The News: Distribution Beastie

Adam Yauch (Photo: Portroids)

By S.T. VanAirsdale

Some of today's movie news of note from around New York:

--Evidently enticed by an arid industry landscape littered with husks of underseen indies, cannibalized carcasses of filmmakers and tiny houses shuttered against the winds (or is it the suck?) of change, Beastie Boy Adam Yauch is getting into the distribution business. Joining ex-ThinkFilm execs David Fenkel and Dan Berger (who worked at Yauch's side releasing his classic Beasties concert film Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That!) Oscilloscope Pictures will acquire and open up to 10 films a year, with some projects generated in-house for budgets under $250,000. The catch, Yauch tells Variety: Low minimum guarantees, high back-end participation. Look for the first title to be announced within a month.

--At the Hollywood Reporter, Randee Dawn has the latest on that long-in-the-works remodel planned for the Museum of the Moving Image. The Riklis Theater shuts down Feb. 24 for more than a year of construction; in the end, look for 44,700 additional square fee including a 262-seat theater, a 71-seat screening room and a courtyard. All those MoMI screenings in Times Square, Times Center and elsewhere will continue through late 2009.

--Guess who said it: "In the last few years there has appeared a new kind of filmgoer: he isn't interested in movies but in cinema.... Those looking for importance are too often contemptuous of the crude vitality of American films, though this crudity is not always offensive, and may represent the only way that energy and talent and inventiveness can find an outlet, can break through the planned standardization of mass entertainment." Give up? Jim Emerson's got the answer -- and a great consideration of the rationale -- at Scanners.

--"There will be something sort of liberating about ordering Chinese food and watching the Oscars in bed," said Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter in the wake of canceling his publication's annual post-Oscars party. And I was just summoning the nerve to inquire about attending! I can't catch a break.

Posted at February 6, 2008 8:57 AM