strathalbions

ACCENT UNDERGROUND are finally set to release the DVD of Alex Frayne's Australian cult psychodrama MODERN LOVE.

The release is slated for April 10, but pre-orders will be taken in the lead-up.
Supply is limited, but pre-orders before April 10 will be guaranteed.

Special extras includes 4 short films by the director made in the mid-90's - ZOYD, THE ART OF TABLOID, THE LONGING, and the sexual-sadist and rarely seen film DOCTOR BY DAY (1999).

The DVD can be ordered via the following links:

http://www.ezydvd.com.au/item.zml/798799
http://www.devoteddvd.com.au/shop/pr...ducts_id=43481
http://www.dvdorchard.com.au/Product...he=0%2E5254785


FURTHER LINKS:

ACCENT UNDERGROUND
http://www.accentfilm.com/product.cf...at=%20Mw%3D%3D

VARIETY MAG REVIEW
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117...goryid=31&cs=1

IMDB LISTING
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0808380/





NEW ZEALAND THEATRICAL REVIEW - by Graeme Tuckett, DOMINION POST, Wellington, NZ

Modern Love.
Directed by Alex Frayne.
Starring Mark Constable, Victoria Hill.
M. 95 minutes.
4 stars out of 4

Modern Love is a quietly brilliant and entirely unexpected film. Here's a set up: John, a prosperous Adelaide businessman, inherits an old fishing shack from his childhood mentor 'Old Tom'. Tom is dead -apparently- by his own hand, and it falls to John to take over the house, put Tom's affairs in order, and in doing so, revisit the past that he has kept from his own family. John packs up his wife and young son, and drives them to the haunts of his childhood. And there, things take a turn for the frankly terrifying. Modern Love opens at a quiet pace. Details are slowly sketched in, a family dynamic is convincingly teased out of some sparse dialogue and nicely underplayed lead performances. Comparisons to Kubrick's The Shining - Jack Nicholson and family driving into the mountains to winter over in an old hotel- are unavoidable and probably intentional: We know that things will go terribly wrong, but we still hope, somehow, that these likable people can avoid whatever it is that this place, and their own pasts, have prepared for them. Its an old plot, but it hasn't been done quite this well for decades. So if the pace of Modern Love's first few scenes might seem a little sedentary, and if the film pretty much demands that its audience sit up and pay attention, and even if director Alex Frayne does occasionally wear his influences -Kubrick, Tarkovsky, Roeg and Haneke at least I reckon- a little too proudly; then please: Take all of that as a recommendation to go and see this disconcerting little slice of Aussie Gothic. Modern Love is an audaciously impressive low-budget gem: beautifully shot, stunningly sound tracked, and written with a gentle malevolence that'll stay with you for days after watching it. Modern Love is the best thing playing in town this week. No contest.

flixtime

Welcome to the forum, strathalbions!

This film - MODERN LOVE - had completely slipped under my radar prior to reading your very thorough post. The movie certainly seems quite promising. I'll be placing my pre-order later today. Thanks for taking the time to share in such detail.

flixtime

Found a brief - shy of 2 minutes - clip of the opening scene to the film on youtube. For those interested, here it is:

MODERN LOVE (2006) - youtube clip of opening scene

andicus

Damn, I thought it was going to be a re-release of The Year My Voice Broke.

Oh well, the clip looks intriguing, regardless.

Thanks!

strathalbions

Hey mate,
thanks do much for your welcome and your desire to buy the film. At the moment, my income for the next 6 months will rely on any dvd sales I can muster, so, if you have any ideas for me or links to broad ways I can market it, I'd be grateful.



regards

alex frayne - DIRECTOR, MODERN LOVE

BuddhaWake

So Alex, is this is the case, is there any way to get it directly from you?

flixtime

Well, color me surprised...a real live film director amongst us! No wonder your initial post was so darned thorough. For what it's worth, I'll be pre-ordering my DVD copy from dvdcrave most likely.

We've got a bunch of smart and helpful folks around here, so I expect the advice to start flowing. As far as selling your DVD, if I were you, I'd contact Tony at xploitedcinema.com and see what deal you guys can strike in regard to stocking your DVD. You will find no better import DVD seller in the United States. Should come in handy for those who are reluctant to place overseas orders. Tony is a great guy!

