𝔽𝕠𝕝𝕝𝕠𝕨𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝔽𝕚𝕝𝕞𝕤

Interview with Matthew Thayer of Kitty’s 9 Lives by Lynnaire MacDonald The quirky semi-romantic short comedy Kitty’s 9 Lives by Speropictures is now crowdfunding on Kickstarter. Kitty, an eccentric and single 30-something, attends the birthday BBQ of her brother-in-law and pregnant sister. During the course of the day, she meets various different men and falls into daydreams about what her life would be like with each of these eligible suitors, with hilarious results! Speropictures is based out of Redding, California. Since 2010 they have been producing content that has been recognized locally and across the US. For Kitty’s 9 Lives , Speropictures is teaming up with Red Gryphon Pictures. Red Gryphon successfully crowdfunded their film Sands of Ikkera via Kickstarter earlier this year. In addition to Red Gryphon, other local film-makers have come on board to collaborate. I recently spoke with Matthew Thayer, Head Director and Executive Producer at Speropictures abo

Lets go back to where it all started. To a diner with a group of working class thieves wearing black suits and talking about Madona's big dick. We had no idea that what we were watching would help to change the course of modern film making but we knew we were witnessing something special. I discovered Reservoir Dogs on VHS. It was one of those movies that got passed around my circle of friends. This is before VOD and only one video store in my town carried it and they only had one copy. So it took me what felt like forever to catch up with this one. I was one of the last of my friends to see it and I even lied about having seen it when people would talk about it. I said that I thought it was just ok better than average but nothing great. It was no Terminator or Bloodsport. I was an 80s action/martial arts junkie I didn't really give a shit about this dog movie. When Directors Chair finally got in a copy I had no idea what was in store for my 14 year old brain. It was like

I graduated High School the same year Pulp Fiction was released. That was the same year The Shawshank Redemption, The Professional, Natural Born Killers, True Lies, The Hudsucker Proxy, Serial Mom, The Crow, Forest Gump, Killing Zoe, Quiz Show and Ed Wood were all released. Something had changed in Hollywood. All these strange little "Art House" films started getting wide releases, nominated for Oscars and they were financially viable. It felt like we were in a golden era of film and we where. It was the explosion of independent cinema and Pulp Fiction was at the center of the eruption. Its easy to focus on the time a film is made. The political climate or social unrest that influences a film but a film be able to stand outside its time and be judged on its own merit. The only reason I listed all the films above was to illustrate how tough the competition was at the box office and the awards ballot box that year. Do awards shows use ballot boxes? Probably not, lets mov

Jackie Brown is by far the most under rated Tarantino film. Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs are near perfect films with tons of supporters so I don't really need to shed a light on how important and wonderful those films are and the same goes for Kill Bill and Inglorious Bastards. It feels like Jakie Brown has been forgotten and that is a damn shame. I first saw Jackie Brown on Christmas day back in 1997 and the film has remained my favorite film of Tarantino's since that day. The man has done some remarkable work since but his best film has somehow gotten lost in the shuffle of the last 17 years. Tarantino has said Jackie Brown is the least favorite of his films but I'm fairly certain that's because it was an adaptation of an Elmore Leonard novel, he didn't create the characters so he doesn't hold them as close to his heart. The film takes over the hill forgotten characters and makes them cool as hell. In a lesser film the stars of Jackie Brown would be

Get off my lawn you darn kids! So, yes its official I am a grumpy old man. I thought Guardians of the Galaxy was a charming, funny, thrilling big budget extravaganza and it more or less bored the shit out of me. I get it. This is not like Transformers 4. GOTG is a well made film but I didn't care about anything on screen. The villains in the Marvel movies are getting worse and worse and the stakes are constantly so high that I think I've been burned out and don't care what happens to any of the characters. The villains. Who are they? What are they doing? I have no idea. I pay attention and try to follow the story but the big blue guys and the petite blue woman are so devoid of nuance or subtext that you don't really need to pay attention to follow the story. They want to blow up the universe, spoiler alert. That's all you need to know. The rest of it is a bunch space talk that sounds like nonsensical garbage to my ears. Look I'm aware that I am rarely if ev

I asked Andrew Sayre to do an interview with Following Films to help raise awareness of his indiegogo project, The Song the Zombie Sang based on a short story by Harlan Ellison and Robert Silverberg.    How are you today? I'm fine, thanks. Where are you from? New Hampshire originally.  I grew up there and went to school there, and after school I spent fourteen years in Boston where I was active in the film community, both working on the films of others and making my own.  After I made my first feature in 2010, I moved down to New York to continue my filmmaking career. Are your parents involved in the arts? My father is retired Air Force and my Mom is in computers.  They are very cultured people, though, and have always been very supportive of me and what I do. When did you discover film? I remember the night when our family got its first VCR when I wasvery young.  And the first movie we e

This movie would have been directed by Brett (shrimp cocktail) Ratner based on a screenplay by JJ Abrams

This 13 minute short film from writer/director Steven DeGennaro is fantastic. He is currently completing post production on his first feature length film Found Footage 3D. NSFW... don't watch this in the cubicle where the boss could walk by at any moment, unless he/she is cool with potty humor, in that case gather up your co-workers get out that flask of whiskey you have hidden in your desk and let her rip.

