Dear Jews and Gentiles,

Stand tall and prepare to absorb the truth. O-Scope just bought the newly unearthed actual Santa Clause, and he is a force to be reckoned with.

We also nabbed the North American distribution rights to Jalmari Helander’s RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS TALE hot off of its World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The film is a re-imagining of the most classic of all childhood fantasies, and is a darkly comic gem destined for cult status.

On the eve of Christmas in northern Finland, an archeological dig unearths Santa Claus. This particular Santa, however, isn’t the one you want coming to town. When most of the town’s children go hauntingly missing, Pietari and his father, a local hunter named Rauno, come into possession of the mythological being. Rauno’s clan of hunters attempt to cash in on the opportunity by selling Santa back to the misguided leader of the multinational corporation sponsoring the dig. What ensues is nothing short of a wildly humorous nightmare – a fantastically bizarre polemic on modern day morality.

Yauch said: “This is really a unique film, the filmmaking exceptional, Jalmari’s sense of timing, perfect. I’m tempted to say it’s like the Coen brothers meets “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas,” but RARE EXPORTS is so original in its feel and approach that I’ll refrain from such comparisons, and simply say — gas up your snowmobiles, load your shotguns and smoke ’em if you got ’em — ’cause we intend to uncage this sucker in theaters for the holidays.”

O-Scope is looking at December release for this X-mas fable. The film has its U.S. premiere at Fantastic Fest in Austin this coming weekend.

As always this information is confidential,
Bruce Farnsworth

We announce now here to you in an official capacity, as such, that we
acquired North American distribution rights to Kelly Reichardt’s
western drama, MEEK’S CUTOFF. AKA it’s on! (Not so much that her
film is also known as “IT’S ON” but more that we are psyched about
putting out her new film.)

The film reunites the filmmakers and O-Scope who previously worked
together distributing Reichardt’s 2008 acclaimed WENDY AND LUCY.
MEEK’S CUTOFF, which recently screened at Venice (in competition) and
the Toronto International Film Festivals, is being hailed as one of
the most critically adored films of the early festival season. O-
Scope will release the film in the first half of 2011.

The year is 1845, the earliest days of the Oregon Trail, and a wagon
train of three families has hired mountain man Stephen Meek to guide
them over the Cascade Mountains. Claiming to know a shortcut, Meek
leads the group on an unmarked path across the high plain desert,
only to become lost in the dry rock and sage. Over the coming days,
the emigrants face the scourges of hunger, thirst and their own lack
of faith in one another’s instincts for survival. When a Native
American wanderer crosses their path, the emigrants are torn between
their trust in a guide who has proven himself unreliable and a man
who has always been seen as a natural born enemy.

Reichardt says: “We’re all super glad to be working with the
Oscilloscope family again.”

Adam Yauch, says “It’s hard to put words together that can convey how
excited we are to work with Kelly and her team again. It is an honor
to work with filmmakers of this caliber, especially given the fact
that, through the process of releasing WENDY AND LUCY, we have become
friends with them. So really I could not ask for more. As a side
note; MEEK’S CUTOFF is so real feeling and looking that I suspect
Kelly may have stolen our plans and completed work on a time machine
that we had been putting finishing touches on, and that MEEK’S is
actually a documentary she went back and shot in 1845. If anyone has
any evidence to that effect, please contact me directly asap.”

Bruce Farnsworth said “With all due respect Adam, that’s just
rediculuos. We will never finish your stupid time machine, and you
are just looking for an excuse to cross market meek’s with the huge
success of HOT TUB TIME MACHINE.”

Minister of Information at Oscilloscope,

Bruce Farnsworth

What’s up, O-Scopers?

As you’re all frothing at the mouth for the upcoming Oscilloscope release Howl (in theaters and on cable VOD September 24th), the fellas in the Laboratory slapped together a little something to get you in the Ginsberg state of mind:

Ginsberg’s “Howl” was regarded by many as obscene in ’57, so we’ve created www.areyouobscene.com/ to see what people find obscene more than 50 years later. Check out the site, tell us how obscene you are and what you think is truly obscene. Don’t hold back, your ol’ buddy Bruce is convinced he’s seen it all.

Sincerely,
Bruce Farnsworth
Minister of Information

O-Scopers consider yourselves warned,

Yes it’s true, A bad case of “Franco Fever” has infiltrated the Laboratory. HOWL is in theaters, on cable VOD Sep 24th, and soon to be out on DVD.

And now, just when we thought we were nearly in the clear, we picked up Mr. Franco’s directorial debut “SATURDAY NIGHT” for release in early 2011. It’s obviously a Franco plague, and we are declaring a “condition lavender” in and around the office. All employees have been asked to wear a Peter Sarsgaard Sars-Guard to work and we are supplying Jon Hamm’s JohnHam in all of the bathrooms. We are on full lockdown-quarantine as of now.

So we suggest that all of you at home get vaccinated by your local doctor before it spreads. This sort of outbreak can be highly dangerous, particularly to downtown Williamsburg type hipsters like Dan from our office who was so amped up that Yauch had to personally put him down with a dart to the neck.

Later when questioned by police Yauch said, “SNL may be my mother fuckin’ shit, and James may be my mother fuckin’ man. But Dan needs to cool it or I will dart him again. I don’t give a fuck. I’ll fuckin’ put a dart in James’s neck too. All these motherfuckers can get a dart from me. Sure, James gets unprecedented access to follow the making of an episode of ‘Saturday Night Live’ (w/ John Malkovich hosting!), from Tuesday morning’s pitch meeting to Sunday morning’s closing credits. But whatever, i’ll even put a dart Malkovich’s scrawny neck…” Yauch went on with this tirade for more than half an hour, but we’ll stop here as you probably get the gist. Clearly no one’s neck is safe anymore.

This piece of information was brought to you by your favorite Minister of Information,
Bruce Farnsworth