The ringmaster over at twitchfilm.net posts here as does a former point man for that site. They are DVDTalkers twitch and logboy respectively. Maybe go over to twitchfilm.net and get in touch with Todd Brown (aka DVDTalker twitch) and see if he might do a post on your film.

I'd expect DVDTalker Pro-B will chime in here sooner rather than later. He is also a DVD reviewer for this site and well-respected at this and other forums. Also DVD reviewer Ian Jane at this site might be a point of contact. He does reviews for this site but also has his own well-respected site dvdmaniacs.net (their forum is down for maintenance but should be up-and-running any day now). Your funds might be tight, but I'd chance a couple of DVD copies of your film for their review. Hopefully a DVD review from Pro-B aka Svet, Ian Jane/dvdmaniacs, or Twitchfilm will get your DVD linked over at DVD-Basen.dk (great DVD review database for films from around the world).

What else? I wonder if someone like Tim Lucas - author of the celebrated book on Mario Bava - might be persuaded to do a blog entry or perhaps a film review for a future issue of his print magazine Video Watchdog. He has a blog over at videowatchdog.blogspot.com. Also worth a look for you might be the Classic Horror Film Board at monsterkidclassichorrorforum.yuku.com; I'd expect some industry types must hang around there.

So that's my first salvo in regard to marketing for paupers. I'd expect there are others who would have a better grasp of the industry as opposed to me the lowly dude-who-watches-too-many-movies, so hopefully some more effective and efficient market-to-the-masses advice is to follow.

But to start, getting a mention over at twitchfilm.net would be a good start.

And what's the saying about "advice being worth what you pay for it", I hope that isn't the case here and I wish you success in marketing your film.

strathalbions

thanks so much for your amazing response mate. I've been looking at it for 5 mins now, and am starting some plans.

It's being distributed only via Australian websites, and will probably only get to US and Europe later, if at all.

So I'm trying to get people to go this these websites below:

http://www.ezydvd.com.au/item.zml/798799

http://www.devoteddvd.com.au/shop/pr...ducts_id=43481

http://www.dvdorchard.com.au/Product...he=0%2E5254785

Before it disappears forever. The distribution company only does local Oz territories.

So, I reckon get the DVD now. It comes with some bizarro shorts I did in the 90's and is in full 16:9.

Right now I'm getting onto the twitch guy...

ill be back

flixtime

strathalbions aka Alex aka Director Frayne, how is your grassroots marketing campaign going...any sparks of hope from Twitch or other corners of the 'net?

If you are running up against a brick wall, and it doesn't conflict with any plans you might have...any chance you could do a sort of question & answer session with members of this International forum? I was thinking maybe I could start a separate thread/discussion where you could answer any questions we might have about your film or filmmaking in general. I'm curious about your thoughts in regard to the title of your film, stuff like...in hindsight do you feel you might have benefited (in the marketing sense) by opting for a more eye-catching/cultish title? So, just general inquiries of that ilk. I can't speak for my comrades here in this forum, but I do have a couple of questions, maybe that would be the end of it, or maybe they might be curious too and have questions of their own.

pro-bassoonist

Hello Alex:

I read your posts here and if you are interested in having your film/DVD reviewed please contact me at [email protected]. I also contribute on quite a few non-English forums so I shall be able to post elsewhere as well.

Yours,
Pro-B

strathalbions

I'd love to do a Q and A!

I travelled with the film to 20 world film festivals so am happy to do the same here.

Fire away with the questions...

ps is there an alert system, so my email address tells me when there's a question?

