Sarah Diamond, ex-Slamdance Chief: The Media Diet (Flix99.com)
Sarah Diamond, ex-Slamdance Chief: The Media Diet
The ex-head of Slamdance loves Werner Herzog and Douglas Sirk. 
It’ll be a bit strange at Slamdance this year without one of its most familiar faces. For eight years Sarah Diamond was a fixture at the little festival at the treasure Mountain Inn, the the upstart answer to Sundance’s Geoff Gilmore, only without the girth and goatee. She recently stepped away from Slamdance to pursue a career in law; she’ll be at Harvard this fall. Now with her media consumption opened up to things beyond Slamdance submissions, we caught up with her to talk about Flannery O’Connor, Project Runway and why Werner Herzog should let the Bad Lieutenant remake slide and make a movie about the Smiths instead.
What films or television shows have you seen recently?
Project Runway, and I can’t wait for Real Housewives of Atlanta to start.
Which ones stuck with you and why?
Mystery Diagnosis is also great. If you’re going to watch TV you may as well indulge yourself.
How have your film viewing tastes and routines evolved since before becoming a festival programmer and after you stopped?
My tastes have involved after seeing so many great and different types of films. Now that I am no longer with a festival I will take that experience with me. But my tastes are the same.
How often do you read fiction? Do you wish you read more?
I definitely don’t read fiction enough especially since I have a MFA in creative writing. Whenever I need a fix I pull out a Flannery O’Connor short story collection though
What would be the ideal literary adaptation and why?
Severin’s Journey into Dark would be great. It’s very dark and takes place at the collapse of the Hapsburg Empire.
How, if at all, has reading informed your taste in cinema?
Great work is great work. Reading an outstanding book is a perfect compliment to a powerful film. Reading a Donald Barthelme story and then watching a Douglas Sirk film is a pretty amazing way to spend an afternoon
What are you listening to recently?
The Chills, Skip Spence, Disco Inferno, Clan of Xymox
What would be the ideal pairing of filmmaker and musician for a concert film? Why?
Werner Herzog and The Smiths, just because they are both so fucking amazing. A great blend of adventure and brutal intimacy all under a blanket of eccentricity.
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FilmCouch #86: Happy-Go-Lucky and Adam Resurrected, Telluride 2008
We chat with some of the best filmmakers in Telluride (and the world): Mike Leigh and Paul Schrader! 
The Telluride Film Festival is what Sundance would be if it took place in heaven. Every year the tiny mountain hamlet hosts four days of hassle-free cinema paradise. There were grumblings about the lack of American films, but we still found plenty to love. Mike Leigh (Secrets and Lies, Vera Drake) came with his delightful new movie, Happy-Go-Lucky. He sat down for a disgruntled yet insightful interview. Paul Schrader (Affliction, Hardcore) seemed as blow away as we were by his latest film, Adam Resurrected, starring Jeff Goldblum.
(Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store or to our RSS feed and an episode will download each Friday)
0:00 - Intro, Telluride faves: Waltz with Bashir, Revanche, The Good, the Bad, and the Weird, Tulpan, The Rest is Silence.
7:04 - Happy-Go-Lucky, with Mike Leigh interview.
19:52 - Adam Resurrected, with Paul Schrader interview.
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The Real Ghostbusters III. Trade Roughage 09/05/08
A new installment of Ghostbusters is on the way to theaters. Plus: husband and wife cast in a Charles Darwin biopic; Denzel wanders around America post-apocalypse; Tarantino pisses off Germans; and Nic Cage will rule the box office this weekend.
- Or is it technically Ghostbusters IV? Columbia Pictures has hired writers Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, both of TV’s The Office, to script a new installment of the Ghostbusters series, which was previously thought to be hitting a final note with an upcoming video game (which Dan Aykroyd led us to believe was pretty much “Ghostbusters III”). The Hollywood Reporter claims that while the new sequel may involve the original cast, the main focus will be with a rookie cast of Ghostbusters.
- Paul Bettany, who played a kind of precursor to Charles Darwin in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, will actually portray the famous evolution theorist in the biopic Creation (formerly titled Origin), scripted by Master and Commander’s John Collee and to be directed by Jon Amiel (The Core). Bettany’s real wife, Jennifer Connelly, will play Darwin’s wife/first cousin, Emma.
- Albert and Allen Hughes will finally follow-up their 2001 period-set From Hell with the post-apocalypse-set Book of Eli, which will star Denzel Washington as a man “who must fight across America to bring society the knowledge that could be the key to its redemption.”
- Tarantino’s Inglorious Bastards script is pissing off the Germans.
- According to Variety, as long as male audiences aren’t too busy with the new football season or summer leftovers, Nic Cage and his latest crapfest, Bangkok Dangerous, should top the box office this weekend.
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