Everything about The Great Gatsby is bold. It's Moulin Rouge-meets-the Jazz Age, and Baz Luhrmann is the star. The film is everything the trailer promises -- loud, frenetic and fun -- but when the style-over-substance take on the material wears thin, what's left are some subpar performances and a lot...

Robert Redford's new film is the decent kind of drama we've come to expect around April before all the real special effects fireworks start in May. What's actually interesting about The Company You Keep, for independent filmmakers, is the concept of what I like to call the "old-people ensemble," and...

The Place Beyond the Pines is the type of solid crime drama they don't make more of because studios don't think grown-ups go to the movies often enough. It's a pity, because it's an interesting script with a story structure reminiscent of Psycho, the ambition of a Greek tragedy and...

The story of Anonymous hasn't been told because it's probably just begun. But the documentary We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists is a really good beginning to that story. Told with interviews from actual Anonymous members, both masked and out in the open, filmmaker Brian Knappenberger delves into...

One adage you take away from film school is "make sure it's all up on the screen." The idea is that as a filmmaker, you can't visit each theater and explain your budget limitations or why a scene didn't gel. But sometimes the behind-the-scenes story of a film is so...

Hollywood filmmaking is usually a practice in the art of patience and waiting. Waiting to pitch your idea, waiting on a rewrite, waiting for financing (usually the longest wait, by far), then waiting for the your talent to become available. Then, maybe if you're lucky, you can start shooting.

After you tell someone what you do for a living, the common follow-up refrain in Hollywood is, of course, "but I really want to direct." Doesn't matter where you are on the food chain, agent, production assistant, or busboy, the tag tends to punctuate the end of any sentence about...

"It's about story." That's pretty much the refrain you'll get from everyone who works at Sundance, and it never gets old. In fact, it's really rather refreshing each time you hear it considering that for most of Hollywood, it's about money. But it's no surprise that for Sundance, even when...

The topic was cracking Hollywood code at the LeanLA panel discussion in Santa Monica for an audience of 250 "hackers, technologists, founders, developers and marketers in the LA area," said meetup organizer Patrick Vlaskovits (@pv), author of The Entrepreneur Guide to Customer Development and The Lean...

It's nice to point out when Hollywood puts forth an effort to do something as progressive as it claims to be. Last weekend's number one film, Think Like a Man, has that distinction; being the first feature to use 100 percent energy efficient (LED) lighting sources on the...

The recent passage of the JOBS act may be the shot in the arm the indie film business needs to reignite the lackluster funding in recent years. What's exciting is that it's opening up the crowdfunding market past your typical cadre of friends and family who are making a donation...

With SOPA/PIPA on hold, I was curious what was coming next in what seems to be a battle for the hearts and minds of filmmakers in Hollywood. The ordeal brought up a lot more questions than it answered. What if piracy isn't always bad? Who will the Hollywood gate keepers...

Much has been made in recent weeks in the New York Times over the exploitation of intern labor, which is certainly a problem in the entertainment industry. Since I started out as an intern and have since been witness to really valuable internships and really crappy ones, I...

If you weren't able to hit the screenings and the slopes in Park City, then there's another way you can get involved in independent film closer to home, if that home happens to be Los Angeles.

Film Independent, the collective of filmmakers and film lovers, has been supporting the...

"So shines a good deed in a weary world." -- Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)

I've worked in a few offices, in the Hollywood industry and outside of it, that offered no collective opportunities for employees to volunteer or donate to charity. Frankly, it's a bummer, especially...

"I see you're a director! Jimmy, our busboy, is a director." -- The Big Picture, 1989

"The people you go to school with will be the same people that will be hiring and firing you for the rest of your life." This truism comes from Anthony J. Gonzales, who I...

"What have the Romans ever done for us?"
- Reg, Life of Brian (1979)

They're going to take over. Resistance is futile. In fact, they're already here. They look like us, they hustle like us and they seem to enjoy our organic foods, beaches and ample sunshine. If...

"Well of course we talk. Don't everybody?"
- Lina Lamont, "Singin' in the Rain" (1952)

In Los Angeles, going out to network is work. It's a rare occasion that I'm jazzed enough to tack on an extra three hours of Hollywood shop talk on top of a long...