Reject Radio

If you only had a minute to tell a story, what would you say? Would it be enough time to express great human sorrow? A gut-punch of a laugh? As it turns out, filmmakers from all over the world achieve this feat every year at the Filminute International One-Minute Film Festival. Currently in its 7th year, executive director John Ketchum is once again issuing the challenge to everyone to deliver a strong movie in only a minute. It seemed only fair to give him a single minute to pitch his film festival. We go slightly over, but maybe that’s just more proof of tough the challenge is. The online festival will run during the month of September, and you can check out the entire proceedings at Filminute’s website, but for now, here’s Ketchum with a bit about their philosophy and what you can expect. Check out the incredibly brief interview below: Download This Interview Enjoy More Reject Radio

MoPix CEO Ryan Stoner wants your movie to find an audience. He also wants fans to find new filmmakers. His company is a turnkey digital distribution model that seeks to give up to 100% of profit made through online “ticket” sales back to the production. It’s a bold new business, and he joins us to discuss their goals, what drives them, and his vision for the future. Plus, Cinema Blend Editor-in-Chief and Operation Kino host Katey Rich joins the show to play Good News Bad News with this week’s top stories. Download Episode #144 On This Week’s Show: Good News Bad News [The Beginning – 12:45] Katey Rich and I share our favorite and least favorite news of the week. Brave New World [12:45 – The End]: MoPix’s Ryan Stoner explains how his company can help filmmakers and fans. Rating us on iTunes is good for your heart. Last Time on the Show: Paco Plaza’s Big Bloody Romantic Gamble with ‘REC 3: Genesis’ Get In Touch With Us: Call Reject Radio: (512) 212-1301 Email Reject Radio: radio@filmschoolrejects.com Reject Radio on Twitter: twitter.com/RejectRadio Subscribe to Reject Radio:

Not content to deliver the same kind of movie as REC and REC 2, Paco Plaza has crawled way out onto a blood-covered limb to turn the third installment, REC 3: Genesis, into a romantic horror comedy set at a wedding. There are still some jaw-ripping practical effects and zombie scares aplenty, but the tone is purposefully meant to deny audience’s their expectations.The gamble is one that might alienate fans. This week on Reject Radio Horror Chit Chat, we speak with the director about the risk in making something beyond expectations (and how he plans on getting killed quickly when the zombie apocalypse goes down). Plus, we get into a thorough discussion about remakes with our old friend Scott Weinberg. Download Episode #143 On This Week’s Show: Learning Not To Automatically Hate Remakes [The Beginning – 32:15] Scott Weinberg and I try to be nicer to the concept of remakes on the eve of Total Remake‘s release. Chainsaws and Wedding Dresses [32:15 – The End]: Horror director Paco Plaza suits up in a SpongeJohn costume to deliver romance, laughs and scares at the risk of turning off some of REC‘s fans. Rating us on iTunes is good for your heart. Last Time on the Show: The Passion of the Pissed Off Fans Get In Touch With Us: Call Reject Radio: (512) 212-1301 Email Reject Radio: radio@filmschoolrejects.com Reject Radio on Twitter: twitter.com/RejectRadio Subscribe to Reject Radio:

What would Jay Chandrasekhar and Kevin Heffernan‘s baby look like? Thanks to science (i.e. This Website), we now know. Pretty damned handsome, actually. In their latest movie, The Babymakers, a loving husband (Paul Schneider) finds out his swimmers are sad, so he’s forced to rob a sperm bank to get his last viable donation back and impregnate his wife (Olivia Munn) with it. Directed by Chandrasekhar and co-starring Heffernan, the pair joined us to discuss the finer points of semen heists, to talk about the time they turned down the chance to remake a comedy classic and how studios are now pushing comedy filmmakers to get extreme. And, yes, of course, they’re both champing at the bit to make Super Troopers 2. Check out the entire 15-minute interview below: Download This Interview Enjoy More Reject Radio

