Our own Rick DeVos, Spout’s fearless leader, was interviewed and quoted in an Austin Chronicle article yesterday. The article, “The Future of Film on the Web,” talks about the overwhelming sea of content on the web, and how “The old days of a Web campaign for a film attracting audiences on novelty alone are over. …Instead, filmmakers are finding success in reaching out to online communities….”

Communities build excitement around discovering and sharing something with others, the article asserts, which is what filmmakers need to do today to make their movie stand out. This, of course, is where Spout comes in. Here’s part of what Rick has to say:

For Rick DeVos, founder and CEO of film community Spout.com, that’s where Hollywood goes wrong. “They think of community as, oh, I’ll put a message board on my Web site, and that’s building a community around this film. It’s much deeper and more complicated than that.”

Spout is a community first, a commercial entity second, and it’s powered by connections. “We’ve stolen liberally from Malcolm Gladwell’s ideas around the tipping point,” DeVos explains. “We think of our users as three components: You have the casual film consumer; you have the maven, the passionate film fan, the connector who’s tagging and blogging like crazy; and the filmmaker. We think of the maven as the way of connecting the consumer and the filmmaker. They’re a trusted voice in this sea of content.”

Last night’s Oscars threw me for some loops, especially the winners for Best Foreign Language Film (The Lives of Others beating out Pan’s Labyrinth?) and Best Cinematography (Pan’s Labyrinth over Children of Men?). Alan Arkin’s Best Supporting Actor win was just a mildly pleasant surprise, especially since I was the only one in a family pool of 11 to pick him. Melissa Etheridge winning in the Best Original Song category with her piece for An Inconvenient Truth, beating out three nominations from Dreamgirls, was pretty clearly a political move (not necessarily a partisan move, but political, nonetheless). But does anyone really care about the Best Original Song category?

As I was scanning other blogs and sites this morning, I found a few post-Oscar pieces especially worth looking at. Pajiba writes in today’s post that although they’re not interested in big awards shows…

Mostly, we just provide this post so that our readers have a space to bellyache, though it’s hard to get too worked up about anything in last night’s show. In fact, the biggest complaint we have was that the 79th Oscar telecast offered so little to kvetch about.

Pajiba’s post and some of its comments (there are lots and they’re kind of fun to sift through) also brought up some suggestions on how to make the Oscars program shorter. Not surprisingly, everyone has an opinion.

GreenCine Daily also has a day after post worth checking out. And HairyLime on Spout wrote a “Post Oscar breakdown” that was followed by a couple interesting comments. Let us know what you liked, hated, and were bored or surprised by on Oscar night.

Politics & Period Flicks: Kristin interviews Michael Apted, his new film Amazing Grace opens tonight. Kevin and Paul discuss Cint Eastwood’s Oscar nominated Letters from Iwo Jima. Dodd Alley (moviedodd from spout.com) reviews the movie Smokin’ Aces.

Download FilmCouch #4 or subscribe to it in the iTunes store (search for “filmcouch” or click here to launch iTunes) and a new free episode will download every Friday.

OK. Here’s the Spout V-Day question: Is there such a thing as a romantic flick that leaves you feeling the way you want to feel about romance?

I realize there are as many answers to this as there are different types of people, but I’ve been thinking about it, because I’m stumped as to how to spend Valentine’s Day. I feel like I want to ignore it, as always, because of its sad status as a Hallmark holiday. But at the same time, I’m in love! It seems like I shouldn’t let the day go by without some recognition and celebration of love. So…where does that leave me? No trying to get into a favorite restaurant for dinner…no expensive gift…maybe handmade card, a bottle of wine, and a romantic movie at home?

It’s a nice plan, but most movies labeled “romantic” could also be labeled “cheesy.” Do you agree? My friend Ryan does. He happened to be nearby as I was writing this, so I asked him if there are any movies that he’d want to watch with his girlfriend on Valentine’s Day. He mentioned films like The Science of Sleep and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Last Kiss. “There’s so much more in those movies that helps me connect in real ways to my real relationship,” Ryan said. “I don’t want to just feel good, I want to find something meaningful that I can learn from in a movie.”

