The years after Brian Wilson’s departure from The Beach Boys may have caused a cosmic disconnect  among later generations of music fans.  When the younger (and by “younger” I mean people in their 40s now) crowd thinks “The Beach Boys” they think "Kokomo"…and then throw up a rum runner into the sink

But The Beach Boys were more than that and the new DVD Brian Wilson Songwriter 1962-1969 aims to rectify the Kokomo-anomaly. They were rock n roll trailblazers and part of the reason for that were the songwriting and production talents of Brian Wilson. This three hour DVD reassesses Wilson’s work from 1962-69. Many who worked with Wilson during the time period, as well as biographers and many others.

Musical performances, archival interviews, rare and classic recordings are also included and examined.
 
More information HERE.

New Media Film Festival & Market is bringing their magic to the San Francisco Bay area November 5 & 6. Earlier in the year the festival premiered in Los Angeles and was a big success. They are currently accepting submissions for the competition that will be awarding over $9,000 in prizes.

Judges come from Pixar and Summit Entertainment, United Talent Agency and others . Submission fee is $25 and the deadline is soon upon us, October 15, 2010. Area submitted content is being accepted

The NMFF consists of media categories such as Mobile, Webisodes, Webseries, iApps RED Shorts & Features and many more. The festival will include screenings of the Best of the L.A. Festival. There will also be panel discussions on New Technology, financing and more.

For more information head to www.newmediafilmfestival.com.

Felix Vasquez Jr. runs Cinema Crazed. Their raison d’ etre is covering the best and worst in independent and cult cinema. Sometimes “best” and “worst” overlap in cult cinema so we think Vasquez may be trying to confuse and confound us.

Another great thing about Cinema Crazed is that they cover undiscovered filmmakers making waves on the underground. Places like this site are where you want to go when you want to see what is next in film.

Check out Cinema Crazed HERE.

The Lords of Salem, Rob Zombie’s next film, will be made in conjunction with Haunted Movies. The film will be the story of a young boy on a Midwestern down dealing with the foibles of growing up. Either that or it is set in modern day Salem and involves the “demonic return of a 300-year old coven of witches." Haunted Movies Partner Jason Blum announced the plans.

The film is the third in a series of horror films made between Haunted Movies and Alliance Films. The first two films from this cooperative effort was Insidious directed by James Wan and Leigh Whannel (of Saw fame). Insidious comes out later this year. The second film, The Bay,  directed by Barry Levinson, is shooting now in South Carolina.

Haunted Movies, by the way, is a partnership between Blum, Steven Schneider, and
Oren Peli. These are the same guys behind Paranormal Activity and Paranormal Activity 2 coming out in October.

The Lords of Salem will be produced by the guys from Haunted Movies, Zombie and Zombie’s producing partner, Andy Gould. Brian Kavanaugh-Jones of Automatik is to be the executive producer. I dunno. I think they need some more producers..

Nothing was inevitable about the long term success of David Bowie, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop in 1971 There was no Changes yet, nor was there Transformers or Raw Power either. But it turned out to be the year when things started going right for all of them. This film, Sacred Triangle: Bowie, Iggy & Lou 1971-73, looks at the era when these three came together, worked together and made rock n roll history. The film uses interviews, rare footage and a recently discovered archive to get at the story. Among the folks interviewed are Angie Bowie, Billy Name (Andy Warhol assistant), Leee Black Childers (VP at MainMan Management), Jayne County and more.

The DVD comes out November 23.

For more info click HERE.

Movie Habit has movie and DVD reviews (as the headline indicates) but they also cover festivals, do interviews, have reviews of Colorado based theaters and calendar information for the Denver/Boulder area.

 Movie Habit has six writers, all covering different stuff.

 * Andrea Birgers writes animation, Disney DVDs, and literary adaptations

* John Adams writes about animation, art, and history

* Matt Anderson writes about mainstream movies and is our second-longest-running contributor

* Marty Mapes covers revivals, art films, and other dark corners of the film world

* Robert Denerstein, formerly film critic for the Rocky Mountain News for 27 years; he writes about new movies

* Brad Weismann writes about movie theaters in Colorado

 Mapes says the ultimate purpose of the site is to provide value. How you say? Well, Movie Habit can save you $10 on a crappy movie. Pretty valuable.

“It warns you of false promises and guides you to hidden treasure. Life is too short for bad movies. For those who read reveiws after seeing a film, criticism helps you digest what you saw. It reveals undercurrents and metaphors that renew your appreciation of a great film. It helps you put your finger on exactly why bad films fall short. Movie Habit is written by those who have a serious movie habit, for those who would like to develop good movie habits.” wrote Mapes.

For more head to www.moviehabit.com.

Chris Ball is a movie critic at the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He writes an interesting DVD column and while he reviews a lot of "big" movies he also sneaks in oddball films here and there.

Check out his blog HERE.

You can also chase down his movie revies at www.cleveland.com/movies.

Movietone News, not the Twentieth Century Fox newsreal but the magazine of the same name (they have permission), is being republished online by Parallax-View.org. Issue 58 and 59 just went up. In addition Richard T. Jameson, editor of the originals is overseeing these postings. In addition Jameson is overseeing these new efforts and the original authors have an opportunity to make corrections or add addendum with 30 years of hindsight (where authors can be contacted). Articles corrected or with additions will be posted as text.

Film writer Sean Axmaker (MSN.com DVD columnist) told me that while they are not updating everything, articles and reviews from authors who could not be contacted will still appear as pdfs. He says they have had a hard time getting in touch with some folks and those articles will not appear.


We are thrilled that Parallax View, an excellent film site in its own right, is doing this. If you are a film geek you should be thrilled as well.

As an ongoing bit in our movie news section we are going to be linking to movie sites with interesting articles--and particularly interesting interviews (I generally do not care about overwrought film essays spewing from the head of a PhD). One that caught my eye recently was Jeffrey Anderson of Combustible Celluloid and his interview with Lisa Cholodenko.

Combustuble Celluloid started in 1997. They do film and DVD reviews. But it is more than just that. The aim of the site is to educate about movies.

"Over the years I have written--I believe--close to 5000 reviews, both short and long." says Anderson. "Also in 1997 I began the process of interviewing actors and directors, also with the aim of learning more about this incredible art form. Since then I have interviewed at least 300 artists, probably more."

He does confess there are less interviews these days than there once was. The site often gets nearly as many hits in a day as this site gets in a month! We are only months old though!

www.combustiblecelluloid.com