industry/insider sources
trade press & related sources
various film blogs, online journals, resources
- Audiovisuality – online video essays
- Bright Lights Film Journal
- Cineaste
- David Bordwell and Kristen Thompson, Observations on Film Art
- Film Courage
- Film Studies For Free
- FilmSlate magazine
- Indiewood/Hollywoodn't
- j.j. murphy on independent cinema
- Jump Cut
- Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism
- Open access film studies books available online, list from Film Studies For Free
- Participations: Journal of Audience & Reception Studies
- Raindance resources
- Scope: An Online Journal of Film and TV Studies
- Screening the Past
- Sense of Cinema
- The Chutry Experiment – Chuck Tryon
- Wide Screen
- Zigzigger: On the Audiovisual and Beyond (Michael Z. Newman)
Author Archives: admin
Hollywood Puzzle Films
This is just a shameless plug for a chapter I have in a new book just out, Hollywood Puzzle Films edited by Warren Buckland (a new AFI Film Reader from Routledge). My chapter is one of several on Inception, in which I explore … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Films
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Ibsen’s gun, Llewyn Davis and White House Down
An odd mixture of elements, it might seem, but something I wanted to comment on in passing in Inside Llewyn Davis evolved somewhat after a viewing last night of White House Down. Comparing such films might seem a little spurious, … Continue reading
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Filling the speciality gaps?
Interesting to see who is stepping in to fill some of the gaps in the speciality distribution market after the contraction of studio divisions, including the likely pull-back of Focus Features discussed in my last post. CBS Films, for example, … Continue reading
Posted in Companies, Filmmakers
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Focus pulled?
What, then, of the future of Indiewood, in the shape of the studio speciality divisions, now that Universal’s Focus Features has become the latest target for what looks like studio rationalisation? The news that James Schamus has been removed as … Continue reading
Posted in Companies, Industry practice
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The Loneliest Planet: maximising the effect of minimalism
Low-key narrative is one of the most frequent characteristics of indie film, a tendency that sometimes veers towards the minimalist end of the scale in the kind of production in which, by conventional standards, ‘very little happens’. A good example … Continue reading
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‘Early electronic sell-through’, as studios continue to experiment with new release windows
Interesting piece in Variety on growing studio use of digital selling of films ahead of the DVD/Blu-Ray release, as Hollywood and indies continue to try to negotiate the increasingly uncertain relationship between the various post-theatrical windows – probably the biggest issue … Continue reading
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Spring Breakers: exploitation/art cinema
Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers offers a fascinating combination of elements of exploitation and art cinema, two key ingredients often found in the mix that constitutes indie film but employed here in a blend that’s somewhat jarring and uncomfortable – but also … Continue reading
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Spielberg and speculation
Far be it from me to doubt Steven Spielberg’s understanding of Hollywood, but his widely-reported prediction of a future in which we could shift to a system in which viewers pay much higher prices for blockbuster releases and pretty much … Continue reading
Posted in Filmmakers, Industry practice
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The Sessions and indie ingredients
I liked The Sessions but when you step back at look at it, like so many indie films, it seems comprised of a number of components rather familiar to the territory. First, it offers us something marked as distinctly ‘uncomfortable’, in … Continue reading
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Quality Hollywood, and beyond
My current project is a book on the notion of the ‘quality’ film in contemporary Hollywood, for which I now have a contract, titled Quality Hollywood: Markers of Distinction in Contemporary Studio Production. I’ve posted some thoughts on issues relating to … Continue reading
Posted in Industry practice, Uncategorized
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