The Foreclosure Blog

Bet on Foreclosure Boom Turns Sour for Investors

2011-02-01T23:04:00.002-05:00

BUSINESS DAY

Published: February 1, 2011

Investors hoping to make millions buying the back-office operations of a foreclosure lawyer have come up short. #Foreclosure

Social Text Interview with Director Richard Ledes

2010-08-08T10:53:00.004-04:00

Interview by Kristina Huang with Richard Ledes, Director of "Foreclosure" published in the blog of Social Text.

"...the possibility of using the genre of horror to allow people to express the psychological truth of living in one time, but of having that time always, in a sense, haunted by the traumas of their own particular past..."

BBC's Tom Brook Visits the Set of Foreclosure

2010-06-10T19:35:00.000-04:00

Tom Brook, host of BBC's Talking Movies, recently visited the set of Foreclosure. BBC has run a video segment with exclusive footage including interviews with stars Michael Imperioli and Meital Dohan, as well as a sit down with writer/director Richard Ledes.

Michael Imperioli to star as "Foreclosure" lead

2010-05-06T19:53:00.005-04:00

The Hollywood Reporter and Variety have both announced the casting on Michael Imperioli as the lead in "Foreclosure."

The Hollwood Reporter writes:

The former "Sopranos" star joins Wendell Pierce, Bill Raymond, Jeff Burchfield, Meital Dohan, Brandon Gill, Spencer List, Tristan Laurence Perez, William Stone Mahoney and Roger Robinson in the creeper.

With a tagline of "ghosts don't move out," "Foreclosure" sets its action in a nearly empty, economically depressed neighborhood block, amid the real-life context of the mortgage crisis where so many homes are bank-owned.

Cast of "Foreclosure" Announced

2010-05-06T10:45:00.001-04:00

ShockTill You Drop, Dread Central, and ComingSoon have announced the cast for "Foreclosure."

Michael Imperioli ("The Sopranos") is set to star with Wendell Pierce ("The Wire," "Treme") and Bill Raymond joining him.

Announcing the “Foreclosure” store - all profits go straight to Haiti

2010-03-25T17:12:00.004-04:00

Hey! Have you noticed the “Store” tab on the “Foreclosure” website? We’ve got a wide selection of tees, sweats and caps bearing the “Rot and Decay Films” and “Foreclosure” logos. And from now until forever, we will donate all profits from the store to “Partners in Health” a non-profit organization working on the ground in Haiti for the last twenty years. So support Haiti and support independent film and get yourself a cool new t-shirt.

To learn more about Partners in Health, visit their website: www.pih.org

And www.ghostsdontmoveout.spreadshirt.com will take you directly to our store.

...in the lap of a ghost

2010-03-13T15:38:00.005-05:00

"I assure you that every audience in this house will be sitting in the lap of a ghost."

ATHOL FUGARD, the South African playwright, on a new theater in an area where 60,000 residents were driven from their homes during apartheid.

His Next Act: Driving Out Apartheid’s Ghost

Haiti and Horror Movies

2010-02-25T19:51:00.007-05:00

"Haiti and Horror Movies" is a six-minute video made by Rot & Decay Films that we hope you will watch and let us know what you think.

Scorsese and Horror

2010-02-24T20:39:00.002-05:00

FEARnet recently posted an article on The 12 Scariest Moments in Scorsese Movies in anticipation of "Shutter Island." A creepy trip through memory lane worth checking out.

Myths Obscure Voodoo, Source of Comfort in Haiti

2010-02-20T10:22:00.001-05:00

Dismissive attitudes follow a history of misrepresentation in American journalism and popular culture.

Shindo on Shindo

2010-02-15T10:15:00.009-05:00

Below is an excerpt from an interview between Kaneto Shindo and Joan Mellen.

The prolific Japanese director talks about his whole career. Below he discusses the social elements at work in his supremely eerie horror folktale, "Onibaba" (1964).

Mellen: I find the social dimension of your films very complex and interesting. Would you describe how in your films you depict the class struggle as it appeared both in history and society?

Shindo: Speaking about Onibaba in particular, my main historical interest focuses on ordinary people... their energy to carry themselves beyond the predicaments they encounter daily. I wish to describe the struggles of the so-called common people which usually never appear in recorded history. This is why I made Onibaba. My mind was always on the commoners, not on the lords, politicans, or anyone of name and fame. I wanted to convey the lives of down-to-earth people who live like weeds.

Mellen: In the setting of Onibaba I noticed that the people seemed very small, moving around a lake where the reeds were very tall and imposing.

Shindo: Yes, the tall, swaying reeds are my symbol of the world, the society which surrounds people. In Kuroneko bushes are used for the same symbolic end. Tall, densem swaying reeds represent the world in which these commoners live and to which the eyes of lords and politicians do not reach. My eyes, or rather the camera's eyes, is fixed to view the world from the very lowest level of society, not from the top.

Bushwick and the Housing Crisis

2010-02-11T18:24:00.003-05:00

Eva Sanchis of El Diario has published a series of articles for the newspaper on how the foreclosure crisis has impacted Bushwick. The Brooklyn neighborhood has been one of the hardest hit by the housing recession and Sanchis's slate of articles just go to show which New Yorkers are taking the worst toll in this damaged market.

