SAW IV
"If it's Halloween, it must be... SAW IV". So says the tagline for Darren Lynn Bousman's latest gore fest, and really, WOULD the season be the same without another entry in the Jigsaw franchise? Smart, irreverent and blackly humorous, SAW IV continues to satirize our obsession with reality TV, and watching bad things happen to, well, someone else. This latest installment finds both the madman and his apprentice dead, so who the hell is laying those nasty traps for our not so loveable new heroes? And what happened to the survivors of the last film? Think fast guys, there's only 90 minutes before the room goes kablooey.

BELLA
Winner of the People's Choice Award at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival, Mexican director Alejandro Gomez Monteverde's debut feature follows two people -- a waitress and a former soccer star turned cook -- during one day in New York City and focuses how their troubled pasts bring them closer to each other, thus, gaining a better understanding of themselves. Monteverde has gained attention in the last few years for his creative short film work (you may have seen his award winning Waiting for Trains). Look for dreamy Mexican pop singer turned soap star Eduardo Verastegui in the leading role, hopefully a major attention draw for Latino audiences.

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STOP-LOSS TRAILER ONLINE
The trailer for Kim Pierce’s (award winning director of Boys Don’t Cry) new film has hit online. The film concerns a solider who refuses to return to fight the war in Iraq after he arrives back home in Texas. The film doesn’t hit cinemas until this spring, but the trailer gives a pretty nice look at what audiences can expect. Take a look at the trailer here.

COOL SITES

Ever since I got a full-time job, my interest in short/experimental film websites has increased. Looking up shorts, photos, and other multi-media projects are a great way to escape for a few minutes during a hectic day.

Ken Jacobs' website has a plethora of footage from his 400 minute opus Star Spangled to Death. Jacobs culled all kinds of footage from the last half century into an intense audio-visual examination of American culture.

NYFF.45 #4
Jaime Stuart wraps up his shorts series from the New York Film Festival in the Filmmaker Videos section of the site. Things seem to be getting out of hand as the festival winds down for Mr. Stuart, but he does get to sit down with director John Landis, who manages to turn the tables on Jaime.

Read the complete stories at Filmmakermagazine's Blog...

IFP ANNOUNCES 17th ANNUAL GOTHAM AWARDS NOMINATIONS
IFP announced this week the 17th Annual Gotham Awards nominations.

Garnering three separate nominations - the most this year - is Great World of Sound, Craig Zobel's directorial debut which was nominated for Best Feature, Breakthrough Director and Breakthrough Actor. Zobel was one of Filmmaker’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film this year, along with Stephane Gauger, who also received a Breakthrough Director nomination for his film Owl and the Sparrow.See the Gotham Awards website for more info.

ROBERT SARKIES, OUT OF THE BLUE
Some people go through their whole lives searching for what they truly want to do, but those fortunate souls who find their vocation early in life can achieve incredible feats. New Zealander Robert Sarkies made his first film, Snap, Sizzle and Bang, when he was only 10, and by his early twenties his acclaimed shorts Dream Makers (1993), Flames from the Heart (1995) and Signing Off (1996) had played at film festivals around the world. Sarkies made his feature debut with Scarfies (1999), a black comedy about a group of students who discover a stash of marijuana in a seemingly deserted house — and then have to deal with the repercussions. The film was a huge hit in New Zealand and gained cult success internationally, however Sarkies failed to use Scarfies as launchpad for an immediate follow-up. In fact, it was five years later he was approached about writing and directing a film which, quite literally, was very close to home for Sarkies...

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