The Writers Guild of America‘s latest survey of screenwriters [PDF] shows that the world of storytelling isn’t that sunny. From the bother of late payments to the difficulty of sweepstakes pitching, the overall number of screenwriters is down along with the overall money their industry is able to make. So what happened? For former WGA board member Craig Mazin, it seems like the movie industry is less and less interested in making movies. He joins us to explain a key business shift that created a huge work gap between screenwriters, to dissect the results of the survey, and to define some of the technical jargon. Oh, and if you’re looking for a happy ending, this particular Hollywood story might not have one. Fair warning. Check out the entire 24-minute interview below: Download This Interview Enjoy More Reject Radio  

We’ve been waiting on Sight & Sound‘s Top Ten List for the past ten years, and it comes out in a few weeks. To get prepped for it, and to explore the strange work of choosing the ten best movies of all time, In Contention critic and first time voter Guy Lodge explains the thought process that went into creating his list. It’s a seemingly impossible task. After all, do you place Vertigo about North By Northwest? Do you go purely personal or for “important” works? Do you brazenly include an embarrassing favorite or stick with a list that will be respectable? And why does Citizen Kane always win? Download Episode #141 On This Week’s Show: Random Top Ten Lists [The Beginning – 4:25] A bunch of the best ten movies of all time – just not exactly the same ten. Rosebud [4:25 – The End]:  Guy Lodge and I discuss the finer points of picking the best of all time. Check out: The Sight & Sound 2002 List The FSR Internet Critic 2012 List Please go rate us on iTunes. It means a lot to us. Promise. Last Time on the Show: How Will We Remember Yorgos Lanthimos When He Dies? Get In Touch With Us: Call Reject Radio: (512) 212-1301 Email Reject Radio: radio@filmschoolrejects.com Reject Radio on Twitter: twitter.com/RejectRadio Subscribe to Reject Radio:

Yorgos Lanthimos confounded and excited fans with Dogtooth and he returns to theaters this summer with Alps – the story of a group that begins a business where they impersonate the recently deceased in order to help the mourning cope. In this interview with Landon Palmer, Lanthimos discusses toying with identity and death while giving an eye into his filmmaking process (and describing the difficulty in marketing a movie while trying to maintain its mysteriousness). Download Episode #140 On This Week’s Show: Movie News Roulette [The Beginning – 20:15] Landon Palmer joins me to test his luck against 6 random words and 1 piece of bad movie news before getting down to some analysis. Gymnastics and Verbal Abuse [20:15 – The End]:  Palmer returns with an interview of Yorgos Lanthimos (Alps, Dogtooth). Please go rate us on iTunes. It means a lot to us. Promise. Last Time on the Show: How One Fan Proved There’s Too Much Movie Marketing Get In Touch With Us: Call Reject Radio: (512) 212-1301 Email Reject Radio: radio@filmschoolrejects.com Reject Radio on Twitter: twitter.com/RejectRadio Subscribe to Reject Radio:

How much movie advertising is too much? What’s the number? When 25% of the movie is online in ads before it comes out? 10%? 2%? Are you ready to go back to a world where the magic and mystery happens when you’re in the theater instead of at your laptop? Louis Plamondon’s (aka Sleepy Skunk) “Amazing Spider-Man in 25 Minutes” is an awesome look at the movie, but it’s also a critical middle finger to movie marketers for stealing that magic. We spoke with the mash-up editor about finding 20% of a blockbuster online before it hit theaters, what that means for piracy and how that’s deeply unfair to the people who worked on the movie. Download Episode #139 On This Week’s Show: We Don’t Drink Cocoa Anymore [The Beginning – The End]:  The terrible feeling that we’re drowning in movie marketing has been proven. The joke is no longer funny. Sleepy Skunk talks about the viral video that hit big. That Variety article Sleepy Skunk mentions Please go rate us on iTunes. It means a lot to us. Promise. Last Time on the Show: How to Film Someone Killing Himself Get In Touch With Us: Call Reject Radio: (512) 212-1301 Email Reject Radio: radio@filmschoolrejects.com Reject Radio on Twitter: twitter.com/RejectRadio Subscribe to Reject Radio:

