffles adults. So for all his rancor for the cartoon version's alterations of the Victorian classic, it is Burton's Alice that has lost more muchness.

MORE:
The best site on the internet for all things Alice is Lenny's site
Why is a raven like a writing desk?

Book Review: Hollywood Dealmaking

Guest review from screenwriter and Hollywood dealmaker Bridget Tyler. Enjoy. -JO

* * *

Hollywood Dealmaking: Negotiating Talent Agreements for Film, TV and New Media, 2nd Ed. by Dina Appleton and Daniel Yankelevits is a book written by lawyers, and you can tell. This manual on the minutiae of Hollywood deal-making is certainly thorough, but it's not even entertaining when it's trying to be, which isn't often.

Authors Dina Appleton and Daniel Yankelevits certainly have plenty of experience with their subject matter. Yankelevits is an attorney for Sony Pictures and Appleton is special counsel in the Entertainment, Media and Technology Practice Group at the law firm of Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton. They both also teach UCLA extension courses and Appleton is a columnist for Backstage magazine. Despite their bona fides, they aren't very compelling teachers.

The upside of "Hollywood Dealmaking" is that it is packed with sample agreements for just about every kind of entertainment contract. If you're an independent producer trying to produce your own contracts, this book will be an extremely helpful tool. The end of chapter "Deal Point Summary" pages are also very useful and a great way to get a quick grasp on what you should expect in a contract.

Unfortunately, the parts of the book that aren't sample contracts (less than half of the 303 pages) are written in the same dense legalese as the sample agreements. This isn't the book to read if you're looking for a layman's understanding of how Hollywood works. It's also not the best place to learn the fine points of the creative side of the business. For instance, Appleton and Yankelevits call executives who are responsible for creative decisions "Creative Executives." Creative Executive is a specific title, and a rather junior one at that. The creative decisions in Hollywood are made by people in the Production and Development departments. These executives have fought long and hard for their titles, so referring to a Vice President of Development as a Creative Exec is a good way to poison a relationship.

Reading too much of "Dealmaking" at once, without a specific goal in mind like "I need to figure out how to write an option agreement" is a recipe for eye-crossing boredom. But that doesn't mean this isn't a useful part of the bookshelf for aspiring entertainment professionals. Just don't expect it to be particularly entertaining.

Bridget Tyler is a screenwriter and producer living in Los Angeles. She's also the founder of the blog A Modern Girl's Guide to Surviving the Apocolypse. Follow her @FourHorsewomen on Twitter.

DVD Review: Journey to the Flames: 10 Years of Burning Man

I've never been to the legendary Burning Man festival in Nevada's Black Rock desert, but thanks to the documentary Journey to the Flames: 10 Years of Burning Man (Extended Edition), I very much want to go.

Footage of Burning Man is rare enough, thanks to the restrictions the event organizers place on photography, so a documentary that not only shows you ten years worth of Burning Man art and culture, but also takes you behind the scenes to see how such a massive event is organized, is something to treasure.

The documentary itself is composed of a number of vignettes, and if its loose structure can be categorized, I'd say the over-arching story is about a group of Burners (as attendee/participants are called) finding self-actualization at the festival. The movie starts with the group preparing for the fest. Each of them is a colorful character, perhaps with the exception of Doug, who happens to be the cameraman and director of the documentary. (A later running joke of the group taunts Doug for hiding behind his camera.)

Mixed in with these personal journeys are segments that give a much broader view of the festival -- how an army of volunteers is organized, how a city is built in the desert, how the safety of participants is guarded, an exhaustive catalog of the crazy art installations and vehicles, and a segment all about "The Man" who is ritually burned at the close of each festival.

The ten years covered are 1998-2007, and one of the bonus features on the disc takes you through the years chronologically. Certainly this documentary will appeal to people who attended in those years and are looking to nostalgically re-live them. But I think the documentary also serves a purpose to introduce non-Burners like myself to the appeal of the festival. As I watched the movie, I was already thinking about what sort of zany art project I could contribute.

More on the documentary can be found at journeytotheflames.com, where the filmmaker is selling copies directly for $12.

When Windows Collapse It's Good for Disney

This is huge:

The UK's biggest movie theatre chain Odeon has now ended its standoff with the Walt Disney Co. It joined exhibitors Vue and Cineworld to show Alice In Wonderland as scheduled. What a win for Bob Iger and what a sea-change for filmgoers. It’ll end up like Korea where a movie plays for a few weeks in cinemas and then, snap your fingers, and all formats are available at a variety of prices. Disney decided to stare down exhibitors both here in the UK and in the U.S. by imposing a 12-week theatrical window instead of the standard lag between a film appearing in cinemas and then going to DVD of 17 weeks.

--Deadline Hollywood

12 is the new 17, baby. Soon 8 could be the new 12. The collapsing of the so-called "theatrical window" is pretty much a foregone conclusion, so maybe that's why theater chains have conceded at the outset. The thinking is, a movie makes 97% of its theatrical total in the first 8 weeks. Why wait longer to bring it out on DVD and VOD, giving pirates more weeks where they have a home video monopoly? Well, for one thing, the standard contract with theater owners says they get more money the more weeks a movie plays. So they hate shortening the window.

But the studios love it, and they own the product. For every week the window shortens from opening weekend, the movie that they just spent a lot of money to market is fresher in peoples' minds.

If Disney likes the numbers they see, watch them to make it standard practice. And watch the other studios follow suit.

