If you want to get New Yorkers’ attention, you’ll have to do something drastic…like hiring surrealist director David Lynch (Eraserhead) to direct a “Clean Up New York” PSA.  Apparently, the rampant littering problem in New York was slightly more concerning than the ravenous hordes of blood-thirsty rats that seethed beneath the city streets.  This PSA stops just short of a full-scale outbreak of bubonic plague.  All because you couldn’t be bothered to throw away your popsickle wrapper.  For shame.  Hit the jump to check it out.

The documentary Side by Side is certainly one of the most interesting projects I’ve learned about in the past few months, and now it looks as though the film will be heading to a theater near you this summer. Tribeca Film announced today that it has acquired North American rights to the documentary produced and presented by Keanu Reeves. The film explores the evolving landscape of filmmaking, specifically the advent of digital and how its popularity affects traditional filmmaking. While that subject matter alone is worth exploring, Reeves and director Chris Kenneally sat down with nearly every master filmmaker working today to get their musings on the future of moviemaking.

Side by Side features interviews with James Cameron, David Fincher, George Lucas, Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Stephen Soderbergh, the Wachowskis, and many, many more. You can watch the trailer right here. Tribeca Film is planning a multi-platform summer release for the pic, followed by a broadcast premiere early next year in addition to screenings at college campuses and film schools across the country. The film is having its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. Hit the jump to read the full press release.

A little over a week ago, a curious little documentary was announced called Side by Side. The project, spearheaded by Keanu Reeves, features interviews with a number of master filmmakers regarding the film vs. digital debate. Now the first trailer for the film has popped up and Side by Side is officially one of my most anticipated movies of 2012. The trailer showcases Reeves having candid conversations about the death of film (and the advent of 3D) with people like George Lucas, Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese, James Cameron, and Steven Soderbergh. It looks incredibly intriguing, and I can’t wait to hear today’s foremost filmmakers weigh in on the future of moviemaking.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer. Side by Side will be released sometime this year.

A curious little website has popped up announcing a new documentary produced by Keanu Reeves that tackles one of the foremost issues facing filmmakers today: the advent of digital filmmaking. Entitled Side by Side, the documentary takes an in-depth look at the issue of film vs. digital, and “examines all aspects of filmmaking – from capture, to edit, to visual effects, to color correction, to distribution to archive.” Through interviews with numerous well-respected masters of the medium, Side by Side “explores what has been gained, what is lost and what the future might bring.” Take this sample quote from Christopher Nolan:

“No credible source really has been claiming to have invented something that is aesthetically superior to film at this point.”

The documentary will feature Reeves interviewing filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, Lana and Andy Wachowski, George Lucas, James Cameron, Steven Soderbergh, and many more. Hit the jump for more details.

David Lynch’s 1986 film Blue Velvet is a masterpiece, one of the great achievements of cinema. But as the new Blu-ray suggests, making it involved getting the exact right balance of tone – 52 minutes of newly discovered deleted scenes are included and they show that Lynch had to get the right mix between the standard mystery/noir plot and his more out there sensibilities. He found it, but any one of those additional scenes might have ruined that balance.

Kyle MacLachlan stars as Jeffery Beaumont, who comes home from college after his father has a stroke. While sorting out his feelings, he finds an ear, which he takes to the cops. From there he’s sucked into a different world featuring a singer (Isabella Rossellini) and a madman (Dennis Hopper). Our review of the Blu-ray of Blue Velvet follows after the jump.

If you’re a fan of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, Threadless just put on sale a cool Twin Peaks related t-shirt called “Welcome to Twin Peaks.”  As you can see in the pictures above and after the jump, the shirt is the type you’d buy at a tourist center, or in a town gift shop.  In the lower right corner, it lists off some of the famous locations like the Timber Falls Motel, Mo’s Motor, Big Ed’s Gas Farm, and a number of other places.  Like all Threadless t-shirts, they only print up a limited number, so if you like it, don’t wait too long.

There are only 100 copies left of Kevin Tong’s poster for David Lynch’s Dune and he’ll be selling them tomorrow, April 12th, at a random time.  The 18″ x 24″ screenprint will cost you $100.  All of the prints are signed and numbered.  US shipping is $6 and international shipping is $10.

Hit the jump to check out the poster and video of its creation.

Director David Lynch (Blue Velvet) has released his first original electronic single “Good Day Today”, backed with the narcotic blues track “I Know”, on iTunes.  Lynch has signed the track to UK indie label Sunday Best Recordings.  Sunday Best has commissioned a set of remixes of “Good Day Today” set for release in January.

While this is Lynch’s first original electronic single, the legendary filmmaker has been creating music for decades.  He composed bits of music for Wild at Heart, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, Mulholland Drive, and Rabbits.  He also produced and wrote lyrics for Julee Cruise’s first two albums, “Floating Into the Night” and “The Voice of Love”.  Lynch recently collaborated on the album “Dark Knight of the Soul” with Sparklehouse and Danger Mouse.  Click here to go buy “Good Day Today” on iTunes and hit the jump for the full press release.

Although I wouldn’t watch a movie on an iPod Touch or an iPhone, you can now do so if you wish if you own one or both of the apple products and have a Netflix membership.  Netflix announced today via its blog that the free Netflix app that was announced back in June is available starting today.  Netflix released an app earlier this year for the iPad when the device first launched.  I thought the app looked very slick and cool, and I could easily see myself using a lot if I owned an iPad. Having said that, there are a couple of differences in inches between an iPad screen and an iPhone/iPod Touch screen and I really think that viewing something on such a little window is robbing you of a film’s full enjoyment.

