KGB Productions

So today was the day I went to see "The Dark Knight", and though I would love to say that I loved it I can't. I'm not saying that I dis-liked it too. So what Karl, which is it? Either you like something or you don't. No in-between. That's not what reviews do. So maybe I won't call this a review. An observation, and leave it at that. First off Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker is really good, and I love the dynamic between Batman & the Joker. Both are two sides of the coin, and one can never be without the other. Christian Bale as Batman works for me. Bale gives Batman depth, and underneath Batman's exterior lies rage. I think when Bale dons the costume he is sort of channeling Dirty Harry. I think it's a bit over played. The snarling and the teeth seem a bit over the top. Ledger gives just the right amount of insanity that the Joker is and should be. Okay, okay so what's not to like about the movie? Well it seems a bit over-produc...

I've been writing a bit more then usual in the hopes that something catches fire. I downloaded the screenwriting program Celtx and am trying it out. It's a free program, and I wanted to see how the program preforms. I usual write my screenplays in Final draft, but wanted something new. I'm actually re-writing an old script while getting a feel for the Celtx program. So far so good, but I'm still getting used to the script formatting shortcuts. There's a lot I want to do over the Summer, and as usual the day job takes a lot out of me, so after all is said and done there seems to be never enough time for the things I love. Over at John Oak Daltons blog he has some interesting insights about microcinema, and grass roots filmmaking. If you get a chance take a look over there and read what he has to say. The one thing I love about the Internet is that there are people out there who are going through the same thing you're going through. Their interests and desires ar...

It took me awhile to finally see this movie. The movie is based on an Upton Sinclair's novel entitled "Oil". The film is a good representation of how those early years of oil prospecting were. Better still is Daniel Day-Lewis' performance of Daniel Plainview an oil speculator who is driven to obsession about the black crude stuff. The cinematography in the film is barren and beautiful. One understands the plight that these men had and how alone they must have felt in their obsession. The landscape was unforgiving, and people did die. Fortunes were made, and better men were broken by their failures as well as their success. If you like character studies you'll enjoy "There will be Blood". Lewis' performance is stellar, and I believe he his performance is academy award worthy, but does the film stand up as a whole? That's the question I posed, and for me it didn't. Take away the performance and all you have is some really stark visuals. I also ...

I read a lot about production, and sometimes I come across some really good interviews with either a filmmaker or cinematographer or editor. In a recent interview in the magazine "Student Filmmakers" I came across an interview with Richard Crudo ASC. He is a director of photography and more recently a director of a film entitled " Last Night ". The interview is in the November 2007 edition, so if you want to read it you can go on over to Student filmmakers website and see how to acquire it. The part I thought of interest is where Crudo is asked about his opinion about digital technology today and his opinion on HD cameras. "Clearly digital technology is the future of what we do. There's no question about that. Unfortunately, the future isn't here yet. And the industry has been sold an enormous bill of goods with regard to what this technology's current capable of doing..." Crudo goes on say " Primarily digital needs to improve in these are...

I've always been a fan of this film and after coming across this review by Matt Zoller Seitz I had to post it here too. I agree with Matt that the film is a classic. The photography and the editing all point to a well crafted and interesting film. It's a film that should be viewed again, and appreciated. Matt does a fine piece of cinema appreciation, and I agree with him on the films merits. Sharky's Machine feels like a simple exploitation type film, but it has deeper roots then that. Maybe that's why I like it. I was surprised it did moderately at the box office, but then again the beauty of DVD is that people can re-discover hidden classics, and that's what Sharky's Machine is a hidden classic.   

This Sunday I read an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about Art houses being empty , and having a hard time surviving in today's economy. I do believe that the independent film distribution model is undergoing a change. There is more product and more specialized markets now. Meaning you can target the audience you want to see your movie. Instead of wasting money on advertising that won't draw in your audience you can now specifically target that audience you want to see your film. Of course this also means narrowing your film audience which isn't good if a film is going to be successful. After all you want your audience to be diverse and not narrow. I also came across this interview on indiewire called " Yes, the sky really is falling ". It's a cold hard look at distribution in today's digital market. It's not a fun read, but it has some eye opening stats that every producer should know about. I found it quite honest in it's portray...

So I stole away and finally saw "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", and I have to say I liked it, but not as much as I did the others. Maybe the franchise is just getting old, or maybe it's me. After all I'm older too, and the film does make a lot of references to age. But the film does stand on it's own, and I like the way they worked in the 50's and the McCarthy witch hunts. I'm sure the filmmakers are winking at us and at how the more things change the more they stay the same. The bid bad Soviets are the bad guys here, and Cate Blanchett plays an evil little foe for Indy to go up against. Shia LaBeouf plays Indy's long lost son, which is no surprise. I mean I saw that coming a mile away, but the filmmakers have some fun with it, and if Shia LaBeouf is going to be the heir apparent to the Indy mantle then I don't see a problem. After all the franchise needs to continue. My only complaint was that Shia LaBeouf is a better act...

