Blogs in Focus
> Editors Blog
Classical Geek
No less epic that any battle written about by Homer, COMIC-CON opens with wavesMore »
Documentary for the Defense
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired Sometimes a movie can make a difference. Errol Morris'More »
Indiewire no longer Independent
Congratulations to our friends at Indiewire. Independent film news site indieWIRE has been soldMore »
Love, Always
Christopher Isherwood and Don Bacardy This week the New Fest is stoking the prideMore »
On The List
When we introduced the idea of Five in Focus to bring different voices intoMore »
Getting Lean
David Lean In the London Times, Joe Wright reminisced about his favorite filmmaker. AndMore »
Brokeback Mountain in verse
In Variety David Rooney is reporting that the New York City Opera has commissioned anMore »
Defining Altmanesque...
Last time I wrote in this space, I was discussing the Dennis Hopper movie CatchfireMore »
Hopping Through Music History
The last clip I featured, a scene from The Other Side of the Wind, hadMore »
Finding Woodstock
The search is on. As Ang Lee gets ready to shoot Taking Woodstock, anMore »
Shooting the Breeze
After yesterday's footage of Orson Welles performing magic on I Love Lucy, we move aheadMore »
Coraline Takes the Stage
Neil Gaiman's dark childhood fantasy Coraline is slated for a magical time next year.More »
Bruges Speaks
The question on everyone lips at Focus, but no one had the heart toMore »
The Magic of Welles
My last post featured an hommage to the Duck Soup mirror gag performed by LucilleMore »
> Welcome to BlogsInFocus
BlogsInFocus is our town hall of ideas, commentary and musings about all things related to the movies. Here you'll find commentary, opinion, and bits of news from our editors, updated regularly. We've also invited other citizens of the film world to treat this as their own little soapbox by sharing their stories and thoughts with us. And you're invited as well. Make yourself heard by adding respectful comments to any of the blog entries.
> Guest Blogs
Mike Figgis
Mike Figgis has roots in experimental theatre and music, which are just two primary influences that contribute to the creative vision in all of his feature films and documentaries. Over the course of the past 20 years, Figgis has emerged as a visionary filmmaker who thrives on taking artistic risks. He is possibly most famous for directing the Oscar-winning Leaving Las Vegas, but the British born filmmaker has exhibited his more eclectic personal style in such films as Stormy Monday and Liebestraum, while his innovative use of new technology is evident in the films Timecode and Hotel.
Eric Eisner
Eric Eisner formed L+E Pictures with Leonid Rozhetskin; Hamlet 2 is their first production. Eisner started his entertainment career working for NHL team the Anaheim Ducks, and founded the website Romp.com, which produces short-form animation and live-action shows. With Julian Max Metter, he wrote and directed the animated feature-length comedy Jake's Booty Call, based on a Romp.com short, and has recently executive-produced Madden Nation on ESPN.
Sandi Christ-Thomas
Sandi is a mother of three from Canoga Park, California. She runs an after school wellness program for obese teens and is on the board of the Canoga Park Parks and Recreation Bureau. She is an aspiring screenwriter with over six completed screenplays.
Neil Gaiman
Bestselling author Neil Gaiman has long been one of the top writers in modern comics, as well as writing books for readers of all ages. He is listed in the Dictionary of Literary Biography as one of the top ten living post-modern writers, and is a prolific creator of works of prose, poetry, film, journalism, comics, song lyrics, and drama. He is best known for his Sandman series of comic books, and the novels American Gods and Stardust (which was turned into a movie in 2007). Born and raised in England, Neil Gaiman now lives near Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has somehow reached his forties and still tends to need a haircut. His posts on Coraline are cross-published at the blog on Neil's official website.
Liz Ogilvie
Liz Ogilvie, is the Head of Programming for Docurama Films®, an independent digital distribution company dedicated exclusively to releasing cutting-edge, critically acclaimed documentary films into the home entertainment market place. She is responsible for a release slate of over 40 documentary films a year.
Keith Griffiths
Keith Griffiths has produced many of the films of the Brothers Quay, Jan Svankmajer, Patrick Keiller and Chris Petit. He is currently Executive Producing Dave McKean's second feature Luna and developing an adaptation of the classic graphic novel Signal to Noise by Dave McKean and Neil Gaiman, as well as a full length animated feature Meathead by the award-winning director of the film Rabbit, Run Wrake. He manages Illuminations Films with Simon Field and is currently developing a major new installation Primitive, with Apichatpong Weerasethakul for the Haus der Kunst in Munich for 2009.
Cary Fukunaga
Oakland native Cary Fukunaga studied history at University of California Santa Cruz and L'Institut d'Études Politiques (IEP) de Grenoble and Directing at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts before winning a Student Academy Award for his short film Victoria Para Chino (2004). He is currently working on his debut feature for Focus Features, Sin Nombre, and will be blogging about the experience here at FilmInFocus.
Jenni Olson
San Francisco-based Jenni Olson has been programming, researching, collecting, creating, and writing about lesbian, gay, bi and transgender (LGBT) film since 1986 and is one of the world's leading experts on LGBT cinema. She has been closely monitoring the progress of the filming of Gus Van Sant's biopic of Harvey Milk, Milk, and will be sharing her observations on her blog.
Battle of the Blogs
Every week, noses are bloodied and egos bruised as bloggers duke it out for the hearts and minds of web readers. The Battle of the Blog looks at the skirmishes that break out and the alliances that are forged on the blogosphere.