Indie Film

One Dream Rush is a Beijing-based exhibition of 42-second films from 42 film makers on the subject of dreams. It's an interesting premise, though we were a lot more excited before we learned that the film fest was being sponsored by Bacardi's vodka brand 42 Below. Still, the art films/vodka commercials make for lovely viewing. Below, shorts by locals David Lynch and Kenneth Anger:

Found via Dangerous Minds

Did you ever see The Underground Comedy Movie? No? Don't worry, that is a shared experience through most of the known world. We do remember the late night ads with 'super models' on the toilet. And we also note that the film won the Best Celebrity Cameo at the B-Movie Awards for Joey Buttafuoco.

Well, filmmaker Vince Offer is best known for being the ShamWow Guy and more recently known for his beating up a prostitute in Miami was responsible for this cinematic wonder (ahem). Since his film had Bobby Lee and Slash in it, we figured Vince was a Comedy Story comic before he turned pitch/punchman.

Ant, of Last Comic Standing fame, was also in UCM and tells FBLA,"I don't think he was ever a comedian. He sold these little devices called Chop-o-matic's to finance the movie. He met me through friends and asked me to be in the movie. My scene was with a then unknown Michael Clarke Duncan (Oscar Nominated for The Green Mile). My last tonight show appearance MCD and I talked about that experience.

"Bashing a hooker while her teeth are attached to your face closer than Kirstie Ally and a Crispy Creme...not too bright....on so many levels."

Yeah...Agreed.

In November of 2004 Theo Van Gogh was stabbed and shot and nearly decapitated by Dutch citizen and Islamic terrorist Mohammed Bouyeri on the streets of Amsterdam. A note was stabbed to his chest addressed to author and activist, Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

We'd read about the story - but never actually viewed the film. Now we have.

Via reddit.

"Marley and Me," a loveable bowser of a movie about a pooch and his itinerant relationships, continued to dominate the box office this weekend, pulling in some $24 million to reach a cumulative of $106 million, says FBLA box office guru Steve Mason.

Mason continues that the movie is on track to rake in some $160 million domestic making it the No. 1 live-action dog movie of all time. Won't touch the Dalmations, as they're animated, but for live-action, Marley is taking top slot.

The film means big money for Fox, but the real winner may be director David Frankel (see pic at left), who chalks the film up as his second $100 million-plus earner after "Devil Wears Prada," which closed at $124.7 million.

Frankel also happens to be the son of Max Frankel, a longtime editor of the New York Times.

IndieWIRE, under the watchful eye of Eugene Hernandez, has been eager to back underdog films and support anything that goes against the grain for more than a decade. They probably voted for Dennis Kucinich, but you ever know.

That said, the round-up of IndieWIRE staffers and contributors is always a good read. Here it is.

Take a look and see if your indie IQ is anywhere near the experts. My feeling is no. But if you have to indulge, buy yourself a black beret and foreign cigarettes and rent a few dozen indie films and dig right in.

At best, an education. At worst, a half-day you'll never get back, but you'll always remember.

The five documentary nominees for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association will be available to schmooze and discuss their work the day before the Globes are given out.

Nominees include: "THE BAADER-MEINHOF COMPLEX" (DER BADDER- MEINHOF KOMPLEX); "EVERLASTING MOMENTS" (MARIA LARSSONS EVIGA ÖGONBLICK); "GOMORRAH" (GOMORRA); "I'VE LOVED YOU SO LONG" (IL Y A LONGTEMPS QUE JE T'AIME); and "WALTZ WITH BASHIR."

Each director will be available at 1 p.m. on Jan. 10 at the Egyptian Theater. So if you like docs, especially foreign ones, it's an open house. Here's the invite.

Tom Cruise's attempt at an independent film had a good opening nationwide on Christmas day, but in Los Feliz at the local theater the small crowd that paid was only disappointed.

The film broke and the Los Feliz theater technicians couldn't fix it. So a few went home with a free ticket for two to a new release.

FBLA hopes it's not a sign of things to come for the film.

Russia, in its best-footed attempt at taking after Warner Bros., will finance its own version of a patriotic flag-waving film with "The Brest Fortress," an $8 million project about Russia's stronghold defense against Nazi Germany in 1941, Variety reports.

It will mark the first fully-financed film since Soviet times according to Ruben Dishdishian, head of Central Partnership, Russia's leading production company.

We guess, From Russia with Love will now be something to which the Hollywood film community will aspire.

Lance Loud, whose family became famous in the early 1970s as the first reality TV family before there was reality TV, appeared in a non-sexual role in gay film, the film's director Paul Barresi confided to FBLA on the seventh anniversary of Loud's death.

Loud played a gay masked hero, Mr. Blue, who used magical powers to help lovers fix their troubled relationships.

According to the Advocate, Lance never regretted coming out. He knew he was never forgiven by a society that wanted homosexuals at best to be closeted. Lance Loud preferred to be seen as an outsider, a rebel, someone always living. On society's edge, Lance's life was a comic tragedy that spoke volumes about pop culture, sexuality, fame and family life.

Barresi, who wrote, directed and produced "Mr. Blue," wanted to note that Showtime's new series about gay men coming out of the closet was territory Loud had covered on PBS years earlier.

According to Extra producer Rob Sheiffele, the Showtime show announced recently that billed itself as the first show to feature men coming out of the closet was also using Loud's original premise.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the network has ordered a pilot presentation from Bryan Freedman, a former journalist and executive producer of A&E's Intervention. In each episode of "Way Out" a closeted person reveals his or her homosexuality during a group meeting and is then followed while telling others.

The show is one of several Showtime has ordered to beef up its reality programming.

continued...

Ehud Bleiberg, a producer and sales guy on the AFM-style indie circuit, is taking the risky road by launching a self-distributed film called "Adam Resurrected" with Jeff Goldblum in the lead role.

The film, directed by "Taxi Driver" writer Paul Schrader, has been on the screening circuit of late and is in mini-Oscar-qualifying runs at theaters like the Sunset Laemmle 5.

"It's not only a phenomenal film, but it's the best film out this year," bragged Bleiberg to FBLA. "It should win awards and Jeff should be nominated."

Though it was shut out by the Golden Globes, Bleiberg is still very hopeful on the Oscars nods. He's on the hook for a good chunk of the film's $10 millon budget. His Bleiberg Entertainment is keen on maintaining control.

Goldblum plays a former circus entertainer who was spared from the gas chamber and became the ringleader at an asylum for Holocaust survivors.

Bleiberg is self-distributing the piece, largely because he wasn't being flooded with offers from the indie big boys, though it did well at the Telluride Film Festival over Labor Day. But he's convinced it will be noticed simply because he's so good in the role.