Predictably, most of the memorials for the late great horror director George A. Romero focused on his influence on the zombie and wider horror genre. Yes, he was important and influential in that area. But his legacy is much wider. More than any other filmmaker, Romero changed the course of independent film making in America.
Independent films have been around as long as movies existed. Indeed, in their infancy all early features from around 1912 were basically independent, before the Hollywood studio system rapidly evolved in the late teens.
Though the majors dominated moviemaking and distribution from their hub in Southern California, many independent filmmakers such as Edgar G. Ulmer, the idiosyncratic Edward Wood, African-American pioneer Oscar Micheaux and various ethnic cinemas flourished on the side. In 1955 Robert Altman was making industrial films in Kansas City when he was hired by a local businessman to make his first feature, the low-budget...
Independent films have been around as long as movies existed. Indeed, in their infancy all early features from around 1912 were basically independent, before the Hollywood studio system rapidly evolved in the late teens.
Though the majors dominated moviemaking and distribution from their hub in Southern California, many independent filmmakers such as Edgar G. Ulmer, the idiosyncratic Edward Wood, African-American pioneer Oscar Micheaux and various ethnic cinemas flourished on the side. In 1955 Robert Altman was making industrial films in Kansas City when he was hired by a local businessman to make his first feature, the low-budget...
- 7/17/2017
- by Tom Brueggemann
- Indiewire
Welcome to The Top 5, where every week, we list five things for a given topic. These topics can range from "5 Things We Liked About The Power Rangers Teaser Trailer" to "5 Things We Want (Or Don't Want) In Ben Affleck's The Batman."
Of course, because everyone has an opinion, there is sure to be some disagreements, which is why, despite the title "The Top 5," very rarely are these actual "best of" articles. Instead, they're meant to provide entertaining insight, and to stir a discussion, and give everyone a chance to speak their mind.
If you have a suggestion for a Top 5 piece, send them my way via #TheTop5LRM on Twitter. If I choose your topic, I'll be sure to give you a shoutout!
Now, on with today's topic!
5 Alien Invasion/Contact Movies To Watch Before Seeing Arrival!
Alien invasion movies. There’s something universal and timeless about the alien invasion story.
Of course, because everyone has an opinion, there is sure to be some disagreements, which is why, despite the title "The Top 5," very rarely are these actual "best of" articles. Instead, they're meant to provide entertaining insight, and to stir a discussion, and give everyone a chance to speak their mind.
If you have a suggestion for a Top 5 piece, send them my way via #TheTop5LRM on Twitter. If I choose your topic, I'll be sure to give you a shoutout!
Now, on with today's topic!
5 Alien Invasion/Contact Movies To Watch Before Seeing Arrival!
Alien invasion movies. There’s something universal and timeless about the alien invasion story.
- 11/8/2016
- by Joseph Medina
- LRMonline.com
By Anjelica Oswald
Managing Editor
The conversation surrounding potential supporting actress nominees includes some names familiar to the Oscar race, such as Meryl Streep (Into the Woods), and some that could be nominated for the first time, such as Emma Stone (Birdman). The list of potential contenders also includes Patricia Arquette (Boyhood) and Rene Russo (Nightcrawler), two ladies that have flown under the radar since the 90s but could mark their return with first-time Oscar nominations.
Arquette’s role as the mother in Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, a film that chronicles 12 years in a young boy’s (played by Ellar Coltrane) life as he grows up in a divorced household, has been generating Oscar buzz since the film premiered at Sundance. Arquette was involved in a few projects during those 12 years of filming, which was possible due to the sporadic nature of shooting, only three to four days a year.
Managing Editor
The conversation surrounding potential supporting actress nominees includes some names familiar to the Oscar race, such as Meryl Streep (Into the Woods), and some that could be nominated for the first time, such as Emma Stone (Birdman). The list of potential contenders also includes Patricia Arquette (Boyhood) and Rene Russo (Nightcrawler), two ladies that have flown under the radar since the 90s but could mark their return with first-time Oscar nominations.