Here is a link to an English language digest of what was a three article report (our Spanish speaking readers can find the first of the original articles right here)

Additionally, The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC hosted Eva Sanchis. This is the link to a podcast of that interview.

"Peeping Tom" and First-Person Horror

2010-02-08T00:12:00.011-05:00

The Criterion Collection recently announced that they are discontinuing a slate of StudioCanal owned titles. They’ve lost the DVD rights to films like “Grand Illusion,” “Pierrot Le Fou” and Jean Cocteau’s Orphic Trilogy.

(They are having an Out of Print Sale, linked here)

I was dismayed to see “Peeping Tom” on the list. I can think of few films so essential to our understanding of contemporary horror.

The film follows the murderous exploits of Mark Lewis, a solitary photographer who preys on women. Sometimes posing as a documentarian, Mark gets his victims in front of his 16mm film camera, he kills them with his tripod immortalizing their death throes on film.

The viewer is thrust into the point of view of the camera’s viewfinder, forcing us into identification with both the deadly mechanism and the deeply disturbed Mark. We become both the murderer and the means. Even more disconcerting is the allegorical significance of this approach. The viewer is confronted with their own voyeurism.

“Peeing Tom’s” first person aesthetic takes on a new significance when we consider the current horror film fixation with POV. Camera phones, video messaging, and other portable media have provided a new awareness of the first person field of vision that the modern horror film exploits. Movies like “Quarantine” and “Cloverfield” mimic familiar digital platforms as a foray into traditional zombie/infection and monster films respectively.

These are standard genre movies but they are always seem to be reaching to a higher level of verisimilitude. Their approach assumes that the familiarity of the first person digital viewpoint is what incites fear in the viewer. The limited range of vision offered by this approach can be genuinely terrifying (see "[REC]") but a film like “Peeping Tom” exposes an oversight these recent horror films make. They do not realize that identification with the monster is far more horrifying than relation to the victim. When we are forced to identify with the monster, we are faced with out own unrepresentable dark side.

John Carpenter’s "Halloween” aligns us with the central monster to great effect. The opening tracking shot gives us the POV of Michael Myers as a child.

The power of this opener is that it gives us a greater understanding of his monstrous pervasiveness. When we find ourselves yelling at the screen at some nubile slasher victim-“Don’t go into that house, whatever you do, don’t go in that damn house!”- it’s because we have this special access to the monster that Carpenter provides.

(please refer to this great explication of the opening of “Halloween” on Jim Emerson’s Scanners website: Opening Shots: Halloween)

This does not mean that victim identification and pro-sumer video are useless as horror strategies. Perhaps more successful than the strict video mimicry of a film like “Quarantine” is the hybrid method of “28 Days Later" which replicated the lo-fi look of broadcast style video without tethering the film to a visual conceit. The flip side of this aesthetic discussion is the practical use of video. "The Blair Witch Project" and "Paranormal Activity" -despite all their flaws and even- made their limitations a narrative virtue, far outstripping production costs upon release.

Interview Project - David Lynch

2010-02-06T15:36:00.004-05:00

Interviews with Americans made over the space of a road trip...

Rising FHA default rate foreshadows a crush of foreclosures

2010-02-06T14:18:00.005-05:00

By Dina ElBoghdady and Dan Keating

Washington Post Staff Writer

The share of borrowers who are falling seriously behind on loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration jumped by more than a third in the past year, foreshadowing a crush of foreclosures that could further buffet an agency vital to the housing market's recovery....

NEW YORK CITY IN SOUND

2010-02-05T20:44:00.007-05:00

"Manhattan Symphony" by Walter Murch and "New York from the 34th floor overlooking Central Park - The soundtrack for a film set in New York – circa 1970" by Michelangelo Antonioni
click ...

No Help in Sight, More Homeowners Walk Away

2010-02-04T14:29:00.001-05:00

By DAVID STREITFELD

Published: February 2, 2010

In 2006, Benjamin Koellmann bought a condominium in Miami Beach. By his calculation, it will be about the year 2025 before he can sell his modest home for what he paid. Or maybe 2040

Click here to read full article

Robin Wood and American Horror

2010-01-30T16:06:00.005-05:00

With the recent passing of the great film critic Robin Wood, I’ve taken to revisiting his articles. While he was a scholar, he produced articles and books with the swiftness of a journalist.

I’ve just reread my favorite piece by Wood: “An Introduction to the American Horror Film.” This was the first Wood article I encountered. I have a special place for it because he writes so passionately and insightfully about horror. Horror is so often belittled or entirely overlooked by critics. Wood shows us just how vital horror is and how meaningful it can be.

Here is a link to the full-article. Below is an excerpt that lays out some of his ideas.

