I haven’t totally figured out how to best post up random underground film news I find on the web yet. So, for now, here’s this clunky way:

1) Paste Magazine has a semi-review of Danielson: A Family Movie, which is more a profile of its director, JL Aronson, and star Daniel Smith. It’s an interesting article about trying to make a documentary about someone who doesn’t want a documentary made about him: Follow your subject around until he relents, apparently. Isn’t that called stalking? (Smith finally gives in after a mutual friend vouches for Aronson.) Danielson played at this year’s New York Underground Film Festival.

2) You can watch an excerpt from Henry Selick‘s animated short Moongirl at the LAIKA website. LAIKA is the animation studio founded by Phil Knight and spun out of the old Vinton Studios. Their first feature film will be Coraline, written by Neil Gaiman and directed by Selick. Moongirl, in the meantime, won an animation Honorable Mention award at the last ever Tribeca Underground Film Festival and will next be seen at the upcoming SouthSide Film Festival in Bethlehem, PA June 15-18. The excerpt is really cool.

3) Speaking of the SouthSide Film Festival, I’ve found two blogs related to it. One is B*L*A*U*G*R*A, from an enthusiastic festival worker. You can read all his posts specifically about the upcoming fest here. And the festival has its own official blog here. Hasn’t been updated in awhile, but maybe they’ll have more around the time of the fest.

4) Finally, here’s a brief, positive posting on the Nine 37 Blog Gallery about the first night of the Portland Underground Film Festival going on right now. If I find any more reports, I’ll do another post linking to them later.