The Atlanta Film Festival 365 Staff discusses the 2010 Oscar nominations, including the effect of 10 nominees for Best Picture on the ceremonies, the lack of respect for comedy at the awards, Hollywood’s Biases and the continued strangeness that is the documentary category.

That headline is a bit of hyperbole, but not by much. Although I was always watching movies I didn't really start curating my movie experience till my sophmore year of college.

By 1993, Friday night at Blockbuster had morphed from a ritual I enjoyed with my family to one I then enjoyed with my boys. About 8 or 9 PM, it would be five of us piling into one car to spend an hour browsing Blockbuster's aisles building our weekend playlist.

That list always had to be strategic. Some weekends we'd be ten folks or more deep and one wrong pick could soon be driving people out of the room and effectively ending the night early. And spending 6 hours straight watching films in a cramped dorm room, with the lights out, was a perfect excuse to invite women over.

Fortunately, our love of everything from Shaw Brothers to Disney to Blaxplotation to Comedies (romantic, stoner or otherwise), generally made finding movies easy. Then there's the fact that we had jokes and no matter how bad, or good the movie was, there would be entertainment. Oh, and that love of all things involving the moving image, plus being a funny group of brothas--we had to make up for our lack of a smooth game somehow--made us standout among guys on campus. As an aside, best weekend ever, watching the same set of Disney flicks back to back on two separate nights, with two different groups of women...man I miss college.

Because we watched so many flicks, we were always discovering new actors, new directors and new genres that we could burrow deeper into. By the time we moved into an apartment off Buford Highway in 1995 our lists became less aimed at pleasing everyone and more focused.

Our weekends would often be mini-retrospectives of John Woo or Pedro Almodovar. It's on one of those nights Chow Yun-Fat became a cinematic god to us (to watch him in THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS three years later remains one of the top 20 most disappointing moments in my cinematic life).

It's also on those weekends we discovered that beyond the repetition of actors and directors, it was a company called Miramax that was always making our playlists. Consistently, they had the most interesting films and often the most fun films.

Looking back on it, it's strange I never made the connection of how our change in movie watching habits (and even move) almost perfectly coincides with Miramax's rise in the 1990s. Just as we're seeking out new and even challenging cinematic experiences, there appears Miramax.

By 1999, most of us had moved into our own places or gotten jobs in other cities, but Miramax had already made an impression on us with films lke CLERKS, CHASING AMY, IL POSTINO, BEAUTIFUL GIRLS, TRAINSPOTING, FLIRTING WITH DISASTER, SWINGERS and THE GLASS SHIELD. 

For me that's a time when I not only learned how much I loved film and filmmaking, it's when I realized I wanted to be a screenwriter. It's also when my friends, watching those same movies, wanted me to be a screenwriter too.

There were so many stories we cooked up amongst ourselves and we wanted to see them on the big screen. We especially hungered for those films we imagined, because we wanted to have our own SWINGERS featuring 20-something Black guys fumbling through life. We wanted our on IL POSTINO (which played perfectly into being hyped for LOVE JONES). The hope was I would be the conduit for our ideas to have life.

That never happened, obviously. However, here I am working for the Atlanta Film Festival and working as best I can to support interesting filmmaking and filmmaking in Georgia. Would I be here without Miramax? As the Miramax we know it ends its 31 year run, it's a fascinating question to ponder.

The other day a letter from Harvey Weinstein to Errol Morris popped up on the interwebs, lettersofnote.com to precise. It's a fascinating note on how to sell oneself from one of the most successful and powerful distributors and producers of all time. Even in 1988, it was probably an anathema to receive a letter like that, in 2010 it's all part of the awards season gaming.

What really caught my notice on Letters of Note, as I was looking at past posts, was a letter from Otis L. Guernsey to Alfred Hitchcock. In it, Guernsey effectively relinquishes any rights he has to the idea of a man being mistaken for a master-spy who only exists on paper, a concept that Guernsey himself pitched to Hitchcock years earlier.

NORTH BY NORTHWEST is the resulting film and it's easily in the top 5 of greatest Hitchcock films and in probably at least the top 20 of greatest and most influential American made action-thrillers.

While the economic realities have changed since 1957 (there are a multitude of ancillary and merchandising rights that didn't exist then) the fundamental soul of production hasn't changed. A good idea will always remain a good idea, yet it takes great execution to create anything tangible from that idea.

Read up on the history of Hollywood and you'll find story after story of well-known directors, writers and actors turning down projects--even their own--they know they are an ill fit for. You'll also discover stories of financial and critical flops, which with the benefit of hindsight, the producers and creators will freely admit they should have handed over to someone else--or even just stopped production all together.

It may be hard to let go of an idea because it could be loss revenue or because it's a dream project. But, to not let go when there's the possibility that someone can take that idea and produce something memorable, something that has impact, is sometimes silly and just plain hubris. 

I'm not saying you should give up your rights, as much as I'm suggesting you should keep in mind that film is a collaborative medium that excels when the whole becomes more than the sum of its parts.