Arquette’s role as the mother in Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, a film that chronicles 12 years in a young boy’s (played by Ellar Coltrane) life as he grows up in a divorced household, has been generating Oscar buzz since the film premiered at Sundance. Arquette was involved in a few projects during those 12 years of filming, which was possible due to the sporadic nature of shooting, only three to four days a year.
- 10/7/2014
- by Anjelica Oswald
- Scott Feinberg
Wonsuk Chin, is a Korean American Indie Filmmaker. I have known Wonsuk since the early Ifp Market days in the 1980s when he lived in New York and produced “Too Tired to Die” which made some waves in the indie world at that time. He disappeared for several years and we recently reconnected in L.A.
Wonsuk: As you know, I started out in New York. I went to School of Visual Arts and studied film there. My first film was “Too Tired To Die”, a dark comedy I wrote and directed in 1998. It starred Takeshi Kaneshiro, Mira Sorvino, Ben Gazzara and Jeffrey Wright. It premiered at Sundance Film Festival that year.
Then I did a feature length documentary “E-Dreams” which chronicled the rise and fall of kozmo.com. After a special world premiere at Walter Reade Theater, the film went on to screen at such festivals as Seattle, Hamptons, Jeonju (in Korea) and San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. The film also won the Best Documentary Award at Ammi, the aMagazine-sponsored Asian-American "Academy Awards” when “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” won the Best Film.
Having grown up in Korea idolizing Hollywood films, I was one of the first Korean emigre filmmakers in the United States. When I first came here, many people were asking me if we even had a film industry in Korea. Truly, Korean films were virtually unknown outside Korea at the time. Of course, things have changed dramatically and Korea has produced some amazing films in the past 15 years. Some of the filmmakers like Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho are very influential and I am proud of it. But it is true many of those wonderful Korean films are still considered cult classics and have a limited audience. It has been my goal to make a film about Korea that can travel beyond the arthouse and foreign film fans.
In the mid 2000s, I tried to make a film called “Expats”, a heist comedy about American expats teaching English in Busan, Korea. Although we had a partial cast (Chris Kline, John Cho and others have expressed interest), we couldn’t raise money and the project ultimately fell through. Many were saying I was a little ahead of the time. In the mid 2000s, Korean studios weren’t interested in making films for the global audience. Personally it was a devastating experience. You work on a project for several years and it doesn’t happen. Financially and spiritually it hurts you so much.
Wonsuk: In the past decade, I would travel back and forth between Korea and L.A., always trying to find the right project that has the best of Korean and American indie cinema.
Meanwhile, I ended up hosting a radio program in Korea to play soundtrack music. It was a great experience. I also appeared in a TV show regularly as a part time critic. I taught classes at Korea National University of the Arts.
I also tried producing some movies. I was involved in a Korean-Singapore-Chinese co-production Dance of the Dragon and a Korean wild boar movie “Chaw” but neither was a pleasant experience for me. I guess, I missed being creative. My role was very limited in those projects.
Then, I saw “Blue Valentine”. It was directed by a fellow Sundance alumni Derek Cianfrance. He had “Brother Tied” then. When I heard Derek had been working on the project for 12 years – that he never gave up his passion and dream for it -- it was a rude wake-up call for me. I’d been slacking off, placing blames on my producers for not being able to make my own movies. But Derek just persevered and made it happen for him.
I was truly humbled. I was inspired. I also sensed the time slipping away from me. I had to go back to making movies although uncertainty always awaited me.
In 2010, I started making some short films and music videos using iPhone and it got me excited about filmmaking again. They’re tiny projects created with a smartphone but I was happy to tell stories again. I got a little bit of notoriety because of them. In 2012, I shot “992,” a 13-minute comedy with an iPhone and it premiered at Macworld. The film received great reviews both in Korea and internationally and as a filmmaker, it boosted my confidence again. To be able to tell a story, even if it’s just short and online, I started believing again in my ability as a storyteller. Also, when you make a movie with a phone and raise the budget via crowdfunding, you begin to sense this is the brand new world.
