Kickstarter

CHICAGO the film may not make money or win mainstream attention, it could challenge traditional filmmaking without being constrained to fatigued formulas. That many scrutinizing eyes can see something special that Hollywood suits might nix.

CHICAGO – Double Fine Productions delves into the deepest, most repressed parts of the imagination and brings the wonders it finds into our reality. I took a long while to play and review “Broken Age,” the company’s Kickstarter darling, not because it was long or overly difficult, but because I was left thinking about the game constantly once I finished.

CHICAGO – Writer, director and lead actor Zach Braff has put it on the line for his latest feature, “Wish I Was Here.” He infamously used a crowd funding Kickstarter campaign to maintain creative control of the film, but he needn’t have bothered. The movie result is a sappy, high concept emotional manipulator with no basis in authenticity, and that might be the best thing that can be said about it.

CHICAGO – Zach Braff is an amiable personality, making his mark as “J.D.” on the TV sitcom “Scrubs” and the cult film “Garden State” (2004), which he wrote and directed. For his most recent project, he made show business headlines by using the website Kickstarter to “crowd fund” his latest film, “Wish I Was Here.”

CHICAGO – The ‘mumblecore’ movement, an early post-millennium film style, is now termed more accurately as movies on a “micro budget.” These films take advantage of today’s cheaper and more accessible technology for creating projects, and then finance them for less money. A new source in underwriting filmmaking costs is “crowdfunding,” and director Kevin Hanna is using that technique to subsidize his new film, “Rose’s Colored Glasses.”

CHICAGO – The McHenry Outdoor Theater, one of the last remaining drive-in movie venues in America, will be holding a fundraiser on Friday, Oct. 5 and 6, 2012. The event will help raise money to purchase a new digital projector, which the historic venue needs to stay in business. The theater is located at 1510 Chapel Hill Road in McHenry, Ill.

CHICAGO – One of the best urban legacies in older cities like Chicago is the revitalization of venerable movie palaces, and one of the those stories in 2011 was the reopening of the Patio Theater. Located on the northwest side of the city at Irving Park Road and Austin Avenue, the Patio recently reached a goal on the fundraising website Kickstarter to purchase new digital projection, which will allow it to remain open.

CHICAGO – There’s been a mix-up. Distraught couple Jakob and Helene were not expecting to host a kid for the local tennis tournament this year, and yet James has mistakenly shown up anyway. Mourning the loss of their son, the couple suddenly begins to relive their past as the tennis star engages in a charade that threatens to culminate in certain disaster.