The Duplass Brothers got into making movies by making movies. Some called it Mumblecore, but it should really be called The Nike Method. Their latest, The Do-Deca-Pentathalon features two brothers locked in an epic (yet secretive) sporting event that they take exactly as seriously as it needs to be taken. But as Mark and Jay Duplass explain in this interview, no matter the type of movie they make, they’ll always focus on the small moments and emotions that arise from them. One example? Battleship. If given the blockbuster, here’s how the pair would have delivered the littoral explosion-fest Mark Duplass: I think inherently, Jay and I are interested in feelings. We’re obsessed with feelings, so even if we made…Battleship…and that was the script we were heading into, we would start gravitating toward how the men on that battleship felt towards each other, and we’d probably have a whole scene about someone angry with someone else because they keep leaving hair on the soap. It’s just what we like. So, we’re almost helplessly and hopelessly ourselves. It’s not an attempt. It just comes out. Right. So specifically, how would you change Battleship? You’d add more hair on the soap, and what else would make it a Duplass Battleship movie? Jay Duplass: I think that it would be, more specifically, as opposed to events that are happening outside, missiles being launched in the air, missiles being launched in the water… MD: We’d hear those in the background. JD: …but we’d be focused […]

Daniel Stamm‘s A Necessary Death is like a shot of whiskey that’s easy to pour but not easy to drink. His directorial debut (which won him the job for The Last Exorcism) follows a film student making a documentary about a man preparing for, and going through with, his suicide. It’s difficult territory to be certain, but it’s handled with grace, humor, and more than a few touching moments which make the horror of the inevitable and the twisting emotions growing in the film crew that much harder to handle. It’s an excellent movie, and Stamm joins us to delve deeper into its creation (and audience’s reactions). Download Episode #138 On This Week’s Show: The News in Brief [The Beginning – 1:30]: A quick overview of what went down this week. Suicide Is Painless [1:30 – The End]: Daniel Stamm discusses A Necessary Death – now available on DVD and VOD. Please go rate us on iTunes. It means a lot to us. Promise. Last Time on the Show: To Sell His Novel, Author Nick Santora Became a Director Get In Touch With Us: Call Reject Radio: (512) 212-1301 Email Reject Radio: radio@filmschoolrejects.com Reject Radio on Twitter: twitter.com/RejectRadio Subscribe to Reject Radio:

Let’s face it. When the alien invasion comes (and it will), most of us are going to be useless to help fight them back. We’re either going to be hiding or running for our lives into government-run bunkers. Nacho Vigalondo gets this, which is part of the reason why he chose not to focus on the heroes for his latest film, Extraterrestrial. His follow-up to TimeCrimes is a sci-fi flick married to a conversational screwball romantic comedy. He was gracious enough to give us a glimpse of his madcap mind – explaining his love for guilty characters, celebrating Invasion of the Body Snatchers and explaining the connection between his latest movie and the TV show Moonlighting. Extraterrestrial is out Friday, June 15 in select theaters, and you can demand it through Tugg. Download This Interview Enjoy More Reject Radio

When best-selling author Nick Santora wanted a way to get fans and entertainment industry officials excited about “Fifteen Digits,” he became a director. The result is a short film pulled from the book featuring Jimmi Simpson and Gino Anthony Pesi. Of course, Santora has a background – writing for shows like The Sopranos, Prison Break and Law and Order. He also wrote Punisher: War Zone and created the show Breakout Kings. He’s firmly entrenched in a world where everything is caught on camera, but he’s using that experience in a unique way when it comes to wearing his literary hat. We talk with the newly minted director about how turning to filmmaking to sell a book (and himself) has worked out. Plus, Jack Giroux and Rob Hunter face off in the Movie News Pop Quiz and then debate the merits of Ridley Scott‘s Prometheus. Download Episode #137 On This Week’s Show: Movie News Pop Quiz [The Beginning - 27:00]: It’s Giroux vs Hunter for the quiz and a conversation about Prometheus. Law and Disorder [27:00 - The End]: Author Nick Santora talks writing tips, the difficulty of an early cancellation for Breakout Kings and how he became a director in order to help sell books. Check out his short film: Please go rate us on iTunes. It means a lot to us. Promise. On Last Week’s Show: How One Production Company is Using Social Media to Make Great Short Films On Next Week’s Show: No show next week. It’s vacation