The Cinemathèque Française in Paris is mounting a ambitious retrospective of Jess Franco tonight. The Franco retrospective (which consists of 68 films!) will run from today, June 18, through July 31. Franco & Lina will be in attendance. It's cool to see Franco get his due. Whether you like or dislike his films you have to give Franco his due on his perseverance in filmmaking. If you want to see what films they are showing head on over to Robert Monell at his website I'm In a Jess Franco State of Mind. That's pretty cool. I also hear most of the films will be shown in 35mm. It's probably the best venue to be seen in. Congrats Jess!

I went to see the "new" Hulk movie this week-end with my son. I was one of the few who liked the first Hulk directed by Ang Lee, so going into this movie I really didn't expect much. Surprisingly the filmmakers stuck to the TV series roots more then the comic roots. I didn't hate it, and I like the nods to the old series. In one scene they show Bill Bixby in a video clip on a television, and then there is the casting of Lou Ferrigno as a security guard. There is a lot of CGI work in the movie, and I've gotten used to it. The CGI work is okay, and done with some care, but in the back of my mind I'm wondering if filmmakers are relying too much on CGI. My little boy enjoyed it, and he did say that it was a bit scary for him (he's six), so I take that into consideration if you were taking a child to go see the movie. Again I'm amazed at how the studio markets the film to kids, but yet puts it out as a PG-13 movie. Of course this is all about parents discre...

I've been chomping at the bit to do another film. No surprise, but what? I've written several things and none seem viable, or even of interest, so I trudge along writing more material. I'm just basically just throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks. Some showed promise, and then fall apart. Other ideas never see the light of day. What also gnaws at me is how I'll be able to do this. Money is short, and resources are limited. I've always been an advocate of paying people for their services, but in filmmaking a lot goes unsaid. In my late twenties I got sick and tired of hearing people complain about their money woes. I just wanted to get paid for my time. Many times I got promises or very little in monetary compensation. It soured my view on the production process. I promised myself I wouldn't do the same. Many projects that I worked on never saw the light of day. They eventually fell apart during post production, or just were simple forgotten when th...

It is with a very heavy heart that I report that Sydney Pollack passed away Monday afternoon at his home in Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles. Pollack was considered an actors director because Pollack started out as an actor. Pollack studied under the renowned Stanford Meisner, he then spent several years cutting his teeth in various areas of theater, eventually becoming Meisner's assistant. He worked on such shows as "Playhouse 90", and "Alfred Hitchcock presents". By the 1950's after appearing in several Broadway shows Pollack went into directing. He began on TV series such as "Naked City" and "The Fugitive," then moved to film. Pollack's first full-length feature was "The Slender Thread". Sydney Pollack went on to direct such films as: " The Way We Were ", Three Days of the Condor , Absence of Malice , Tootsie , which won best picture. In 1985 Pollack won an Oscar for best director for his film Out of Africa sta...

I recently read an essay about the Indiana Jones movies being responsible for the dumb box-office thrill ride films that preceded it . Carrie Rickey in Sundays Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that she wasn’t a fan of the films and hated what happened to films after the Indy films were released. I had to think for a moment and really wonder if this was true. Rickey says that “she cannot muster enthusiasm for a franchise that has done so much to dumb down movie scripts, ramp up movie tempos, perpetuate colonialist stereotypes, and marginalize women”. Does she have a point I wondered and so I went off and did a bit of research to see if she was right. Raiders was released in 1981, and I was still in high school. When it came out I thought it was one of the best films I had seen in a while. Of course I was 17 at the time, and my tastes for the cinema were that of action adventures and horror films. There were several other films in 1981 that fascinated me and entertained me such as Arthur, ...

How does one get better at ones craft? Easy. You learn by doing, and thereby is the crux of the problem. I haven't been doing as much as I should. Filmmaking isn't easy, but with the digital revolution it has gotten a bit easier to create something. All you need is a DV camera and a computer with a fire wire port. Yet the Internet is littered with all sorts of videos, and video clips. Has anyone taken a look at YouTube. The website contains a lot of interesting videos along with some (okay a lot) not interesting videos. Seems everyone has a web cam or a DV camera. But I'm more traditional. You have a story, you write a script, and you get your talent & start shooting. There's a process, and I like it. It can get complicated, and expensive, but it really isn't that hard. The hardest part in all of it is to get the people together at a particular time. You all know my thoughts on pay or non payment of talent. I've come to the conclusion of "...

