We’re joining forces with our friends at The Reeler to throw an Oscar viewing party, this Sunday in New York City. If you’re in town, do come out and enjoy free fondue, a cash bar, special prizes (including a set of Eleni’s Oscar cookies, pictured above, to the smartest prognosticator in the room), and much drunken yelling at the screen. All pertinent details can be found here. See you there!

Something strange happens when a talented actor’s life is cut short. There’s an oddly collective pang of grief and a permanent shift in how their work is viewed. We took on the challenge of talking about Heath Ledger through one of his less obvious works, A Knight’s Tale (2001). Karina investigates the meaning of “sex comedy” and how the obsolete censorship of the Hays Code influences Juno.

 

 FilmCouch 56 [30:10m]: Play Now | Download

FilmCouch 56

Juno, A Knight’s Tale, Heath Ledger

I’m so happy to introduce one of the coolest elements of our Butterknife promotional blitz: over the next couple of weeks, we’re going to be introducing a series of short videos made by Butterknife cast members–who are all, of course, talented filmmakers in their own right–that are inspired by/formulated to spread the word about the web series. Our first video comes from Mr. Michael Tully, director of Cocaine Angel and Silver Jew. It’s embedded above.

We’ll be posting all Butterknife stuff here at SpoutBlog, but you can also subscribe to our YouTube channel, if subscribing to YouTube channels is a thing that you’re into. Oh, and on oft chance these video inspire you to make your own Butterknife-themed clip, upload it to YouTube and leave a link in the comments to this post.

And now, for a bit of shameless self-promotion: behold the above widget, which will allow you to syndicate SpoutBlog headlines on your Facebook, MySpace, or on the sidebar of your own blog. You can grab the widget for yourself here. Do it, and show the world exactly how you feel about us.

Other ways you can show your love for SpoutBlog:

Add us to your Technorati favorites

Add us to your Google Reader or other RSS thingy

Subscribe to our podcast

Join our Facebook group

Subscribe to the Spout Twitter feed and/or Karina’s personal Twitter feed

Time for another link in our Butterknife email chain. This week, Butterknife creator Joe Swanberg interviews Ronnie Bronstein. In addition to starring in Butterknife, Ronnie is the writer/director of Frownland, for which he’s up for an Independent Spirit Award.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be bringing you interviews with the cast and crew of Butterknife every Friday. Next week, Ronnie interviews Mary Bronstein, co-star of Butterknife and Frownland (and Ronnie’s wife). And do check out the Butterknife page on Spout for further updates.

Previous links in the chain: Karina interviews Joe.

JOE SWANBERG: Do you feel manipulated by me when you are working on Butterknife? Am I exploiting you and Mary for my own artistic and personal benefit?

RONNIE BRONSTEIN: Haha. Sure I feel manipulated by you, but only in the most benign sense of the word. I mean, by agreeing to be in the project, right, I’m essentially agreeing to let you ‘handle’ and ‘manage’ me and my time, which to be honest, is sort of unnerving.

But then again, we both know that we’d never ever shoot a single frame of the show if it was left up to me. I’m always groping to find some kind of petty weasel-ey excuse to put it off. Seriously, if I found out that a relative of mine died or something on a week we were supposed to shoot, deep down, amidst the grief, some part of me would actually be happy cause it would mean I wouldn’t have to shoot Butterknife that day. So yeah, you are kind of manipulating me…but more in the way a parent is forced to ‘manipulate’ their kid onto the school-bus or something.

As for exploitation…

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And now, for your weekly Butterknife update. Joe Swanberg and friends are off shooting new episodes this week, but Joe sent along some stills to tide us over. Above, you’ll surely recognize the one and only Ronnie Bronstein; after the jump, you’ll find stills featuring guest stars Barlow Jacobs (writer/star of what was probably my favorite film at Sundance 2007, Low and Behold), and Michael Tully (director of Cocaine Angel and Silver Jew). Tomorrow, we’ll continue our  interview series with a conversation between Joe and Ronnie. And as always, you can and should check out the Butterknife page on Spout.