Because of my previous works such as “E-Dreams” which dealt with the early days of the dot com world and those iPhone generated shorts, I’ve been known as a tech-savvy filmmaker in my homeland. I also exec produced the iPhone film Park Chan-wook co-directed called “Night Fishing”. I’m also known to be an early adopter as I’m one of the first filmmakers in Korea to use social media. As an indie filmmaker, you have to know what tools are available to you since you have to be resourceful.
Ironically, my new project is far from technology. As you know, I’m working on a film called “Ape of Wrath”. This will be my first feature as a director since e-dreams which I made over 13 years ago. This one will be very special because I will get to shoot it in the country where I grew up.
“Ape of Wrath” is a comedy about an ambitious but questionably talentless American director who travels to Korea in 1976 to make a giant ape movie. Yes, the story takes place in 1976 and we’re going to make it as a mockumentary as if this was the making of from the era. Those who read the script have compared it to Ed Wood and “Bowfinger”.
This story was inspired by an actual giant ape movie shot in Korea in 1976. It is called “A*P*E” and is considered to be one of the worst movies ever made. But it has become a cult classic.
My story is completely fictional and the protagonist is a Edward Wood, Jr.- like character named Federico Smith who has no resemblance to Paul Leder (Mimi Leder’s father), the director of “A*P*E”.
In my story, Federico Smith is a USC graduate (went to school with George Lucas) who made one forgettable horror film called “The Seventh Steal”. Now he gets to make his own King Kong in Korea with a washed up Scottish actor John McGregor playing the ape when his college roommate, Mr. Park, tells him to fuck copyrights and come to Korea to make the King Kong rip-off. Federico thinks his giant ape movie will be up there with Merian C. Cooper’s “King Kong” but you know well how this film will turn out.
This will be my lifetime dream come true ever since, as a little kid, I saw the posters of “A*P*E” in the streets of Songtan, a small town near Osan Air Base. As a 8 year old kid, I thought “A*P*E” was the sequel to King Kong and was proud Hollywood came to Korea to make a movie.
Many years later, now, I am preparing to make a film in Korea with an international cast. Luckily I have a great team behind us already. I hooked up with Paul Green of Anonymous Content who's the main producer of the project. Paul is the president and COO of Anonymous Content and has executive produced “Laggies” and will be executive producing “The Revenant”. Earlier this year, “Avengers: Age of Ultron” was filmed partially in Korea and soon “Sense8”, the new Netflix TV series from the Wachowski siblings will shoot scenes in Korea.
But “Ape of Wrath” will be the first coproduction with the U.S. to be shot entirely in Korea. It will be quite challenging though. We have a production system quite different from the ones in the States. Often, the shooting days are much longer in Korea. We can't afford to do that this time. Also it will be a daunting task to recreate 1970s Korea as Korea has changed so much.
But as a filmmaker, such challenges are always welcome. I’m not interested in making movies which seem familiar to you. The story of a hopeless dreamer may be familiar to you but such a story taking place in 1976 Korea will seem unlike anything you’ve ever seen.
If everything goes well, we will go into production next March. In the coming weeks, we hope to start casting the film.
You can watch Wonsuk Chin short film "992" below.
Wonsuk: As you know, I started out in New York. I went to School of Visual Arts and studied film there. My first film was “Too Tired To Die”, a dark comedy I wrote and directed in 1998. It starred Takeshi Kaneshiro, Mira Sorvino, Ben Gazzara and Jeffrey Wright. It premiered at Sundance Film Festival that year.
Then I did a feature length documentary “E-Dreams” which chronicled the rise and fall of kozmo.com. After a special world premiere at Walter Reade Theater, the film went on to screen at such festivals as Seattle, Hamptons, Jeonju (in Korea) and San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. The film also won the Best Documentary Award at Ammi, the aMagazine-sponsored Asian-American "Academy Awards” when “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” won the Best Film.
