Last week, I made a rare trip south of 14th Street to see a double feature of “Where’s Poppa” and “Little Murders” at Film Forum. The minute I spotted this particular program on the Film Forum schedule, I marked it on my calendar in spite of the fact that I own both films on DVD and have seen them countless times. I’ve always considered both films as personal favorites, and among the funniest films I’d ever seen. I wanted to experience them again with a real audience.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with them, “Where’s Poppa” and “Little Murders” were released a year apart in 1970 and 71. They both take place in the New York of that time, which was at perhaps the city’s least flattering moment. Crime was high. White people were moving to the suburbs in droves, leaving behind a city where the rich folks lived in the fortresses of doorman buildings, and the rest of the city was considered unsafe for anyone. Such are the makings of comedy. Johnny Carson made a nightly habit of joking about just how dangerous it was in “fun city.” Continue reading “A Tale of Two (New York) Comedies”
Fifteen years. Hard to believe.
Yesterday, I tweeted my frustration about the synopses I’ve been finding in the web for indie films. I decided to use more than the 160 characters of Twitter to vent a little further. The context is that we play a lot of independent films at Emerging Cinemas, and once a month we collect info on those films to use on our web site, on physical calendars that we have printed and on web blasts that are sent out to our affiliated venues. Month after month, we check the official web sites for the individual films, the web sites of the distributors, the IMDB, the web sites of various theater chains and on-line ticketing sites. In almost every case, the same synopsis is used in every location, indicating that it came from some official source (typically either the distributor or the filmmakers). The other thing they have in common is that they all suck. Invariably I find myself re-writing them, trying to make the films sound like something people might actually want to see. Don’t you folks realize that the synopsis is a very important marketing tool? Why do you make all these very compelling, stimulating films sound like work? They are either too academic sounding (particularly the docs), or focus on the disease of the main character or have convoluted point-by-point scene descriptions (this happens then this happens etc.) They include cast names (in parenths) that no one has heard of, which interrupt the flow of whatever plot they are trying to get across. They leave out background info that would be important selling points such as festival awards, prior work by the director, etc. For all of you folks out there who are embracing the idea of DIY distribution, let’s try practicing writing a single paragraph about your film that makes audiences want to buy a ticket. OK. I got that off my chest.
In my capacity as Professor in the Film Division of the School of the Arts at Columbia, I’m very proud of the announcement below. As independent producers the world over continue to fret about how new technologies and the internet are affecting their ability to create sustainable careers, it becomes paramount (excuse the unintentional pun) that we prepare the next generation for the challenges ahead. If, as has been noted elsewhere, makers must also become marketers, we have to give them the knowledge and the tools to make that happen. And in the process, we may all learn something.
After my last post about the “Indie Summit,” I began an email correspondence with indie filmmaker Tyler Davidson. I found his thoughts provocative and encouraged him to write them up so I could share them with the rest of the indie community. The following is from Tyler:
Thanks to MOMA and indieWIRE, some 60 or so representatives of the “indie” film world got together yesterday to discuss the state of the business. A tip of the cap is due to Eugene Hernandez and Anne Thompson for their valiant attempt to reign in a group of outspoken, opinionated and polarized people arranged around a conference room that was clearly designed for far fewer active participants than were attending this particular event. The very existence of such an event, and the number of notable people who showed up, is both a testament to how hungry we are for this type of discussion, and a reason to be hopeful about the future of the business. In the course of a rambling two plus hours of talking, some deep arguments were addressed, some real insights were made and some of the attendees slipped into the kind of self-serving pitches that we hear on a million panels. But by the end of the day, I felt that all the real issues facing our business had at the very least been thrown on the table. My only frustration was that each of the many topics that came up deserved further exploration. Hopefully this can happen in a series of more focused discussions some time in the future.
Juliette Goodfriend, the aptly named Executive Director of the Bryn Mawr Film Institute in suburban Philly, is one of those devoted art house exhibitors who does whatever it takes to bring the best in international cinema to her audience. We’re proud to have her institution as partof the Emerging Cinemas network. At this year’s Toronto Film Festival, Juliette scoured the available films and I’m pleased to share her thoughts with you. Those of you who live in or near Philly, owe it to yourself to check out her theater.