Wired: "Macworld Expo 2010 Caters to Apple Fans — Without Apple"

"Like a Star Trek convention minus Leonard Nimoy, Macworld Conference and Expo 2010 kicks off Tuesday at San Francisco’s Moscone Center with no official presence from Apple," writes Brian X. Chen in Wired. "Though the event will lack a Steve Jobs keynote and won’t have an Apple product introduction to generate buzz, 250 vendors will be showcasing Apple-related products at the convention, and a few key members of the Apple community will be giving speeches and presentations to the estimated 30,000 Apple fans who are expected to attend." More at Wired.

Bay Area has strong presence at 82nd Oscars

Films with Bay Area connections featured prominently in the 82nd Academy Award Nominations announced yesterday. The burgeoning Best Picture category featured the Sandra Bullock football film The Blind Side based on the book by Berkeley resident Michael Lewis, and Pixar-Disney’s animated Up took not only a slot in the Best Picture, but was also nominated in the Animated category and in Sound Editing and Original Score.

The Documentary nomination for Berkeley-based Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith’s The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers did not necessarily come as a surprise to Goldsmith, who SF360.org spoke with on the phone Tuesday afternoon.

"This is my second time through this," said Goldsmith, who received a nomination for Tell the Truth and Run: George Seldes and the American Press 13 years ago. He said the film’s been well received by audiences since September, "Audiences of all generations respond to a compelling story of someone who chooses conscience over career and takes a risk. We had the elements of good filmmaking, story, and the political times we live in. The parallels between how our government deceived us during the Vietnam War and how they deceived us during the Iraq and the Afghanistan wars are unfortunately remarkable."

"Hopefully because of the nomination," added Goldsmith, "more people are going to see it in theaters. It just opened in New York last weekend, and it’s going to open in Los Angeles, Boston, D.C. and the Bay Area soon."

On the Disney-Pixar-created Up, director-writer Pete Docter and producer Jonas Rivera issued a statement for press,"We are humbled and grateful to the Academy. Being nominated among these remarkable animated films is such an amazing privilege. On top of that, to be honored as one of the best pictures of the year is just mind-blowing. It’s truly been a long, wonderful ride getting here, and with all sincerity it really does feel like we’re floating on air."

Other Bay Area-related nominations came in the Supporting Actor category: Woody Harrelson’s nomination in The Messenger, and the nomination of The Lovely Bones (based on a book by current Bay Area resident Alice Sebold) for Stanley Tucci.

Longtime Bay Area figure Henry Selick received an Animated nomination for heralded Coraline.

(Susan Gerhard)

IndieWIRE: "'Winter’s Bone,' 'Restrepo' Lead Sundance Award Winners"

"Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone led the U.S. Dramatic Competition, taking both the grand jury prize and a special jury prize for screenwriting, while suspected player Blue Valentine was entirely shut out of the winners. Bone follows an Ozark Mountain girl who hacks through dangerous social terrain as she hunts down her missing father while trying to keep her family intact," Eugene Hernandez, Brian Brooks, and Peter Knegt report. They continue, "Filmmaker Laura Poitras—accepting the cinematography award on behalf of her film The Oath, took a moment to honor the memory of Karen Schmeer, who died tragically last night in New York City." More at indieWIRE.

SF Chronicle: "News and notes from the Sundance Film Festival"

Ruthe Stein reports from Sundance on the popularity of The Kids Are All Right, The Runaways and Cyrus while getting insight from Tilda Swinton (I Am Love), Michael Moore (watching The Company Men), San Francisco Film Society programmers at the SFFS party Monday night and Bay Area filmmaker Sam Green, whose live performance Utopia in Four Movements is in some ways, he says, an answer to the laptop film-watching phenomenon. More at SFGate.

New York Times: "Nonfiction filmmakers still tell rich stories"

"The Bay Area has long been known as a center for documentary filmmaking," writes Chloe Veltman. " Many local documentarians have won or been nominated for Academy Awards, including Sam Green (The Weather Underground) and Robert Epstein (The Times of Harvey Milk). The area is home to the Independent Television Service, a major financer of documentary films, as well as some of the most respected film schools in the country. But the success of local documentaries can’t be attributed to education and financing alone. The region itself seems especially tight-knit and supportive." More at the New York Times.

Hollywood Reporter: "'Black Sunset' rises at Sundance"

"Cynthia Stafford and her Queen Nefertari Prods. are cozying up to the Butcher Bros.," writes Jay A. Fernandez. "The pulpy low-budget auteurs—actual names: Mitchell Altieri and Phil Flores—have written and will direct the psychological horror feature "Black Sunset" for Queen Nefertari, which will package and finance. Altieri and Flores are about to let loose their latest horror exploitation effort, "The Violent Kind," at the Sundance Film Festival, which will premiere the film Monday as part of the genre-focused Park City at Midnight section." More at The Hollywood Reporter.

SF Chronicle: "Bravery triumphs over repression in 'Howl'"

"When San Francisco filmmakers Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman felt inspired to do something about the Beat poem ‘Howl,’ they started off making a documentary," writes Ruthe Stein. "It’s a form the two excel at: Their first film, ‘Common Threads: Stories From the Quilt’ in 1989, won an Oscar, a second for Epstein, who had taken home the 1984 Academy Award for The Times of Harvey Milk." More at SFGate.

Butchers open shop at Sundance

To be from the Bay Area and be called The Butcher Brothers might mean you get mixed up with purveyors of grass fed meats for foodies, but the team of Mitchell Altieri and Phil Flores, aka The Butcher Brothers, taps into an equally deep Northern Californian tradition in indie filmmaking. Their new feature The Violent Kind, is a nightmare-with-bikers-in-the-woods fantasy that was shot in Petaluma, Cotati and surrounding areas (as was their vampiric first feature, The Hamiltons), and definitely fits their collaborative moniker. More in SF360 Blogs.

Sam Green utopia project takes off for Sundance

Sundance just days away, Sam Green was deep in preparation for the live performance of his latest piece, Utopia in Four Movements, when I called him Monday morning. He walked me through the connections between an American exile in Cuba, the world’s largest shopping mall, which lies dormant in China, the history of Esperanto and the work of forensic anthropologists. More in SF360 Blogs.

Nao Bustamante: Mining "Silver and Gold" in Park City

In Silver and Gold, Nao Bustamante ponders a provocative question: What if Jack Smith had actually directed Maria Montez? The result fuses performance art and a lush, colorful video (with the help of director of photography Ava Berkofsky) into a form Bustamante dubs "filmformance." Bustamante’s latest work (to be performed live in New Frontiers) is the second to be featured at Sundance. More at SF360.org Blogs.