My email address is [email protected]

Or I could just check back regularly..

ps Twitch film were sent the movie...

a

flixtime

Many thanks Alex for your willingness to do a Q&A with us. I don't recall a director ever jumping in with the rest of us here in the forums and giving we commoners a chance to interact, ask questions, and such. I'm looking forward to it. Maybe let's give it a couple of days before starting, this thread will be read by more people by then (hopefully). As of now, maybe we can kick things off to coincide with the scheduled DVD release on the 10th of this month. Also, I wonder if we should do it here or in Movie Talk (which might offer more exposure). As of now, I'm thinking a thread title along the lines of "DVD Talk Forum Exclusive!!! Q&A with Australian film director Alex Frayne". Obviously, the "exclusive" bit is just for sales purposes, and though it might not be true, it sure sounds good. Anyway guys, chime in with any thoughts on this whole thing. As far as questions, maybe after the thread is started around the 10th, Alex, you can give it a day or so for questions to start coming in (which I hope they do), and then field the first batch. Let me think about this a little first...and everyone start thinking about what they might want to ask or how we should run this. It would be great too Alex, if in the future (early May maybe), you can check in and field some more questions as it might take a couple of weeks at least for those of us outside Australia to receive the DVD and watch the film. When things are all set with the Q&A thread, we'll let you know...so you've got at least a couple of days to relax as far as this forum is concerned.

From what I recall, the most successful grassroots marketing ever done at DVD Talk was by Sunny Leone...but she was a porn star and she'd be real tough to top (for newbies, that was the not so long ago days before Adult Talk broke off into its own site). Actually, a buddy and I were talking about this the other day and he was wondering why more mainstream film types don't interact more often on any of the various forums around the 'net. Anyway, this should be cool!

BuddhaWake

Alex, subscribe to the thread by going to the top right corner "Thread Tools" click down and subscribe. that way you'll get an alert when someone posts here. I LOVE the idea of a Q&A but would probably like the idea better once I've seen the film.

For the rest of the talkers, what's the best site to order from Australia. ezdvd seems to have pretty high shipping. I've only ever used homesick.com.au but as of a few days ago they didn't have it. they have a flat rate for shipping dvds and is cheap so they are the only ones I used before. any suggestions?

flix, the Sunny Leone days makes me feel old. And on the grassroots side, I want to know which retailer is going to put the most money in fellow talker Alex's pocket so i can get it from them.

strathalbions

I'm all set - I'll check the forum while it's all going and answer questions as best as poss and as fully as I can.

I mentioned the fests last thread.

FYI the film went to:

MOSCOW FF
LOCARNO FF
SAO PAULO FF
KANSAS FF
ECU PARIS
ADELAIDE FF
FAJR, IRAN
SPLIT, CROATIA
HOF, GERMANY
KUALA LUMPUR FF
BEND, OREGON
BRADFORD UK
GOLD COAST FANTASY FF

and a bunch of others.

Theatrical was Australia and NZ

Budget was 150K

FIRE AWAY!

A

strathalbions

Hey Buddha,

many thanks for the dvd query...

are any of these sites any good?
http://www.ezydvd.com.au/item.zml/798799
http://www.devoteddvd.com.au/shop/pr...ducts_id=43481
http://www.dvdorchard.com.au/Product...he=0%2E5254785

http://www.accentfilm.com/product.cf...at=%20Mw%3D%3D

If not, let me know your address and I'll mail you a DVD-r for free. Try the links first though.

a

pro-bassoonist

Alex,

I sent the info. Looking forward to having your film in Chicago!

Yours,
Pro-B

BuddhaWake

NO need as I'm buying it 100% I just haven't had a chance to look around because I've been really busy attending the Philadelphia film festival and I mostly wake up and go, come back and sleep. so I was being lazy in figuring out what was the best alternative.

flixtime

I anticipate starting the Q&A thread approximately twenty-four hours from now. We'll do it here in International. I actually have a bunch of questions but - to encourage participation - will ask only one to start. Hopefully interest in this upcoming Q&A will extend beyond just a few of us. I've put some promo material in my signature (see below), so that should help spread the word to some others who might not be regulars in this International forum. Alex, don't feel pressured to be glued to the Q&A thread, check in at your leisure, once in a week is fine. And if you are uncomfortable with any of the wording in my promotional signature (see below), just let me know and I'll modify it.

flixtime

The Q&A discussion is now open for business, link follows:

Q&A with Director Alex Frayne

flixtime

BUMP


MODERN LOVE was just released on R1 U.S. DVD this past Tuesday. Those of you who followed this thread back then might recall the discussion we had about the film's title. Well, I got a laugh out of the headspinner that is the DVD listing at Amazon:

MODERN LOVE: HAPPY HAPPY, JOY JOY...UNTIL SOMEONE GETS HURT