…Read more

Spout’s partnership with Four Eyed Monsters and YouTube has been a grand success, yielding over 37,000 new members for Spout, and over $37,000 for the film’s creators. Now we’ve launched a similar partnership behind a very different film. Harold Buttleman, Daredevil Stuntman is a comedy about a would-be Evel Kneivel, starring John Hawkes (of Me and You and Everyone We Know and the upcoming Wristcutters: A Love Story), Karen Black and Dan “voice of Homer Simpson” Castellaneta. The film toured the festival circuit and won a number of awards in 2003-2004 (before Hawkes became known for Me and You and Deadwood), but like so many self-produced indies, remained undistributed.

Then, earlier this year its director, Francis Stokes, hit it big on YouTube with the series God, Inc, which is kind of like The Office, except instead of selling paper, everyone’s working for god (there’s an Evan Almighty joke in there somewhere, but I can’t find it). Now Stokes has posted his feature on YouTube, and Spout is giving the filmmaker $1 for every person who signs up for a Spout account by visiting www.spout.com/francisstokes. If you’re a Francis fan, you can go to this page and get a widget to put on your own site or Facebook or MySpace profile to track the tally. And, after you watch the movie (make sure to press “pause” after Francis’ intro to let it load), you can go to its discussion page on Spout and let everyone know what you thought.

Hey — I’m Karina. I blog here now.

If you’ve happened across the Spout homepage over the past couple of weeks, you’ve seen my sexy, under-lit iSight self-portrait, but if you know nothing else about me, here’s a primer:

1. I grew up in Los Angeles and now live in Queens.
2. My favorite movie trilogy of all time is Back to the Future
3. I co-founded and used to edit the film blog Cinematical. I’ve also written for The Huffington Post, TV Squad, NewTeeVee and FILMMAKER Magazine.
4. I have a bad habit of using “punk rock” as an adjective.
5. Most of the time, I look less like that iSight shot, and more like this.

If you have questions, concerns, news tips, suggestions, complaints or just really need someone to listen to you rant about Sonic Youth producing a record for Starbucks, I’m here for you. You can email me at karina AT spout DOT com, or hit me up on AIM at karinalongworth.

“I cannot help but want to know the fine print. Are the filmmakers [Susan Buice & Arin Crumley] who they say they are? Are they truly at risk financially? How did they hook up with Spout.com?” - John Bell

A little background on our Four Eyed Monsters, a buck for Susan & Arin promotion.

I met Susan and Arin at the Waterfront Film Festival in 2005. I knew right away they had something special going on and wanted to work with them again. When Arin approached me a couple weeks ago saying they were in the works with YouTube to put Four Eyed Monsters, the feature up for free, we asked ourselves a question, “Is their a way we can grow community around this movie and help fund these filmmakers?”

That’s when we came up with the buck for Susan & Arin idea. That’s the grand-master scheme behind it. Yes, Susan & Arin are truly in debt up to their eyeballs. I talked to Arin today and he admitted they have $148 in the bank and owe money to a lot of people who helped them along the way. Neither of them has worked on anything but this feature film in the past three years and they’ve yet to turn all the social currency they’ve built into monetary currency. But we want to help them do that.

Spout is presenting Four Eyed Monsters in its entirety on YouTube today! Go see the movie, then join the foureyedmonsters group.

And if that’s not nail-biting news, for anybody who joins Spout from spout.com/foureyedmonsters, we will give Arin & Susan $1 for their next film. So, go tell your friends so we can see more movies from these two!

Karina Longworth, (former editor of Cinematical) is joining spout.com. We met shortly after SXSW, where she had noticed us covering the festival. We talked a bit about what we’d like SpoutBlog to be, about how we binge on interviews and blog posts at festivals, then go back to the office where the day to day running of spout.com takes us away from the blog. She shared how her position at AOL was moving away from writing about film (most troubling since we’re all fans of Karina’s writing at Spout). Then, the lights went on. We want to see more great writing about film on SpoutBlog, Karina–one of our favorite film bloggers–wants to write more about film. Badda bing. We hired her.