On occasion I head on out and try to see what's new at the local video store. You know that building that has a lot of DVD's where you choose which movie your going to watch that evening. It seems like yesterday when there were so many of those mom & pop stores that had actual video cassettes of movies that you once saw or never heard of. In the 80's it was all about action adventure, horror videos & porn. Very few studios released their films onto tape as quick as they do know. Today it seems as though a film that was playing three months ago is easily available on DVD soon after its release. It's the nature of the beast. In todays marketplace there are companies now such as Netflix that deliver DVD's to your door. It has become a consumer orientated driven business. At one time you get a name actor in your film & have some exploitative elements in your film and you were guaranteed a release, but now it's different. The DV revolution kind of put a m...

Ever since hearing about the making of Iron Man I've been interested in what the filmmakers will do with one my favorite Marvel comics superhero. To say that I wasn't disappointed is an understatement. So it was with excitement and a little glee that I saw Iron Man today, and I wasn't disappointed. Directed by Jon Favre , the director who has brought you movies such as Made , Elf , and Zathura: A Space Adventure directed Iron Man. Favre does a great job, and gives his actors some real space to actually act. The screenplay is written by Mark Fergus , Hawk Ostby , Art Marcum and Matt Holloway who give Iron Man some very funny dialogue, and an interesting origin. Iron Man starts off with a bang, and it involves you the audience to invest in the character of Tony Stark who is played by Robert Downey Jr. Downey has fun with the character, and it shows. Downey is a top notch actor, and I hope this propels Downey into more juicer roles. I hear that he is in two other films th...

There have been a couple of blogs in recent time that have just recently stopped, or if you prefer gone off-air? I've mentioned one of them in my previous post about The House Next Door where it's creator Matt Zoller Seitz has gone on to concentrate more on filmmaking then journalism. Also Raymond Young of the blog Flickhead announced around the same time that his blogging days were over. I actually liked both blogs & hate to see them go, but understand whole heartily why they left. I've always been a proponent of getting off the computer and get into life. It's a dual edged sword this blogging. On one hand you sit at a computer alone, and type things about yourself, others, or opinions you or someone else has. By doing so you get involved with stat meters, and statistics on who is reading what. It winds up to be all about numbers sometimes and not content. That's the evil side of blogging. The good side of blogging, and yes there is a good side of blog...

Over at the House next door theres a conversation between Matt Zoller Seitz & Keith Uhlich . Matt is and was the creator of the blog The House Next Door ", which has been a blog of all things related to TV & film. It has many contributors, and it's a blog where you want to go to read some thoughtful reviews & opinions on film & television. It now seems as though Mr. Seitz is headed off to do other things after over 17 years as a journalist. In his conversation which you can hear here Matt and Keith go over their influences and memories of filmmaking as they were growing up. Being I guess around the same age as Mr. Seitz I have almost those same memories. He mentions two films that though aren't significant masterpieces they seemed to have a strong influence in us deciding what we wanted to do or were interested in. The mentioning of the magazine of " Famous Monsters " is also relevant. I wasn't too big of a fan of them, but I had a f...

Independent filmmaking isn't for the weak. Take Jeff Nichols feature film " Shotgun Stories ". It is being released just now after completing principle photography in late 2004. Nichols explains that he didn't have enough money to shoot his second unit footage, so he waited a year and raised the necessary funds to shoot it. Nichols eventually signed on some producers that helped him find funding to finish the film in post-production. "We chose to shoot this film in 35mm in the anamorphic 2:35 aspect ratio. When I was fifteen I was fortunate enough to see a re-released print of Lawrence of Arabia in the theater. I'll never forget how the landscape helped define that story and the affect that had on me. I've wanted to tell stories in scope ever since. Southeast Arkansas, where our film was shot and where I grew up, is a place filled with breathtaking landscapes of cotton fields and farmland. I wanted audiences to see this place the same way I see it, in sco...

Don't walk run to this link. I came across it from IndieFilm, but I was very moved by this short film. The man's name is Phillip Van , and it's a well done short. There's an interview with the director here . The name of the piece is She Stares Longingly At What She Has Lost

Okay. Sometimes I just LOVE the Internet. It connects people that you ordinarily wouldn't connect with. Take the video here. The filmmaker's name is James Rolfe, and he has a site called http://www.cinemassacre.com/ . I have to say his little documentary tugged at my heart. I remember doing the things he did. Only back when I was growing up and making backyard productions it was Super-8 or 8mm. This little documentary about James hits home. It's entertaining, and inspiring. I marvel at the quantity of his films. In a society where everyone and his cousin are making films now this brings back a time where making movies was a strange and cool thing to do. I've lost that FUN in making films, and want to so much get it back. Filmmaking was and is a vital part of my psyche, and it took another filmmaker to realize that. Thank you Mr. Rolfe. Take a look at his work. get inspired. I know I am, and the best thing is that he lives around Philly. How cool is that. Enjoy!