However, I know that a lot of people are fine with watching stuff on their iPhone and if you’re one of those people all you have to do is visit the app store, download the free app, and within a few seconds you will be able to stream any of the films and TV shows that are available in their massive Watch Instantly section.  Even if I’m not a fan of watching movies on your phone, you can’t deny that this is pretty cool and another indication that being able to stream movies and TV shows will only become more and more popular in the future.  After the jump, you can watch the classic video of David Lynch giving his thoughts about watching a movie in the palm of your hand.

There’s talk of a remake of Dune. That would be the third go at the material, after David Lynch’s fascinating 1984 version, and Syfy’s mini-series. Maybe this goes forward, maybe it doesn’t, but I find it hard to believe any version could top Lynch’s flawed opus. The premise of this space opera is this: Kyle MacLachlan stars as Paul Atreides, a young prince prophesized to change the galaxy. His family is involved in a political struggle with everyone trying to control “the spice” on the desert planet Arrakis. Just from that you can tell there are lots of worlds and ideas that make this one a bit of a head scratch, but once you get past all that, it’s a lush visual fantasy. My review of the Blu-ray of Dune after the jump.

Chase Palmer has been hired to write director Pierre Morel’s (Taken, From Paris With Love) version of Dune at Paramount.  According to THR, Palmer will be working with Morel to stick close to the original source material, which is the 1965 classic book by Frank Herbert.   As most of you know, David Lynch took a crack at Dune back in 1984 at Universal.

It’s important to note while Palmer has been hired to write the script, that doesn’t mean Dune is moving in front of the cameras anytime soon.  With what has to be a huge budget and complicated source material to adapt, many have tried to get Dune off the ground with little success (Peter Berg).  Just because a hot director wants to make the film, doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.  It’s going to take a lot of happy studio executives and some big name stars to get this thing rolling.  More as we hear it.

In the past couple of days, two highly-respected directors have taken a moment away from feature filmmaking and turned their attention to music videos, which are basically the mainstream form of short films.  The music video for Mia Doi Todd’s “Open Your Heart” is unmistakably Gondry by using special effects with no technology or visual trickery.  It’s just good, old-fashioned choreography, costuming, and editing.  Like most of Gondry’s work, the video has that nice, do-it-yourself charm that some may brush off as quirk but only if they don’t understand the effort and craft that goes into making that “quirk”.

But then there’s a music promo from David Lynch for a young artist named Ariana Delawari.  Lynch doesn’t really do music videos although that’s not really an accurate representation of this work.  This is more of a group of tiny music videos where each video is based on a brief excerpt from of each of Delwari’s songs.  Don’t expect Gondry’s production values, but it is neat to see Lynch readjust his style for each song.  And while I’ll be the first to admit my taste in music is non-existent, I really enjoyed Delwari’s tunes and it makes me want to pick up her album, Lion of Panjshir.

You can check out Gondry’s music video and Lynch’s music promo after the jump.

It’s been almost 10 years since David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr. made its debut in theaters, but it still holds a very high place in the hearts of L.A. film critics. Here’s is [via Indiewire] the L.A. Film Critics Association’s just-released Best of the ’00s list:

1. Mulholland Dr. -  David Lynch
2. There Will Be Blood -  Paul Thomas Anderson
3. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind -  Michel Gondry
4. Brokeback Mountain -  Ang Lee
5. No Country for Old Men -  Joel and Ethan Coen / Zodiac -  David Fincher (tie)
6. Yi Yi -  Edward Yang
7. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days – Cristian Mungiu / The Lord of the Rings – Peter Jackson (tie)
8. Spirited Away -  Hayao Miyazaki
9. United 93 – Paul Greengrass / Y Tu Mama Tambien -  Alfonso Cuaron (tie)
10. Sideways -  Alexander Payne

Hit the jump for my thoughts on their Top 10 as well as my personal list for the best of the last decade.

As a movie fan, there are times that I wish I could say “once more, with feeling,” and watch films with interesting premises and paths suddenly replay with the feeling and intrigue that they’re sorely lacking – the missing ingredient that could make them thrive. It’s easy to disregard a film with a faulty premise and delivery, but it’s not so easy to stomach the films with promise not met, like “My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?,” “The Good Heart,” and “Harry Brown.”

Hit the jump for more on these three TIFF films.

Bill Pullman is the quintessential actor whose choice of roles has covered the width and breadth of American cinema. Trained in the theater and equally at home on the film screen or the television screen, Pullman personifies the ‘every man hero’ in such roles as the President of the United States in Roland Emmerich’s Independence Day as easily as the slightly left of center characters like the Mafia ‘fixer’ in John Dahl’s You Kill Me and the saxophonist Fred Madison in David Lynch’s Lost Highway.

In his latest film, Surveillance, Pullman plays FBI agent Sam Hallaway who, along with partner Elizabeth Anderson (Julia Ormond), investigates a string of violent murders and heinous crime scenes that plague a long stretch of highway across a windy, barren landscape. In this darkly disturbing, Rashomon-inspired thriller directed by Jennifer Lynch and executive produced by David Lynch, the Feds slowly expose the fragile little details each witness conceals so carefully with a well practiced lie. But, when the ‘truth’ finally begins to emerge, it comes at an enormous price that no one expects.