The announcement of a new pay-TV/ VOD/ Web 2.0/ Super-futuristic-total-entertainment-experience service from Viacom, Lionsgate, MGM, and Paramount is big news, but what’s giving industry analysts pause is the idea that the lifespan of a Hollywood movie is going to get a whole lot more compressed.  Channels like Showtime and HBO aren’t make the money they used to off TV premieres--they argue that new movies aren’t worth much anymore on TV, so they don’t want to pay the high licensing fees. So studios are taking back control over the twilight years of their films (before they become catalogue titles), as well as their delivery windows.  The fact is, nobody cares about the HBO premiere of a six month old movie.  Why not put the film on TV in two months?

So what does this mean for indies?  Well, for one thing, Showtime, HBO, STARZ, and their ilk are going to be looking for content.  That’s one opportunity. But another might be with the studios themselves.  If studios get the idea that the TV roll-out is part of their overall marketing campaign (the same way that a theatrical release becomes a loss leader), studios might become a lot more flexible in their ideas about how a film can reach an audience.  More stops on the studio tour mean more places for indies to get on.  Times are changing.

The situation between longtime frenemies the Geeks and Hollywood heat up in 2008.  Never before has a Hollywood slate catered so vigorously to the tastes of filmgoers of the comic con, fantasy, and sci-fi set. Sure, the geeks are bad on downloading movies (they’re downloading some right now) but they are also an audience: a real live film audience that goes to the theaters and will pay money just to see how badly Hollywood has screwed up their favourite franchise.  Even better, their extracurricular hobbies, such as blogging like mad about films that interest them, have basically acted as a template for how Hollywood has come to understand online marketing.

So here’s to you geeks and here’s to Hollywood.

Let’s take a look at some of the upcoming big geek films with breakdowns, ratings, and embedded trailers!

SXSW has a pretty great blog promoting the music component of the fest, but not so for the film section. Fortunately, film and film fest fans online have taken over and the 2008 SXSW film festival is now chugging along full-steam ahead through the world-o-blogs. Here are my Top 5 blog picks for festival coverage.

1. Great set of interviews with SXSW participants, including an interview with early fest favorite We Are Wizards director Josh Koury.

http://www.indiewire.com/people/2008/03/sxsw_08_intervi_12.html

2. Probably the most comprehensive online coverage of the fest can be found at Spout. Interviews, festival news and more from their roving correspondents.

http://blog.spout.com/

3. Great coverage from the films to the parties can be found at:

http://www.cinematical.com

4. Indie film stalwarts Film Threat provide all things SXSW at:

http://sxsw.bside.com/2008/

5. Not coming to a theater near you has just a few reviews of the fest films so far, but should be building over the week. And while some of these films will be coming to a theater near you, a bunch will not, so check this out while you can.

http://www.notcoming.com/

SXSW Film took a backseat to the SXSW Interactive on the blogosphere. While film coverage has been few and far between, the Interactive component has, perhaps not surprisingly, engaged the minds and keypads of bloggers from all over.

The fest’s biggest news so far was Sunday’s keynote address by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Of interest was not his address per se but the manner in which interviewer Sarah Lacy alienated the entire crowd as the whole talk ended in heckling and chaos – and much Twittering.

However, if you’re actually interested in film...well, Variety has you covered:

http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=festivals&jump=sxsw

A brief note on the film fest’s opening: www.keyetv.com

A story that ran everywhere, basically an ode to the fest’s hip-ness: National Post

Laremy Legel gives some mini-reviews/grades to Secrecy, We Are Wizards and American Teen. We Are Wizards comes out on top, with the grand praise as one of the best films of 2008.

A review of the documentary Second Skin that finds the film, a look at people addicted to online multi-player games, “depressing”:

http://www.news.com/8301-13772_3-9889170-52.html?tag=blogFeed

Documentary trends are difficult to nail down as the sheer proliferation of content keeps the subject matter broad, but a mini-trend seems to be emerging in ought-8’s documentary slate.  A number of recent pics are focusing on the addictions, habits, and casual self-destruction or escapism that accompany modern life.  Documentary’s revenge on fiction or an answer to the age of ‘truthiness’?

Recently acquired by Magnolia Pictures, Bigger Stronger Faster, a standout doc at this year’s Sundance, takes a hard and honest look at steroid use in the steroid nation.

And two upcoming documentaries at SXSW (which stars this Friday) Second Skin and Super High Me, take a look at, respectively, massively multiplayer online games and marijuana use.

All of these films are not interested in judgment or cautionary tales as much as they are invested in looking at real-world ramifications of “bad behavior.” What is coming across in the films is that every day in every way, people are looking for some way to check out of reality.

The weekend was a 1-2 Film awards knockout, with the Indie Spirit Awards running on Saturday, followed by the the Academy Awards on Sunday. Crossover nominations for both were high this year, which must have resulted in a ton of tuckered out stars and starlets by the time Sunday night rolled around.

Having the two events back-to-back highlights how great the indies have fared this Oscar season. The Coen brothers No Country For Old Men proved the night’s big Oscar winner, with Best Picture and Director nods, while the crowd-pleaser Juno cleaned up at the Indie Spirit taking Best Picture, Best Actress (for Ellen Page) and Best Screenplay for Diablo Cody. Cody was a double winner: she grabbed the Oscar screenplay, too.

In some ways the two awards seem almost a reversal: the feel-good blockbuster taking over the Indie Spirit and the more edgy, but critically acclaimed, No Country For Old Men cleaning up at Oscar. Indeed, this might have been the year when the Indies most openly embraced big box-office returns and the Oscars pretty much followed the critics point for point, even giving the Best Actress nod to Marion Cotillard for La Vie En Rose.

The sea change can be attributed to a number of factors.  A big one: the huge-grossing comedies of Judd Apatow are fun but nobody is ready to give them an Oscar nod. More crucially, the sort of Important ‘A’ pictures that usually dominate Oscar season (such as Meryl Streep’s Lions For Lambs and Rendition) have had such a tepid audience and critical response that a nomination would be simply silly. Indeed, Hollywood has failed abysmally throughout 2007 to put out a thinking-pic that also attracts an audience.

If these trends keeps up, in a few years the Indie Spirit and Academy Awards may want to combine events with one big weekend extravaganza, hosted by, of course, Jon Stewart and Rainn Wilson.

When I was invited to start blogging for IPEX, most of my film reading came from the trades: Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, IMDb Pro, Worldscreen, and C21, with the odd issue of Film Comment or Cahiers du cinema thrown in when I found the time to feel cultured. Over the last month, I’ve really enjoyed the chance to catch up on the state of online film blogging and am pleased to report that it’s a wild and woolly world out there with a lot of gems and really cutting edge information if you know where to look.  This week, I’m happy to present a satisfactorily comprehensive directory of film blogs, categorized under headings that make sense to me.

Coming soon: I get all Andrew Sarris on the list and offer my top picks, and top picks for industry professionals who are looking for the kind of alternative industry perspective blogs can provide.

Have I missed your blog?  I’d love to visit it, so please leave me a comment.