My brother Bill (who’s a bit of a romantic in all the best ways) puts his favorite romantic flicks into two categories: “They either capture that idealized romance, or they are very realistic about romance and the difficulties of people actually coming together into a relationship.” He mentioned A Room with a View, The Accidental Tourist, and Moonstruck at the top of his list, along with others: All the Real Girls, The Princess and the Warrior, In the Mood for Love, Before Sunset, Out of Sight, and The English Patient.

Two other things Bill mentioned that I found insightful:

“I do love the period love stories quite a bit, and those are more idealized…It somehow seems we’re more okay accepting the idealized romanticized love story in period garb, like it’s something that doesn’t as much belong in our time.” And: “Even the definition of a ‘Love Story’ is difficult, because that suggests that it must be the main subject of the movie, and I think many of my favorite love stories in movies are not the main point, they’re side episodes or side characters.”

Very true. Maybe that’s key for me in finding a romance movie to watch–the romance should be a side story, not the heart and soul of the film. Warm and fuzzy romances mostly make me feel embarrassed to be crazy-in-love. In some ways, they go as far as to diminish the whole idea of love.

But my purpose here is not to knock the importance of feel-good films (or the importance of feeling good in general). Whatever your preference is when it comes to romantic flicks, check out these lists on Spout if you’re looking for something to watch tonight with your special someone.

Romance (or How I Learned to Fall in Love) by e_machiela

Lover’s Lane by spoutgirl

Romance Films by kunfu-koala

Date Movies by gothere

Romantic Comedies I Love by aktyson

Favorite Romantic Comedies by coppermaus

Breaking from Oscar buzz, the Spout guys talk to Alison Willmore from IFC Blog about Sundance, what “independence” means these days and what role the Independent Spirit plays in filmmaking. Discussion continues from our interview with Tim Robbins, to the work of John Cassavetes and Terry Gilliam.

Download FilmCouch #6 or subscribe to FilmCouch in the iTunes store (search for “filmcouch” or click here to launch iTunes) and a new free episode will download every Friday.

From my very cold and very snowy perspective here in Grand Rapids, Austin is starting to sound really good. But it always does, right? It’s a great film town, SXSW is a great festival, and March is a great time to head South.

The festival lineup of films was unveiled earlier this week, so it’s officially time to start anticipating. Here’s the info from the official festival site. indieWIRE has a nice overview of what’s scheduled, too, and here are some notes from GreenCine Daily.

One of the movies in the lineup is Kurt Cobain About a Son, which some of us saw at Denver. It’s a great film, and director A.J. Schnack is a great guy. We were lucky to catch him and Michael Azerrad for a chat about his film and also did a roundtable from Ted’s Montana Grill in Denver where we talk about the film. If you’re heading to SXSW, make sure to catch it.

We’ll dive into the lineup and say more about it here as we get closer to the festival. In the meantime, we’re busy preparing to do the festival’s Spout-sponsored email/webcenter, and dozens of podcast interviews. Rick will also be on a panel “New Dogs, New Tricks: New Media Goes to the Movies,” which is just a great example of what a good fit this festival is for us–the perfect mix of movies and interactive media. Stay tuned for more in the coming weeks.

Interview with Forrest Whitaker, who’s favored for the Best Actor Oscar, and director Kevin Macdonald before the premier of their film, The Last King of Scotland. Screenwriter and Waterfront Film Festival co-founder, Hopwood DePree, gives the lowdown on this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Also, the Spout guys react to The Last King of Scotland in an eerie, late-night gondola ride. Listen to the podcast.

Download FilmCouch #4 or subscribe to it in the iTunes store (search for “filmcouch” or click here to launch iTunes) and a new free episode will download every Friday.

Spout’s CEO, Rick DeVos, and Paul chat about David Denby’s article, “Big Pictures,” on the state of the movie industry for 2007 (or at least January). Also discussed, Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men, is it more omen than sci-fi? And words inspired by Guillermo Del Toro’s new film, Pan’s Labyrinth.