“We should get together and just make a movie” is the “we should open a bar” of Hollywood. Tons of people say it all the time because talk is affordable, but a very small percentage actually get out there and make it happen. That’s why it’s always refreshing to see people with talent match it with active ambition. Finite Films is built on fan-submitted concepts, crowd-funding and creativity. The fans and funding make sure they have user-submitted constraints on their filmmaking (think of it as Dogme 2012) and enough cash to get sandwiches for everyone; the creativity is all theirs. Of course, none of what they’re doing would be noteworthy if they weren’t churning out great short films every single month. After a submission and public voting process, the team takes their list of constraints (“One character has to be hiding a horrible secret”) and makes something magical happen. We’ll talk with two of their founders about the freedom that limitations can create. Plus, Movies.com managing editor Erik Davis drops by for a game of Movies News Roulette. Download Episode #136 On This Week’s Show: Movie News Roulette [The Beginning - 19:45]: Erik Davis tries his luck with the bullet of bad news and becomes an all-American hero in the process. Infinite Potential [19:45 - The End]: Co-founders Ryan McDuffie and Michael Tucker describe the philosophy behind their unique filmmaking company and the way social media (and their fans) play a vital role. Please go rate us on iTunes. It

As Todd Solondz explains, Dark Horse is a different kind of take on the Judd Apatow celebration of the Manchild. It’s a bit more aggressive, a lot more realistic, and complex in the way that fans have come to expect from the director of Welcome to the Dollhouse and Palindromes. Set beyond cheerful pop music, the film follows Jordan Gelber, looking a lot like Jeff Garlin, as he attempts to navigate what he views as a cruel, unfair world in the yellow hummer his parents bought for him. He discovers something like love with the depressed Miranda (a differently-named character reprised by Selma Blair from Storytelling), and he struggles (often hilariously) to understand a world shifting around him. Fortunately, Solondz took some time out to discuss his take on later-life childhood, how to respond to fans who laugh at child-rape, and how the indie filmmaking world has changed since the 1990s. Download Episode #135 On This Week’s Show: American Otaku [The Beginning - The End]: Todd Solondz on Dark Horse. Please go rate us on iTunes. It means a lot to us. Promise. On Last Week’s Show: The Most Anticipated Movies of Cannes 2012 Get In Touch With Us: Call Reject Radio: (512) 212-1301 Email Reject Radio: radio@filmschoolrejects.com Reject Radio on Twitter: twitter.com/RejectRadio Subscribe to Reject Radio:

Simon has already weighed in on Moonrise Kingdom – his first Cannes film of 2012 – but we check in with him to see what 6 films he’s looking forward to the most. Plus, Movies.com’s Peter Hall faces off against Landon Palmer in the Movies News Pop Quiz, and we end up asking important questions about repertory screenings. Will the films of the future digitally last forever? Download Episode #134 On This Week’s Show: Movie News Pop Quiz [Beginning - 20:50]: It’s Hall vs Palmer in a record-breaking match followed by us imagining an historical screening of The Avengers in 2042 where the digital print hasn’t aged a bit. The Most Anticipated Movies of Cannes 2012 [20:50 - The End]: Simon takes a break from applying sunscreen to run down his 6 most promising, and I add a few for good measure. Please go rate us on iTunes. It means a lot to us. Promise. On Last Week’s Show: How to Join Panos Cosmatos’s Cult of Beyond the Black Rainbow Get In Touch With Us: Call Reject Radio: (512) 212-1301 Email Reject Radio: radio@filmschoolrejects.com Reject Radio on Twitter: twitter.com/RejectRadio Subscribe to Reject Radio: