Honeydripper, a film by John Sayles

The DVD of “Honeydripper” with lots of extras will be available on June 24th.

124 minutes, AC-3, Color, 5.1 Surround Sound, Widescreen,
NTSC
Special Bonus Features: Cast and Filmmaker Interviews, Director’s Commentary,
Behind the Scenes, Spanish Subtitles

You can pre-buy it NOW and get a special sale price of $19.99.

Click HERE to buy.

I stumbled across the following blog, which takes off on the Honeydripper self-release to discuss the state of distribution. I quote it in its entirety with permission from the author…

Saturday, February 02, 2008

The Digital Divide

Okay I’m a realist at heart. I wasn’t that way earlier in my career, but I am now, and I think you have to be in this business if you ever want to do some serious work, and make some money at it. I read an interview with John Sayles the filmmaker. His film Honeydripper is out now, and he and his long time creative producer & partner Maggie Renzi are promoting it. Now I find Sayles to be an extraordinary filmmaker & writer, and I admire how he gets his films done. Honeydripper is his 16th film he’s done, and the Sayles doesn’t seem to be slowing down. In the article Sayles and Renzi discuss the difficulty of getting a film financed in today’s market. Both Honeydripper and Silver City were self-financed for a little over $5 million. I don’t know where you come from, but $5 million is a lot of cash, and yet it still isn’t enough. Factor in advertising & marketing expenses and your costs go up. Renzi mentions that it is easier for filmmakers now to finance their films in Europe then here in the United States, and Sayles may just do that in the future.

If a filmmaker like Sayles is struggling what chance does a guy from Philly have? But that’s if you think of filmmaking as it was. It isn’t like that anymore. The story you tell still has to be smart, and worth hearing, but the delivery of it is different. How do you do it? How do you reach enough people to generate interest in either sales of your own DVD or downloads? That’s the million-dollar question everyone is asking including the studios. Yes even the studios are craving your dollar, and they want to know how they can get more of it. But what the studios can’t do and what you can do is instantly react to market forces. You can be quicker, and faster.

(more…)

I’d like to know who the person who wrote this is…

Acting: John Sayles has been fearless in writing about, and directing, black folks for more than three decades, and never succumbs to the white man’s curse of making us saints, savants, or simpletons. His black characters are admirably complex and grounded in a recognizable American reality. Still, even he’s never quite risen to the heights he reaches in Honeydripper, a comic drama set in 1950s Alabama amidst the beginning surge of rock ‘n’ roll. It’s not just that the principal cast is black but that the movie’s world and perspective is entirely African-American. Whites—Stacy Keach as a corrupt but essentially benign sheriff, Mary Steenburgen as an aloof southern belle—are basically bystanders; the black folks run Honeydripper. Danny Glover, Charles S. Dutton, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Yaya DaCosta, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Keb’ Mo’ and newcomer Gary Clark, Jr. all give fine, nuanced performances. Sayles grounds them in a world so tactile, and allows them to play in it so well, that the Honeydripper Lounge feels like a place that exists before and after the viewer enters the movie. Glover and Dutton, playing old friends, push and pull at each other’s behavior. The gentle, but long-simmering, attractions and arguments between characters have gone on for years, and create a network that’s as close to a fully realized black southern community as I’ve seen. The actor spin and expand that web line by line, gesture by gesture, until it’s something perhaps even greater than Sayles intended—a portrait of black life in flux but also in curious stability.

http://quietbubble.typepad.com/quiet_bubble/2008/02/of-time-and-fes.html

The American Cinematheque at the Aero Theatre will host a special retrospective and tribute to filmmaker John Sayles, taking place the weekend of January 4 through 6. For the event, there will be in-person appearances by and Q&A sessions with Sayles to go along with a selection of some of his best movies, including Lone Star, Baby, It’s You, City of Hope, Brother From Another Planet and his newest film, Honeydripper - the latter kicking off the feting.From his beginnings as a novelist and versatile screenwriter-for-hire (Jurassic Park IV is next on his plate in that regard) to his development into one of the leading voices in American independent film, Sayles has demonstrated an increasingly penetrating insight into contemporary life in his 16 films as a director. Capable of writing blue collar laborers, billionaire moguls, would-be mothers and everyone in between, Sayles presents a vision of America more varied in subject matter and tone than arguably any other working modern day filmmaker.

The Aero Theatre is located at 1328 Montana Avenue in Santa Monica.
Tickets for all films and events are available through Fandango, but for 24-hour recorded information on directions and the Aero’s upcoming schedule, phone (323) 466-FILM.

More info here

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Thanks to Charles Burnett for writing in to share his thoughts on “Honeydripper.” Charles is one of my favorite filmmakers, and it’s been such a thrill to see his early work being rediscovered. Check out Charles’ blog. I hope Charles will keep contributing.

After a great response in Toronto, we had the New York Premiere of “Honeydripper” as the Opening Night of Independent Film Week. Lots of great coverage, but here’s one of the more comprehensive pieces…

http://www.thereeler.com/features/a_sayles_job.php

I’ve always loved the summer in New York City. When others are running away to traffic-clogged resort towns, I like hanging around the city and taking in whatever surprises may be around the next corner. Among my favorite activities are margaritas at the 79th Street Boat Basin, bicycling on the path in Hudson River Park and kayaking in the Hudson itself. On days where I do all three of those things, I call it my triathalon.

My very favorite thing to do in the summer is to go to outdoor concerts, and last Tuesday night, I saw a great one. The Honeydripper All-Star band was performing at the River-to-River Festival in lower Manhattan. This is the house band from John Sayles’ new film “Honeydripper,” which Emerging will be releasing late this year. This particular night was only the second time the band had played together, but you wouldn’t have known it from watching them. They were hot! We’ve posted a clip from the concert at http://www.emergingpictures.com/hd_band.htm, so you can get a taste. This first clip features Gary Clark Jr., who in addition to being a major new music talent, is also the star of the film. We’ll post some more clips as the weeks go on, so you can see the other amazing musicians in the band. And watch for more information about the band’s upcoming performances. They may turn up in some unexpected places.

Now back to the triathalon…