February 08, 2010
The Google Superbowl ad parodied
This was uploaded a few weeks after Google first uploaded "Parisian Love" in November... Cold. It's by Andrew Bouve, whose "If Famous Directors Shot the Superbowl" appeared last week.
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Tim Burton's Annie award acceptance
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Don't look now in the mirror
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February 07, 2010
Love in the time of Google: can they top this with their Super Bowl ad?
Meanwhile, Berlin pranksters GPS'd a Google Streetview omnicamera vehicle and track it live for passerby to make display. ADD: As it turns out, this sweetheart, posted in November, was the Super Bowl ad. Je me sens chanceux.
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Star Wars travel posters by Justin Van Genderen
Design by Justin Van Genderen More of his work here.
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An hour with William Friedkin
William Friedkin discourses across his career for an hour on February 24 of this year, via Fora.TV, recorded at The Hudson Union Society.
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February 06, 2010
D.C.'s Dupont Circle snowball fight, arranged on Facebook
What if you threw a snowball fight and 3,000 people came? Blake Edwards might smile. Or Nuri Bilge Ceylan...
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February 05, 2010
Did we mention the Japanese poster for Shutter Island?
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February 04, 2010
James Cameron's "Reach," a rock video starring Kathryn Bigelow
Via HDVision, a French DVD magazine.
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What if famous filmmakers directed the Super Bowl?
Unexpectedly good. More work from writer-director Andrew Bouvé here.
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Making Of's Martin Scorsese directing reels on Shutter Island
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February 03, 2010
Parry vs. Fischer: Notes on the latest film crickets' circular firing squad
Post-Park City, is there something in the air in film journalism? Black powder after white powder? Recriminations after accusations? Naming names to make a name? (That's just standard operating procedure.) Swinging at mosquitoes with sledgehammers? This could get... interesting. As @palacefilms, the Twitter account of the Australian distributor noted on Wednesday afternoon, "[p]ull up a chair, grab some popcorn and settle in for Film Critic Fight Club. Extra fun when both Aussie expats!" In the Vancouver Sun, online editor, elaborates, with parallel examples, on accusations of plagiarism by a face and figure familiar to film festivalgoers and press day participants. In a piece headlined "Uproarious hacktackular!", Parry wrote on Tuesday, "[A] film reviewer who has made a name for himself being quoted in movie marketing materials is accused of plagiarizing large chunks of his film reviews—from movie marketing materials. Widely-quoted film critic Paul Fischer has supplied [studios] with favourable quotes for... years. When he called Steve 
Martin's 2006 remake of The Pink Panther "a wonderfully funny comic gem," you could almost hear the collective thud of a thousand... critics slamming their heads on their desks as a million movie fans performed a world record spit-take." Parry offers examples drawn from the Sundance Film Festival's own promotional materials and what appears to be Fischer's ever-so-slight rewordings for websites such as Moviehole and Dark Horizons. It looks damning; at the link, Parry gets commentary from Sundance and a bit from the publishers of Fischer's work. That was followed by Salt Lake Tribune's "Film Cricket," Sean P. Means, finding Fischer in his own uncanny valley with more examples, as well as this remark: "The Cricket himself has occasionally shared an interview roundtable with Fischer, a self-important troll with an Australian accent as thick as his overbearing manner. The Cricket often came away from the experience relieved that he didn't have to work junkets every weekend and hang around with Fischer and his ilk." Notably, Parry is no stranger to controversy; in summer 2009, Parry tangled with posters at the Free Republic website over his perceived bias in at least one thread that ran to over 2,000 comments. (The dread word "DailyKos" was among the inflammations.) There are at least two prior critical crusades notched in his belt as well. In the summer of 2006, at efilmcritic, Parry indicted another reviewer, the notorious-if-only-to-journalists Earl Dittman, running 4,500 words under the hed, "Hyperbole For Sale: How Earl Dittman And The Studios Have Destroyed Film Criticism." Thrusts Parry, " I am speaking... about the War on Film Criticism. And the Osama Bin Laden of the War on Film Criticism is Earl Dittman... Hollywood studios – you’re on notice. Use Earl Dittman in your advertising ever again, and we’re coming after you. We can’t stop you from using Bregoli or Edwards or Fischer or Zwecker, but you can be damn sure, with 80 writers on our staff, over a dozen radio hosts, our own internet radio station, and a very functional fax machine that sends press releases to hundreds of other film critics – film critics that CARE about their craft - we’ll hurt you if you do not heed our demand." (Parry footnotes Erik Childress' perennially-contentious Criticwatch series for background.) In 2007, also at efilmcritic, Parry devoted 2,800 words to the apparent offenses of a University of Missouri, Kansas City, student, under the hed, "Death of a Plagiarist: A word thief burns as his editors deny all responsibility." Parry wrote, "Patel’s long, meandering, barely comprehensible writing in this instance gives you an insight into why he might have spent so much of his journalism career stealing the work of others; “We are still a student newspaper, subject to our own fiscal limitations. Thus, we decided to immediately provide an extremely necessary insert, so as to clear the innocent party named in the article.” No, Mr Patel. What would have cleared that innocent man’s name would be scrapping the issue entirely, not publishing lies about him in blazing headlines, alongside a flyer saying "Whoops!'" Somehow, it seems "Whoops!" is the tiniest, tiniest increment of what Parry is expecting to hear in the immediate future from Fischer and his editors. Ten paces, gentlemen...
