1. Sunshine Cleaning (Overture Films) – $12,055,108
2. Away We Go (Focus Features) – $6,077,303
3. The Class (Sony Pictures Classics) – $3,766,810
4. The Brothers Bloom (Summit Entertainment) – $3,270,242
5. Two Lovers (Magnolia Pictures) – $3,149,034
6. Sin Nombre (Focus Features) – $2,527,470
7. Easy Virtue (Sony Pictures Classics) – $2,272,691
8. Is Anybody There? (Story Island) – $2,010,237
9. Whatever Works (Sony Pictures Classics) – $1,911,001
10. Rudo y Cursi (Sony Pictures Classics) – $1,781,243
11. Gomorrah (IFC) – $1,579,146
12. Valentino: The Last Emperor (Truly Indie) – $1,533,077
13. Every Little Step (Sony Pictures Classics) – $1,313,372
14. Summer Hours (IFC) – $1,313,372
15. Food, Inc (Magnolia Pictures)  – $1,286,693
16. Sugar (Sony Pictures Classics) – $1,063,833
17. Cheri (Miramax) – $1,023,909
18. Moon (Sony Pictures Classics) – $945,279
19. Management (Samuel Goldwyn) – $910,955
20. Tyson (Sony Pictures Classics) – $857,488

“Perhaps it’s something you can develop,” she said. “Through classes. Classes make you more confident and develops your identity. But acting is not something you can learn. Acting is something very special… If a little girl told me she wanted to be an actress, I’d tell her that being actress is ‘something else.’ It’s an existence. An existence connected to deep emotion. I think if she really wants to be an actress, she will ultimately understand.”

Read the full article here.

“For everyone, there’s a time for friendship.” Yikes. This trailer takes a great movie and makes it look awful. This lies in its “man with the dramatic voice” narration, so expertly parodied in the trailer for Jerry Seinfeld’s 2002 Documentary “Comedian:”

I think this says enough. Ditch the man with the voice already. Show don’t tell applies just as much to movie trailers as it does to writing.

Thinking back, the Barbarian Invasions is originally in Canadian French (the kind the French French scoff at), and therefore would have had to be shown with subtitles if they wanted dialogue. Subtitles in trailers can be awkward, especially on the small screen. What are your thoughts?

For the last few weeks I have been discussing the disappearance of sex from cinema. People still have sex in movies, but its presence seems superfluous, something for filmmakers to pay uncomfortable lip service to. A simple cut from a kiss to a cigarette seems to suffice for this essential human act.

The seventies were a different time. Movies like this one, or Straw Dogs, challenged our notion  and understanding of sexuality before pornography became larger than the music industry. It has always been a difficult topic for me, one heavily associated with first christian and later feminist-inspired guilt.

We are all composed of desires, most of which, if ever acknowledged, go unfulfilled. People often seem content with security, and lull their basic instincts into a daily routine that passes for love.

In this film, where characters eschew their names and past, a space is created where primal passion can exist. As Jeanne says:

The workers retire to a secret flat,

take off their overalls,

become men and women again,

and make love.

Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider Embrace

Afterward a return to modern society becomes impossible, Chekov’s gun becomes necessary to destroy the monstrous desire that has been unleashed. We return to our daily lives, shaken, questioning our capacity to feel for one another.

John August has some very good advice in this post, especially about rewriting. I am producing a short film right now for a friend and helping him write the script. Something I constantly repeat is: find the story first. When he tells me he has a great line of dialogue but still no ending, this is what I find myself saying.

August says “The process of rewriting is figuring out what you intended versus what you achieved,” this is an excellent description of what I’ll be doing this weekend.

“I thought of that old joke, y’know, the, this… this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, “Doc, uh, my brother’s crazy; he thinks he’s a chicken.” And, uh, the doctor says, “Well, why don’t you turn him in?” The guy says, “I would, but I need the eggs.” Well, I guess that’s pretty much now how I feel about relationships; y’know, they’re totally irrational, and crazy, and absurd, and… but, uh, I guess we keep goin’ through it because, uh, most of us… need the eggs.”

Stern uses the same metaphor for film, those moments where the actor does something amazing, or when you’re on set and realize that everything has come together and you’re making a movie, those are a few of the many eggs we get in this crazy profession.

Despite all the craziness, Stern does make a strong case for better business sense in Independent Film. In an age where marketing costs are as minimal as those of production, we can take more responsibility for knowing who our audience is before we start to shoot. The auteur disdain for the business side of filmmaking seems to result in a lot of auteur waiters. There are tremendous resources out there for people willing to market their own work. Two books that come to mind are Friends, Fans and Followers and The New Rules of Marketing and PR.

In traditional filmmaking people say that there is pre-production, production, and post-production. In Hollywood some people are known to say there are two parts; the making of the film and the selling of the film. There are some notable films (Eyes Wide Shut comes to mind) that were ruined in the marketing.

I know how difficult it is to make a good film, but in this glut of filmmaking (something like 950 feature films were submitted to sundance this year) it will often be the intelligent marketers who get their films seen, and, just as importantly, make money from them. I would like to have a family some day, and after 4 years of film school I want to have skills that can feed my body as well as my soul.

The last thing I could say to filmmakers out there is Don’t be afraid of being small. There are so many things to learn about filmmaking, that even if you have a perfect script (which you probably don’t and that’s ok) you will have enough obstacles to that perfect vision in your head without spending $10,000 on producing it. Make small films with small cameras, save your big money for when you have big experience. Be proud of being small, of making mistakes. I had an actor two films ago look at me and my small camera and say, “Could we get a bigger camera?” It made him uncomfortable, dont let it make you. I’ve been a small camera director ever since. The big camera will come when I’m ready for it.

I spent two years not making films because I was afraid they would be bad, which would hurt my ego. When I finally did, I realized that the films weren’t so bad and that I was learning so much. That’s what it’s about at the beginning, learning, and you do it a lot more from failure than you do from success.

All in all a very good article. Check it out.

I found Code Inconnu difficult and pedantic, but there was one brilliant scene. In one continuous shot Anne (Juliette Binoche) and Georges get into a heated argument while shopping in a large supermarket. The argument is not enough for them to stop grabbing items and throwing them listlessly into the cart. In this world the human drive towards love and understanding is weaker than the one to consume. After a passionate reconciliation they look around as if they had done something wrong, then return to their mechanical task of filling the cart.

Whether or not you agree with Haneke about the state of modern society, he always presents his arguments with clarity and force.

I’m sick for the first time in two years, so I have an opportunity to be a little lazy and watch a lot of movies. I finally got a chance to watch John Cassavetes’s Faces, which is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The performances (Cassavetes was famous for his work with actors), the writing and the cinematography are all top notch. While watching it I was reminded of Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes From A Marriage which deals with similar subject matter. Outside of Shadows, I had never really enjoyed Cassavetes. This film is in a league of its own.