One little battle over one movie's theatrical window in England could be a huge moment for the industry at large. Red pill or blue pill? Which is the one that makes you huge?

Pro-Business Movies

In this weak economy, The Conglomerate blog looks at some pro-business movies:

Category One: plucky youngster changes corporate culture and makes old guard realize winning business strategy is to to be childish.

1980s examples: BIG (1988), The Secret of My Success (1987)

Recent equivalent: Elf

How is this archetype pro-Business?: At first blush, business might be seen as just providing a setting for a standard narrative archetype - like "Fish out of Water." But these movies are really pro-business because the process of running a business is seen as creative and fulfilling, albeit only if you engage in massive psychological regression.

Variant: Gung Ho (1986) (Plucky middle-agester convinces corporation to re-open or not to close plant and spare jobs -- a critical race scholar could spend a career writing on this one)

Note to law students: this movie archetype points to a surefire route to the top as a junior associate -- convince that grumpus in the corner office that what a law firm needs is more wackiness.

Author Erik Gerding dubs Risky Business the most pro-business movie of all time.

If there haven't been a lot of pro-business movies over the years, maybe that's because it's not a good business decision to make them. Follow me... if most people hate their jobs, then most people would probably rather watch the characters in Office Space or Hudsucker Proxy, who also hate their jobs are therefore sympathetic, than watch a CEO, however likable a character, triumph over some fraction of the odds against a blue-collar Joe.

In the example above, the protagonist is still a young upstart. Gerding's other two examples are a creative entrepreneur against entrenched market leaders and brilliant industrialist as superhero (Batman, Iron Man). It's funny, but rarely does a Batman movie dwell on Wayne Industries' quarterly earnings statements.

What other options are there? Someone in the comments points out that Ghostbusters is about a group of academics forming a private company to get the results and respect they can't get in academia. I think this economy could lead to more movies about people changing careers to seek out business glory. Or it could lead to more movies about business hot shots learning what's really important in life... and that isn't profits.

What Hurt Locker's BAFTA Wins Mean for Its Oscar Chances

So, does The Hurt Locker winning big at the BAFTAs, the British equivalent of the Oscars, bode well for its chances at the Academy Awards? Yes and no. Certainly, each of these awards shows helps build momentum and indicate a movie has industry support. On the other hand, the Academy is not the same membership. The big question mark for everyone trying to predict the Oscars is the new voting rules:

This year, voters will rank all ten nominated movies in order of preference, ensuring a winner "with the strongest support of a majority of our electorate," instead of just one with a small plurality, says AMPAS prez Tom Sherak.

--NYMag Oscar’s New Voting Rules: Who Do They Help?

The tally is weighted by rank, but if many more people put Avatar at #2 than Hurt Locker at #1, Avatar could take it. In any case, I think in popular perception it went from being Avatar's race to lose, to being The Hurt Locker's.

Your Weekend Viewing: Spheres of Fury

Hecq Vs Exillion - Spheres Of Fury from Tim.Chris.Film on Vimeo.

This beautiful-looking parody of the commando genre was shot on the Canon 7D and posted with superior editing and creative color grading.

The team that made it is >Tim.Chris.Film and you can see more of their videos here and here.

The Blue Tongue Filmmakers

The New York Times has a brief profile of the Blue Tongue film collective, a loosely-knit group of Australian filmmakers that are having some success after more than a decade of hard work:

Blue-Tongue Films is unusual in that it has a name — Mr. Edgerton said he got around to registering the trademark a while ago — but is not really a company, with shared profits, nor a true cinematic movement, like Dogme 95 in Denmark.

Rather it is an agglomeration of filmmakers who helped one another into the business and have simply stuck together in jobs that vary from film to film. That includes the stunt work.

Tony Lynch, who worked on Nash Edgerton’s first short, was the stunt coordinator of, and a featured actor in, “The Square.” And Nash Edgerton is credited as stunt coordinator and a stunt double on “Hesher,” a drama that was picked up at Sundance for distribution by Newmarket Films. That film was directed by Spencer Susser, also a Blue-Tongue associate, and includes Natalie Portman, Rainn Wilson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt among its stars.

“I think the longer we have been around, we have all understood the value of moving in packs: the strength of support, the pooling of ideas and equipment and the kudos of associating with each other,” Joel Edgerton wrote in an e-mail message on Tuesday.

...

Over the fries on Monday, Mr. Edgerton and Mr. Doolan said they had been reading scripts and attending Hollywood meetings set up by their respective agents.

So far neither had lined up a studio project.

But, they said, more than a few interns and young executives have asked how the Blue-Tongue gang had managed to build filmmaking careers out of little more than shared grit.

“We run into people carrying $120,000 debt from film school,” Mr. Doolan said. “And all they want to know is how we did it.”

Vimeo Updates - 1080p, Mobile Support

YouTube competitor Vimeo has stepped up to 1080p as well, and -- great for iPhone users like me -- announced:

In addition to offering our featured videos on mobile devices, we are excited to announce mobile support for all Plus members' videos! Plus members who own an iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, or Palm Pre can now go to our mobile site, vimeo.com/m and make mobile versions of their videos.

So it's a premium service, at least for now. But it sounds like, like YouTube, if your video is popular enough (or 'featured'), they'll convert it for free.

Also like YouTube, Vimeo is Beta-testing HTML5 video support. For those who don't know, this is a technology much like Flash, but can be built into every browser because it's not locked down like Flash is by Adobe (or Silverlight for Microsoft or Quicktime for Apple, for that matter). Vimeo has a blog post explaining.