Starting June 18, Karina will be posting here on SpoutBlog and popping up here and there at spout.com. We’re excited. Also, in the next couple days Spout will be doing something new with Susan Buice and Arin Crumley of Four Eyed Monsters. If you’re a fan of FEM, talk with Karina about it in the foureyedmonsters group on spout.com.

Stay tuned. We’ll announce what we’re up to in this Friday’s FilmCouch podcast.

Open up your “Movies I Want to See” list at Spout and get ready to add these–indieWIRE’s top 10 from Tribeca. (If you were lucky enough to catch them at Tribeca or another festival, you can write some reviews and let us know if you agree with indieWIRE’s assessment.) Here are the films, and you can read the whole article here. The Reeler also reviewed many of these films for Spout, so check out the links.

1. We Are Together (directed by Paul Taylor)

2. The Gates (directed by Antonio Ferrera and Albert Maysles)

3. 2 Days in Paris (directed by Julie Delpy)

4. Shotgun Stories (directed by Jeff Nichols)

5. In Search of a Midnight Kiss (directed by Alex Holdridge)

6. Rebirth of a Nation (by DJ Spooky)

7. Chavez (directed by Diego Luna)

8. I Am an American Soldier: One Year in Iraq With the 101st Airborne (directed by John Laurence)

9. Half Moon (directed by Bahman Ghobadi)

10. Times and Winds (directed by Reha Erdem)

In 2001, some punk ladies in Austin sparked a revival in Roller Derby. Hell on Wheels is their five year journey from fun loving friends to national sensation. Paul talks with filmmakers Bob Ray and Werner Campbell.

Kids might be snacking experts (see yesterday’s post), but let’s admit it. Many adults also find snacks very tasty–and addicting. The cover story on this month’s Wired magazine, “Snack Attack,” is all about “bite-sized entertainment” and how one-minute media is affecting our culture.

The six-spread magazine feature is laid out as a series of snacks, to mimic its topic. Frankly, it gives me a bit of a headache and leaves me feel scattered and distracted. I guess that’s the point. Anyway, among the bite-sized articles:

- “403 Ways to Slice a CD ” (demonstrating how an album isn’t an album any more–it’s an opportunity to dice songs);

- “Sitcom to Bitcom” (about how former Arrested Development star is making a short-form comedy series for Innertube, CBS’ new broadband channel); and

- “4 Wii Microgames: When a Quickie Is All You Have Time For” (about Tetris alternatives that last a few seconds).

Probably the most applicable piece for Spout is “Let’s Do Snacks: A veteran film producer on why Hollywood must adapt to the short-form age.” Peter Guber, CEO of Mandalay Entertainment Group and host of AMC’s Sunday Morning Shootout, writes “It’s not written in the Bible, ‘A movie shall be two hours.’ Someone made that up to sell theater tickets.” This, of course, is true. Paul and I at Spout have lamented in earlier posts that short films aren’t more available outside the festival circuit. (Here’s a previous post on short films, and another, and another.)

But Peter Guber goes on to write: “With technology, the very definition of a story has changed. It used to mean an actor and a script. Now a story is a 15-second, no-dialog clip of someone running across the street.” Hmmm. I’m sure I’m not alone in questioning this. But while many people might question whether a 15-second-no-dialog clip is a story, I would argue that it always has been a story. Technology doesn’t have the power to change the definition of a story, it only changes how we’re able to tell that story.

Guber’s very short article ends by saying that all of Hollywood is “scrambling to construct a new model to profit from these bits and pieces…” but “…if people are thinking this is the end of Hollywood, they’re wrong. This is a whole new beginning.”

I’m very curious to see what direction Hollywood runs in with this new beginning–along a fast track to simply “profit from these bits and pieces,” or along a more meaningful path, that values art and storytelling that can still enrich our lives, just in shorter amounts of time.

(Also check out the “Top 10 Reasons We Like Lists.” Spout loves lists, too!)