Having grown up in Korea idolizing Hollywood films, I was one of the first Korean emigre filmmakers in the United States. When I first came here, many people were asking me if we even had a film industry in Korea. Truly, Korean films were virtually unknown outside Korea at the time. Of course, things have changed dramatically and Korea has produced some amazing films in the past 15 years. Some of the filmmakers like Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho are very influential and I am proud of it. But it is true many of those wonderful Korean films are still considered cult classics and have a limited audience. It has been my goal to make a film about Korea that can travel beyond the arthouse and foreign film fans.
In the mid 2000s, I tried to make a film called “Expats”, a heist comedy about American expats teaching English in Busan, Korea. Although we had a partial cast (Chris Kline, John Cho and others have expressed interest), we couldn’t raise money and the project ultimately fell through. Many were saying I was a little ahead of the time. In the mid 2000s, Korean studios weren’t interested in making films for the global audience. Personally it was a devastating experience. You work on a project for several years and it doesn’t happen. Financially and spiritually it hurts you so much.
Wonsuk: In the past decade, I would travel back and forth between Korea and L.A., always trying to find the right project that has the best of Korean and American indie cinema.
Meanwhile, I ended up hosting a radio program in Korea to play soundtrack music. It was a great experience. I also appeared in a TV show regularly as a part time critic. I taught classes at Korea National University of the Arts.
I also tried producing some movies. I was involved in a Korean-Singapore-Chinese co-production Dance of the Dragon and a Korean wild boar movie “Chaw” but neither was a pleasant experience for me. I guess, I missed being creative. My role was very limited in those projects.
Then, I saw “Blue Valentine”. It was directed by a fellow Sundance alumni Derek Cianfrance. He had “Brother Tied” then. When I heard Derek had been working on the project for 12 years – that he never gave up his passion and dream for it -- it was a rude wake-up call for me. I’d been slacking off, placing blames on my producers for not being able to make my own movies. But Derek just persevered and made it happen for him.
I was truly humbled. I was inspired. I also sensed the time slipping away from me. I had to go back to making movies although uncertainty always awaited me.
In 2010, I started making some short films and music videos using iPhone and it got me excited about filmmaking again. They’re tiny projects created with a smartphone but I was happy to tell stories again. I got a little bit of notoriety because of them. In 2012, I shot “992,” a 13-minute comedy with an iPhone and it premiered at Macworld. The film received great reviews both in Korea and internationally and as a filmmaker, it boosted my confidence again. To be able to tell a story, even if it’s just short and online, I started believing again in my ability as a storyteller. Also, when you make a movie with a phone and raise the budget via crowdfunding, you begin to sense this is the brand new world.
Because of my previous works such as “E-Dreams” which dealt with the early days of the dot com world and those iPhone generated shorts, I’ve been known as a tech-savvy filmmaker in my homeland. I also exec produced the iPhone film Park Chan-wook co-directed called “Night Fishing”. I’m also known to be an early adopter as I’m one of the first filmmakers in Korea to use social media. As an indie filmmaker, you have to know what tools are available to you since you have to be resourceful.
Ironically, my new project is far from technology. As you know, I’m working on a film called “Ape of Wrath”. This will be my first feature as a director since e-dreams which I made over 13 years ago. This one will be very special because I will get to shoot it in the country where I grew up.
“Ape of Wrath” is a comedy about an ambitious but questionably talentless American director who travels to Korea in 1976 to make a giant ape movie. Yes, the story takes place in 1976 and we’re going to make it as a mockumentary as if this was the making of from the era. Those who read the script have compared it to Ed Wood and “Bowfinger”.
This story was inspired by an actual giant ape movie shot in Korea in 1976. It is called “A*P*E” and is considered to be one of the worst movies ever made. But it has become a cult classic.
My story is completely fictional and the protagonist is a Edward Wood, Jr.- like character named Federico Smith who has no resemblance to Paul Leder (Mimi Leder’s father), the director of “A*P*E”.
In my story, Federico Smith is a USC graduate (went to school with George Lucas) who made one forgettable horror film called “The Seventh Steal”. Now he gets to make his own King Kong in Korea with a washed up Scottish actor John McGregor playing the ape when his college roommate, Mr. Park, tells him to fuck copyrights and come to Korea to make the King Kong rip-off. Federico thinks his giant ape movie will be up there with Merian C. Cooper’s “King Kong” but you know well how this film will turn out.
