Author Archives: admin

Legitimating Television – book report

Posted on June 12, 2012 by admin

Can highly recommend Legitimating Television: Media Convergence and Cultural Status by Michael Z. Newman and Elana Levine (Routledge 2012). OK, it’s not about film let alone indie film, but there’s strong continuity between this book and Newman’s Indie: An American Film … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | 1 Comment

‘Django Unchained’ will no doubt contribute to growing strength of Weinstein Company

Posted on June 7, 2012 by admin

The growing strength of The Weinstein Company (see previous post), after its slow start following the departure of Harvey and Bob Weinstein from Miramax, will no doubt be confirmed by its release of the new Quentin Tarantino film, Django Unchained. … Continue reading →

Posted in Companies, Films, Industry practice | Leave a comment

BBC news report on crowdfunding films

Posted on June 7, 2012 by admin

BBC news has an interesting, if quite brief, report on crowdfunding of low-budget indies from the Tribeca Film Festival, one I missed at the time in April. It’s certainly the case that crowdfunding is starting to have more impact and … Continue reading →

Posted in Industry practice | Leave a comment

Moonrise Kingdom to achieve cross-over?

Posted on June 6, 2012 by admin

Be interesting to see how far Moonrise Kingdom goes at the box-office after its per-screen record breaking start, which was followed up by a strong second week at the US box office (it’s also filling art-house screens in the UK as … Continue reading →

Posted in Films | Leave a comment

Indie Inc & Hollywood’s Indies: book reviews

Posted on June 3, 2012 by admin

A major boost to research on the indie-oriented Hollywood speciality divisions comes in the shape of two new books on the subject that I’ve now had the chance to read: Indie Inc: Miramax and the Transformation of Hollywood in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The Future, mini-review

Posted on June 2, 2012 by admin

Recently caught up with Miranda July’s much-awaited second feature, The Future, which offers an interesting example of the mix of qualities that typifies many indie films – and further demonstrates the continued presence of such films, despite various rhetorical claims about … Continue reading →

Posted in Films | Leave a comment

Indie 2.0, last read-through

Posted on May 31, 2012 by admin

I’m having the slightly weird experience of doing a really final read-through of my forthcoming book Indie 2.0: Change and Continuity in Contemporary American Indie Film – quite some months after originally delivering the ‘completed’ manuscript. It turned out recently that the … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | Leave a comment

Moonrise update

Posted on May 27, 2012 by admin

That straight-from-Cannes strategy seems to have worked with Moonrise Kingdom, then. Scott Macaulay of Filmmaker magazine tweets: ‘Wow! Half a million dollars on only 4 screens. “Moonrise Kingdom,” our print issue cover, is biggest limited release debut of all time.’

Posted in Industry practice | Leave a comment

‘indie’ blockbuster franchise??

Posted on May 26, 2012 by admin

‘Indie blockbuster franchise’ is not an oxymoron, argues Kristen Thompson in a detailed blog entry about The Lord of the Rings films, the Twilight series and The Hunger Games. It’s a useful piece about the industrial provenance of these titles. But I wouldn’t … Continue reading →

Posted in Industry practice | Leave a comment

Straight out of the Cannes

Posted on May 26, 2012 by admin

Notable that two high-profile films premiered at Cannes in the last two weeks are opening almost immediately in the US and/or UK. Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom is already showing in both countries while Ken Loach’s The Angels’ Share opens in the UK on … Continue reading →

Posted in Industry practice | 1 Comment