Filmmaker, Winter 2004.

"I'm not a contrarian at all. I don't accept that term, and don't like when it's applied to me either." Armond White speaks his mind in an interview with Matthew Ross, who gets him to deliver immediate verdicts on Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris, Claire Denis ("doesn't buy convention in any way"), Gaspar Noé ("a fraud"), Wong Kar-wai ("brilliant work"), Wes Anderson, Alexander Payne, Sofia Coppola, Paul Thomas Anderson and Todd Solondz.

Just one of the highlights of the Winter 2004 issue of Filmmaker, up now, with its special section on Sundance. Howard Feinstein talks to Lars von Trier about Dogville: "I think that having such good actors in minor parts makes the town alive in another way. Because they are so good, so you only have to see them for a very short time and you get the whole character." And Carol Nahra casts an admiring eye on Jørgen Leth and von Trier's The Five Obstructions.

Danny Schlechter asks Jehane Noujaim about her doc on Al-Jazeera, Control Room.

Mary Glucksman sorts through the numbers, the acquisitions, the trends in indie film in 2003 before segueing into six enlightening case histories. Sidebar: The 2003 Sundance Theatrical Box Office Chart.

As for other features, Andy Bailey has a sort of counterpart-companion piece with Michael Musto's ode to New York on film: "California Dreaming" examines four films that're all about Los Angeles.

"Working as a short-film programmer for the Sundance Film Festival and a programmer for CineVegas, I watch a good percentage of the approximately 3,500 to 4,000 short films produced in the US every year." Mike Plante on the ones that work. Sandi DuBowski (Trembling Before G-d) describes making his first DVD and Scott Macaulay watches Microcinema's DVDs.

Then: Anne Thompson on the screener ban, Noah Cowan on this season's foreign releases, Graham Leggat on the convergence of film and games, specifically in the case of The Lord of the Rings and the Super Eight, the magazine's Greil Marcus-like list of Good Things. And more. We like this magazine.

The new blog at the site is already shaping up nicely as well. Very nicely. Example: Filmmaker's "25 New Faces" at Sundance. And did you know that Wil Wheaton is blogging?

Posted by dwhudson at January 16, 2004 9:33 AM