To celebrate the tenth anniversary of Saw Lionsgate   will be re releasing Saw for one week. Its hard to believe that was only ten years ago. I think people have forgotten how fun that first film is and I'm looking forward to seeing it in a theater again. Here is the Lionsgate press release about the re release. Saw spawned 6 sequels in 6 years. A box set of all 7 films is available for pre-order on Amazon for only $22.49, that comes out to less than $3.25 per film

A honeymoon is in many ways a transformation, the melding of two lives. For some it can mean the loss of individuality to gain to deeper sense of connection to another, for others it simply means a time of hope and promise. The honeymoon phase is a time of deep passion and optimism, our eyes are wide and the world is full of possibilities. Director/Writer Leigh Janiak with her film Honeymoon has taken this time of unlimited potential and driven a spike through its still beating heart. The film follows Paul (Harry Treadaway) and Bea (Rose Leslie) as they honeymoon at a remote cabin next to a picturesque lake. Soon into the couples stay Paul discovers Bea in the woods, wandering and alone with no recollection of how she got there. After that night Bea starts to display peculiar behavior and it becomes increasingly clear that something terrible happened to her that night. Paul Treadaway ( Control ) and Rose Leslie ( Game of Thrones ) give fantastic performances as our young co

This gives us the best look we've had at the Man of Steels new costume

Alexandre Ajas latest film is found footage... another found footage horror film... the maker of High Tension has made a found footage horror film called The Pyramid. Oh well, Bobcat and Ty West showed us there are still interesting things to be done with found footage so I have my fingers crossed for Aja on this one. good looking poster interesting trailer... fuck it I'm in. 

I went into this film with very little knowledge... like I enter all things, with very little knowledge... I only knew that it was a revenge tale, that the director had cashed in his wifes retirement to pay for it and Sundance who had initially rejected the film later went on to say that rejection was a mistake. Those scrappy underdog stories always capture my imagination but its seldom the films live up to the folklore that builds up around them. Blue Ruin not only lives up to the lore, it transcends it. You will forget about the stories surrounding the making of the film/release of the film and accept the movie for what it is, a masterpiece. This is an honest look at revenge. We all like to imagine if we set out on a path of revenge we would react and act like Liam Neeson in Taken but the truth is most of us would act like Dwight in Blue Ruin. We would make mistakes and hurt the wrong people, leave behind evidence and do countless other things that would never make the cut in a

Guardians of the Galaxy was a nice way to end the summer movie season. After 4 months of Robots, Monsters and Mutants its time for something with a little more depth. Blue Ruin has been my favorite film so far this year and if any film could knock that film from the top spot it would be this one...

A Prometheus sequel, The Martian and The Blade Runner Sequel... this is a great time for fans of Ridley Scotts science fiction. I didn't have the pure hatred for Prometheus that some people had so I'm personally excited for all these projects. And yes I've seen this

Born in Champaign Illinois but raised mostly among the southern United States, Christopher Tevebaugh is a narrative and documentary director living in Columbia, South Carolina. He is known for Honor the Father (2014), Runaway Runway: The Flower the Squid and the Apology (2013) and Sazerac (2012). He studied Architecture and Design at ULL and Media Arts at USC. (taken from IMDB) Thank you so much for taking your time to do this. I hope you don't mind if we just get right into it. Where was  Honor the Father was shot?  We shot in a barn location in The-Middle-of-Nowhere, South Carolina.  It took two and a half months of searching for us to find a location we were happy with.  The owner was incredibly accommodating it was a great location.  We had also locked down a 250 year old cabin atop a mountain, however three days before the shoot the movie lost its entire budget.  Although we got the mountain cabin pro bono we couldn't pay for the gas to get up there. 

Andy Dodd is a UK based film maker whose latest film is The Apostate: Call of the Revenant . Andy was kind enough to take time out of his busy day to answer some questions for Following Films.  How are you today? Not bad thanks - busy writing! Where are you from? Shropshire, England. When did you first discover film? Back in the days of Betamax 'top loading' VCR's - my parents used to hire movies, mainly horror, and one night I sneaked downstairs and watched the original 'Dawn of the Dead' - I wasn't scared, even at a young age, I just couldn't believe how great this film was and how much I wanted to make movies. I hired full size VHS video cameras and made my own zombie films with my mates - When I went to see the Goonies I was 9 years old and for some reason one of the trailers attached to the film was the trailer for Day of the Dead. It had that long shot from the dream sequence of the woman l