This will be my lifetime dream come true ever since, as a little kid, I saw the posters of “A*P*E” in the streets of Songtan, a small town near Osan Air Base. As a 8 year old kid, I thought “A*P*E” was the sequel to King Kong and was proud Hollywood came to Korea to make a movie.
Many years later, now, I am preparing to make a film in Korea with an international cast. Luckily I have a great team behind us already. I hooked up with Paul Green of Anonymous Content who's the main producer of the project. Paul is the president and COO of Anonymous Content and has executive produced “Laggies” and will be executive producing “The Revenant”. Earlier this year, “Avengers: Age of Ultron” was filmed partially in Korea and soon “Sense8”, the new Netflix TV series from the Wachowski siblings will shoot scenes in Korea.
But “Ape of Wrath” will be the first coproduction with the U.S. to be shot entirely in Korea. It will be quite challenging though. We have a production system quite different from the ones in the States. Often, the shooting days are much longer in Korea. We can't afford to do that this time. Also it will be a daunting task to recreate 1970s Korea as Korea has changed so much.
But as a filmmaker, such challenges are always welcome. I’m not interested in making movies which seem familiar to you. The story of a hopeless dreamer may be familiar to you but such a story taking place in 1976 Korea will seem unlike anything you’ve ever seen.
If everything goes well, we will go into production next March. In the coming weeks, we hope to start casting the film.
You can watch Wonsuk Chin short film "992" below.
- 9/6/2014
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
One of Tim Burton's absolute best films is Ed Wood starring Johnny Depp, Sarah Jessica Parker, Patricia Arquette, Bill Murray, and Martin Landau (in one of his finest performances as Bela Legosi). Based on the life of infamous director Edward Wood Jr. who directed some of the worst films ever made, including Plan 9 From Outer Space and Glen or Glenda, Burton's biopic on the crossdressing filmmaker is hilarious, sad, and uplifting all at once, standing as one of the most original flicks of the...
- 6/17/2014
- by Paul Shirey
- JoBlo.com
Artistic License Films
Reviewed for Arizona Reporter by Harvey Karten
Grade: C+
Directed by: Lexy Lovell, Michael Uys
Written By: Lexy Lovell, Michael Uys
Cast: Michael McPhearson, Perry Parks, Will Williams, Edward Wood, Jimmy Massey
Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 10/29/09
Opens: November 11, 2009
We don.t expect a documentary on the subject of war to be as exciting as a dramatized version: think .Apocalypse Now,. and the comical, new .The Men Who Stare at Goats. as just two of the many examples of the latter. .The Good Soldier. is not the exception that proves this rule. An unexciting doc stating, for the most part, things that we all know.coupled with talking heads who come up short on the charisma chart.makes Lexy Lovell and Michael Uys. piece well-meaning enough. But given its archival clips from U.S.-fought wars beginning with World War II that hardly overwhelm the audience with the horrors of battle,...
Reviewed for Arizona Reporter by Harvey Karten
Grade: C+
Directed by: Lexy Lovell, Michael Uys
Written By: Lexy Lovell, Michael Uys
Cast: Michael McPhearson, Perry Parks, Will Williams, Edward Wood, Jimmy Massey
Screened at: Review 2, NYC, 10/29/09
Opens: November 11, 2009
We don.t expect a documentary on the subject of war to be as exciting as a dramatized version: think .Apocalypse Now,. and the comical, new .The Men Who Stare at Goats. as just two of the many examples of the latter. .The Good Soldier. is not the exception that proves this rule. An unexciting doc stating, for the most part, things that we all know.coupled with talking heads who come up short on the charisma chart.makes Lexy Lovell and Michael Uys. piece well-meaning enough. But given its archival clips from U.S.-fought wars beginning with World War II that hardly overwhelm the audience with the horrors of battle,...
- 10/31/2009
- Arizona Reporter
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