I have been laying the foundations, stone by stone, for a theory of the American horror film which (without being exhaustive) should provide us with a means of approaching the films seriously and responsibly. One could, I think, approach any of the genres from the same starting-point; it is the horror film that responds in the most clear-cut and direct way, because central to it is the actual dramatization of the dual concept of the repressed/the Other, in the figure of the Monster. One might say that the true subject of the horror genre is the struggle for recognition of all that our civilization represses or oppresses: its re-emergence dramatized, as in our nightmares, as an object of horror, a matter for the terror, the “happy ending” (which exists) typically signifying the restoration of repression.

"The Shining" at IFC

2010-01-23T20:21:00.003-05:00

The IFC Center in New York screens midnight movies almost every weekend. The Shining is coming up at the end of the week. Here is a link for more info.

Open Letter

2010-01-18T16:11:00.007-05:00

Open Letter To Horror Film Bloggers, Fans and Makers:

How many of us have been touched by George Romero’s Night of The Living Dead, Jacques Tourneur’s I Walked With A Zombie, Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon or White Zombie by the Halperin brothers? These are just some of the many films that draw on the cultural heritage of Haiti in order to make outstanding works that continue to stay with us—to haunt us. Why cannot we as fans, critics and makers of horror films respond to the earthquake in Haiti just as the jazz community rallied around New Orleans in response to Katrina? Just as New Orleans has a special place in the history of Jazz, the culture of Haiti has a special connection to horror films.

One immediate action we can take on blogs is to provide prominent links so that visitors can make the connection and perhaps be further motivated to donate to organizations addressing the humanitarian crisis. We should also look for other ways to make a difference in Haiti.

Sincerely,

Richard Ledes

Director of FORECLOSURE

Help Earthquake Victims in Haiti

2010-01-13T21:41:00.037-05:00

Anyone making a horror film knows the importance of the culture of the people of Haiti to our art. Certainly we at FORECLOSURE know we owe a debt to this unique island and its people. We hope all makers and fans of horror films will acknowledge this connection with an outpouring of generosity to Haiti at this time.

Haiti Earthquake Relief: How You Can Help

From Paul Haas, Executive Director AIDG:

For those wishing to have an immediate impact on populations in Port au Prince we are recommending supporting the medical response teams of Partners In Health, www.pih.org

MICHAEL HANEKE UNCUT: Talking shop,

2010-01-13T15:06:00.007-05:00

theory, and practice with the director of The White Ribbon
by Alexander Horwath

Éric Rohmer (4 April 1920 – 11 January 2010)

2010-01-12T17:27:00.007-05:00

"Adieu, Eric Rohmer." Perhaps, "Au revoir" is more fitting, since we will continue to re-watch his films.

1977 Interview with Eric Rohmer from zenfoolio on Vimeo.

"The Caller" on Showtime! Now!

2010-01-06T14:05:00.002-05:00

Catch Richard Ledes' second film "The Caller," starring Elliot Gould and Frank Langella on Showtime in January. From the Tribeca Film Festival catalogue, where the film premiered in 2008:

The past catches up with the present in Richard Ledes' riveting neo-noir. A quiet cat-and-mouse thriller, The Caller is led by the captivating Frank Langella and stellar Elliott Gould. Langella plays Jimmy Stevens, an executive at an international energy firm. When he decides to blow the whistle on his company's corrupt practices in Latin America, he knows his fate-he will be killed for treason, so he anonymously hires private detective Frank Turlotte (Gould) to stay on his tail. Turlotte reluctantly accepts the job, but unbeknownst to him, the man he was hired to investigate and the man who hired him are one and the same. As Stevens' and Turlotte's lives continue to intertwine, puzzle pieces fall together, and the secrets of the past start to explain the future. Ledes-whose first feature, A Hole in One, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2004-displays an assured growth and versatility with The Caller. With A Hole in One, he showed a flare for using a strong, somewhat surreal visual style, butThe Caller employs a more restrained and muted grace that heightens the underlying tension throughout. Frank Langella delivers an understated performance that subtly evokes all the complexities of his character. Gould is a natural complement to Langella, and along with Laura Harring (Mulholland Drive) as an exquisite femme fatale, the trio brings a natural sophistication to Ledes' and Alain Didier-Weill's sharp, labyrinthine script.

Lars Von Trier on handheld camera

2009-12-17T18:20:00.001-05:00

From an interview with Lars Von Trier by Lars K. Anderson:

I had a discussion about it with my editor Tómas Gislason before we started working on the “The Kingdom,” and we started to move in the direction of using more handheld camera… I’ve always been very concerned, ultimately, with aesthetics: panning, dolly shots—with parallel movements especially. However what really opened things up for me was an American television series called Homicide: Life On the Streets by Barry Levinson… It’s generous view on the 180-degree rules of filmmaking was very interesting…. We’ve thrown out all those 180-degree rules, and its really so cool. … But it’s not just the 180-degree rules that are absent. We’ve also brought another great animal to slaughter: the continuity. When you do the scene you normally have one set idea about how the actors will play the scene… We asked them to play the same scene five times in five different ways—cheerfully, gloomily, et cetera—and at different places in the room every time. We then intercut these different takes, and then you watch it, you’ll perceive it as a perfectly normal take. You create the missing links in your brain. But performance-wise, you really get into some territory that makes for more interesting characters.