ADDED: This 2004 piece by Parry at efilmcritic offers even more context, parsing the pair's past jockeying in 4,000 words or so: "Paul Fischer and I have a history. He, a sad, clueless junketeer who gives his writing away for free, and I, a sad, clued-in non-junketeer who doesn’t subscribe to the ‘famous is better’ theology that seems to rule entertainment journalism these days, have tangled in the past in ways that saw Fischer become a laughing stock in his home country of Australia. I take great pride in having driven Fischer out of town once, and ladies and gentlemen, I’m about to do it all over again... Knuckles cracking, let’s take apart the fat man… again."
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Trailering Polanski's The Ghost Writer
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Prawn shop: Neil Blomkamp on "Life On Other Planets and the Future of Human Civilization"
The future, pre-Oscar nominations, from the director of District 9. "I actually don't have any credentials to do this," Blomkamp says with a laugh at the opening of an engaging 13 minutes from an independent event drawn from the terrific TED talks. (There's a wealth of them here.)
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February 02, 2010
Obligatory Generic Oscar Nomination Report
Banal lede setting up The Hurt Locker vs. Avatar. Obligatory remark on former marital status. Inevitable and noncommittal response. Diffident pun, like "battle of the exes," inadvertently revealing lack of buffering layer of editors. Lazy comparison of Biblical small man opposing giant ogre. Team Na'vi vs. Team Bomb Squad. Blue vs. Green. Ten Best Picture nominees are too cold, ten Best Picture nominees are too hot, ten Best Picture nominees are just right. Spreading the wealth. Gratitude expressed that The Hangover and G-Force were not nominated. It was the best of years, it was the worst of 
years. Supplied quotes embedded in narrative. Generic transitions hastily constructed for rapid web posting. Directors exclaim on how they're all buddies in the clubhouse. Lee Daniels says "Girlfriend." Allusions to prior references to Inglourious Basterds and A Serious Man as anti-Semitic, or conversely, or perversely, "good for the Jews." Obligatory hint that the writer considers Avatar a sweeping allegory, a wizened tract, the rebirth of the moviegoing experience or the death of cinema, coupled with The Hurt Locker as anti-war film, as pro-war film, as failed screencraft or as transcendent filmmaking, or as a dazzling feat of balancing all, or none. Anecdote relayed of being awakened or of being unable to sleep or preparing right this minute for a nap. Resignation feigned over odds-on favorites Waltz and Mo'Nique. Mention of nods the writer would have preferred, such as bright Stanley Tucci for Julie & Julia instead of dark Stanley Tucci in Lovely Bones. Gnashing over Moon's eclipse or Summer Hours' tabling. Staid rendition of "How 'bout that Sandra Bullock?" Invocation of personal déjà vu, ennui or anomie over the plethora of preceding award events. Attempt at oblique implication that the writer is above it all, or intrigued only by how wrong everyone else is, or how the awards are now more populist or not quite yet populist, or it's what my editors think you, dear reader, most want to wallow in or feel superior to. Wry footnote noting Oscar 2011 is only thirteen months away.
Posted by Ray Pride at 02:13 PM | Comments (1)
Trailering The Secret of Kells
The Canadian theatrical trailer for the Irish animation, offering some evidence of why the film got its surprise Academy Award nomination this morning. Producers Cartoon Saloon are selling signed DVDs (region 2) at their website.
Below: the 3:45 promo trailer.
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February 01, 2010
At the Sundance Producers Roundtable: Vachon, Hope and more
Christine Vachon and Ted Hope talk with three younger producers, Thomas Woodrow, Liz Watts and Jonathan Schwartz. In this segment: do you make the director's film or the best one possible?
Parts one and two are below.