Recently, someone purchased a gift membership to ATL365, accompanied by a thoughtful dedication.  While I sit here in Atlanta (not at Sundance on a late January morning), working on grant applications and planning for an amazing April event, this dedication serves as my inspiration.  It epitomizes why we do what we do. 

I wanted to share it with you so I've cut the proper names to protect the innocent:

Dear Son,

Earlier this evening I was talking with your mother about your birthday, and she brought up the times we had gone to the Sundance Film Festival and how she expected those times to be great memories for you.  She then added, "Now don't go getting him a trip to Sundance."

So, understanding your love of film, and with the warm memories from those shared experiences, I did a little research and discovered the Atlanta Film Festival.

While this is not a pass to the Festival or even tickets to some of the movies (the schedule has not yet been set), I hope you are able to take advantage of this membership to the Atlanta Film Festival, and you never know, maybe we can catch a few of the movies during the Festival from April 15th through the 23rd.

With Lots of Love from Dad and Mom

Festival Passes:http://atlantafilmfestival.com/content/view/461/204/#passes

Join ATL365:
http://atlantafilmfestival.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=22&Itemid=38

Support our mission to lead the community in creative and cultural discovery through the moving image: http://atlantafilmfestival.com/content/view/397/196/

Accompanied by his eleven best friends, Darius Weems, a fifteen-year-old living with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), leaves home for the first time in his life. The rowdy crew sets a course for California where they hope to convince MTV to customize Darius's wheelchair on the hit show, Pimp My Ride. Darius Goes West been enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of people of all ages all around the world.

In 2007 a little film called DARIUS GOES WEST went on a tear, racking up awards at nearly every festival it played at, including the audience award at the 2007 Atlanta Film Festival. Since then DARIUS GOES WEST has gone from film to non-profit organization, as DGW's mission is now to not only raise awareness, but to also increase funding for DMD research.

A while back, Chase announced Chase Community Giving. It's an initiative that asked the public to choose which cause would be awarded $1 million. The causes still eligible now only numbers a 100, with DGW sitting in 11th place . To commemorate the milestone and to hopefully win your much needed vote, Darius recorded a new song.

And now the Ginder Family of Gainesville, Florida has pledged to match every vote for DGW, up to 20k votes, with a $1 donation to DMD research. So every vote is now pulling double duty.

If you've never met Darius, or the DGW crew, trust me, you'll want to vote for any cause these guys are behind. FYI - DGW needs 35,000 votes to take first place. There's only 3 days left, but it's doable. And for you fellow Georgians, did I mention that they're from Athens? 

Vote For DARIUS GOES WEST

Darius Goes West - DARIUS' NEW RAP SONG

This week, two of the most influential festivals officially kick-off the 2010 festival season. From here on out, the stories on dozens of films will write, after surviving pre-production to post, their next chapters.

As you've probably heard ad nausem, the destiny of those films have rested more and more in the hands of filmmakers and producers over the last few years, and not distributors. Although, as Brian Newman has stated it in many a lecture, that destiny has always rested in the hands of filmmakers.

Well, we're not against talking and linking about marketing and distribution ad nausem. One thing that won't change, is there will always be new filmmakers and this will be the first time they're reading or hearing any of this information. To that end, Chris Holland has posted more good info about marketing on Film Festival Secrets in relation to Sundance and Slamdance and here's the beginning. Click the link below to read the rest...and keep in mind, you can apply this info to nearly every festival you're either applying to or attending.

Sundance/Slamdance Film Promotion Tips from Chris Thilk at Movie Marketing Madness

With the Park City festivals (Sundance, Slamdance, and other ‘dances that come and go with the years) just a week away, I thought this was a good time to check in with Chris Thilk about some of the philosophies and techniques of promoting an indie film at a large festival.

Let’s say I’m a filmmaker with a feature film playing at Sundance or Slamdance. I’m aware that million-dollar advance checks are few and far between, but I’d like to give my film the best chance possible for finding a distributor and/or an audience. What are some realistic expectations to set for this experience?

The expectations you have going in should be in direct proportion to the leg work you’ve put in prior to the festival, whatever it is. If, in support of your movie, you’ve already done some outreach to movie blogs that might be interested in the film, have built up an audience on Facebook or Twitter and generally can go in to the festival with some wind at your sails already your chances are much better.

Read the Rest

Also on Film Festival Secrets:

Profile on ATLFF's Managing Director Paula Martinez

Profile on ATLFF's Festival Director Dan Krovich

Will I have to add BOARDWALK EMPIRE to my DVR rotation? With Steve Buscemi, Martin Scorsese and Terence Winter on board, it should be a no brainer and the teaser trailer is impressive in scope. So much so, you might think this is being released theatrically. HBO knows how to spend some money.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm30JBh8pnE&feature=player_embedded

Hopefully this will be on the opposite spectrum of Scorsese's GANGS OF NEW YORK which like BOARDWALK, was also based on a non-fiction book. GANGS still stands as one of the most visually rich, yet dramatically inert pictures I've seen. Every passing year, the movie feels more and more slight. Fortunately, Winter has worked on THE SOPRANOS, a show that keeps getting better with age.

Oh, and did I mention that Michael K. Williams, AKA Omar from THE WIRE is in this.