What’s up with all these lists for the top 10 movies of 2006? In this episode of FilmCouch, we discuss Day Night Day Night, which made several lists for the top undistributed film, and we chat a bit about the movies that “scared the crap out of you as a kid.”

The description for Mariners and Musicians describes the film best:

A cinematic tone poem based on conversation, writings, and music by acclaimed singer/ songwriter/ author Rosanne Cash. This dreamlike mosaic portrait, with stunning Super 8mm and 16mm visuals and Holga animation, features songs from Cash’s celebrated album Black Cadillac.

The choice director Steve Lippman made to photograph Rosanne Cash in grainy 8mm and 16 mm film was a masterful choice. As Rosanne remembers her recently deceased parents and ponders her great great grandfather who survived a shipwreck off the coast of Long Island, the blurry and grainy imagery of the film communicates where she is at — a woman sifting through memories, memories that are guiding her towards song. Though the film was highly experimental, it was not without a kind of structure. What the film does is portray how we remember and how Rosanne Cash is remembering. After the screening, I spoke with Liselle Feingold who was there to represent the film for director Steve Lippman. We talked the about the film’s style and what her impressions were as a collaborator on the project.

Starz Denver Film Festival, Spout podcast, Mariners and Musicians, Liselle Feingold.

The screening of the short documentary Living Lightly was a debut in more ways than one. Its screening at the Denver Film Festival marked the films first public screening and it was director Robin Burke’s directorial debut. Prior to making this film, she worked predominantly as a producer on other people’s projects. Living Lightly is a debut that any first time director would be very proud of. It is poetic and thought provoking and just plain beautiful. The film is about the Vido family. They have chosen to live in such a way that they only take what they need from the earth. The film focuses on their practice of schything to make hay for their livestock. Interviews with the family are imbued with a kind of pastoral poetry that few documentaries achieve. Burke’s approach is not to charm the audience with flashy camera work or clever editing but rather, she places the camera, frames her shots wide and captures the beauty of this family, swinging their scythes in what amounts to a kind of moving painting. After the screening I talked about her process when making a documentary and what it was like to enter the world of this unusual and fascinating family.

Starz Denver Film Festival, Spout podcast, Living Lightly, Robin Burke

I saw Arturo Cabanas’ film, Man Up in the shorts program “Pocket Sized Portraits.” His film is a challenging portrait of a father with a son who is a gifted young wrestler. The father responds to his son’s talent with a determination that his son be the best. The film raises questions about whether or not the father’s approach to molding his son into a master wrestler is misguided or on the nose. On the one hand, his son is learning independence and strength of character through the way his father is training him. On the other hand, when does this kid get to be a kid? The deeper one digs into the films questions, the more one begins to reevaluate how our culture defines independence and more specifically, masculinity. Besides the discussion this film sparks, it’s visually compelling and masterfully edited. Cabanas’ camera essentially acts as fly on the wall for most of the film, with brief, to the point interviews of the father and son throughout. The familial drama he captures in his film is fascinating and it rivals any fictional portrayal of drama. In terms of documentary filmmaking, Man Up strikes the perfect balance between thought provoking subject matter and a strong visual style. Cabanas and I talked about the questions this film raises and how he went about making the film.

Starz Denver Film Festival, Spout podcast, Man Up, Arturo Cabanas

The Denver Film Festival is right around the corner (Nov. 9 - 19), and I’m super excited. I’ve never been to this festival before, but I’m looking forward to it and to being back in Denver–such a great city. From what we’ve heard, the festival has been growing every year. There will be no shortage of great films to see, with over 100 to chose from.

As festival sponsors and the official festival podcasters, Spout will be there in full form. There will be plenty of reviews, conversations, and interviews for you to listen in on. It’s a good way to get more out of the festival if you’re there, and to live vicariously through us if you’re not. Check out spout.com/denver for the latest and greatest as well as the Spout Denver Film Festival group. The festival schedule is also up, so check it out and let us know who you think we should talk with.

After Spout’s preview screening of 51 Birch Street, we called up director Doug Block for a Q&A. (It’s about fifteen minutes long–grab a snack, sit back, and pretend like you were there with us.)

powered by ODEO