Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Putty Hill website

A few days ago, Matt Porterfield linked to his new and elegantly designed website for Putty Hill. After taking a look at the beautiful artwork and photographs, along with the director's and producer's statements about the film, I've gone from being marginally interested (mostly because I know it may be a long time before I actually see the film) to somewhat enthusiastic. I'll keep my eye out. I have a way of missing films as they come through these parts, especially if it's a one-time screening.

Update: Here's some behind-the-scenes footage from another filmmaker, Isaac Diebboll, that was shot during the production:

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Kentucker Audley's Holy Land and Open Five

I'm a little behind on this, as always, but Kentucker Audley has posted a trailer for Holy Land on his youtube page:



And also some footage from Open Five (more footage on his page):



The above video has a single comment that reads: "great. more mumblecore....." And, to be honest, I'm pretty tired of this style of filmmaking myself, at least in theory -- I would always give an ind. filmmaker the benefit of the doubt before watching their film, whether or not it was associated with this label. Not all films featuring twenty-somethings and their relationship problems qualify as "mumblecore," even if they are shot cheaply on DV, nor do I think films that scream "mumblecore!" are necessarily bad films. At any rate, I thought Audley's Team Picture was a very good film, and although, yes, it was shot on mini-DV and featured inarticulate slacker twenty-somethings, there was something about it that set it apart from the whole scene. It felt less of-the-moment than some of its peers. Had it been shot on film, it might have felt a bit anachronistic, like Frownland. And it wouldn't have felt like a "mumblecore" film.