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January 30, 2010
Bring on the Sundance summarizing: 9 takes
"After the streets and the buses [were] free of the non-film skiers and LA lookeeloos and I saw 3 Backyards, Blue Valentine, and Winter’s Bone, I started to think about how essential Sundance still is to American Indie film," Mike S. Ryan writes, arguing why Sundance still matters: "Where else would such stellar, uncommercial work be better presented to the public? If these films have any chance of securing a healthy life in your local mall, it is for sure due to their introduction via the national press that has really gathered to grab shots of stars in wacky fur hats. That is the dialectical reality of the Sundance condition." The New York Times' Brooks Barnes gets Robert Redford to repeat at the end of the festival some of what he said at the front of the festival: “This year I got very heavily involved again because we had to let some folks go,” Mr. Redford said. “It was the right thing to do. Geoff [Gilmore] was ready to go and we were also ready to move on. I felt the festival was flat-lining and not going in the direction I wanted.”... A spokeswoman for Mr. Gilmore, who now works for the company that runs the Tribeca Film Festival, said he was unavailable to comment." Mike Jones has four take-aways. Eric Kohn offers reason to dub Sundance "Posey's Waltz."
Mira Advani Honeycutt blurbs the "lounges," and "discretionary gifting": "In between bites of organic mini cupcakes, guests could get a luxurious Clarisonic skin treatment from Dr. Rob Akridge." First-timer Timothy M. Gray convinces himself a film festival in the mountains in January is a good idea. "First, because the scenery is stunning. Amazingly stunning. Second, It's fun to see showbiz colleagues, trying to look their best, coping with freezing weather. (High heels + slush = guaranteed hilarity.) Third, the love of film is pervasive. Total strangers at restaurants exchange moviegoing tips. Nonpros come into town to see as many films as possible. The industry workers come to scout/encourage talent. And of course, to make deals. Art and commerce exist peacefully, with creativity to be found even in the pacts this year (sales to online and foreign companies, imaginative reach-outs to audiences, etc.). Without the distraction of gifting suites this year, it's all movies all the time. Early in The Shining, Shelley Duvall's loopy character enthuses, "It'll be lots of fun." Jack Nicholson smiles about the location, "I love it." OK, it didn't turn out too well for that family, but I came to see their point of view... I loved it." At the Reporter, Kirk Honeycutt leans on his superior boredom and makes presumptuous analogies to old news in college football that would make no sense to the average reader. "At nearly every turn, 
[filmmakers] went for the expected. Brave new ideas were nowhere to be seen. What one did get were tired warhorses such as the coming-of-age movie... Qualitywise, these films ran the gamut from good to so-so, but nobody was smashing any molds." At Variety, Todd McCarthy prescribes his own Sundance "revolution," programming films that he wishes had been made.
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January 28, 2010
[PR] Sundance announces NHK International Filmmakers Award winners
2010 SUNDANCE / NHK INTERNATIONAL FILMMAKERS AWARD WINNERS ANNOUNCED
Los Angeles, CA (Park City, UT) – Sundance Institute and NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) today announced the winners of the 2010 Sundance / NHK International Filmmakers Awards. The four winners were selected from 12 finalists by members of an International Jury which included: Violeta Bava, John Carney, Michael Lehmann, Rebecca Miller, Jose Rivera, Elena Soarez, Pablo Stoll and Wesley Strick; and a Japanese Jury that included Masato Harada, Shin-ichi Kobayashi and Bong-Ou Lee.
Originally created to celebrate 100 years of Cinema, the annual award recognizes and supports four visionary filmmakers from Europe, Latin America, the United States, and Japan on their next films. Each winner receives approximately $100,000 ($10,000 as a cash award and a guarantee from NHK to purchase the Japanese television broadcast rights). In addition, Sundance Institute staff works closely with the winners throughout the year, providing creative and strategic support through the development, financing and production of their films. The awards are presented at the Sundance Film Festival Awards Ceremony on Saturday, January 30, 2010.
The winning filmmakers and projects are: Amat Escalante, Heli from Mexico; Andrey Zvyagintsev, Elena from Russia; Daisuke Yamaoka, The Wonderful Lives at Asahigaoka (written with Yugo Eto) from Japan; and Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild (written with Lucy Alibar) from the United States.
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January 27, 2010
Trailering The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (UK)
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January 26, 2010
DVDs: Little Ashes, Soul Power, Michael Jackson's This Is It
COME FOR THE SURREALISM, STAY FOR THE GIBBERISH. Terrible in a dull way that once would have been termed "unreleasable," "shelved," or "rightfully forgotten," Paul Morrison's "Little Ashes," (E1, $27) starring Twilight biter Robert 
Pattinson, doesn't rise to the level of dreadful. Pattinson plays a young, sallow, flabby Salvador Dalí; Matthew McNulty, who looks nothing like the cockeyed, boxer-stout filmmaker Luis Buñuel is a classmate and poet-playwright-activist Federico García Lorca (Javier Beltrán) becomes the center of the picture, which insists on a sexual obsession between he and Dalí. Beltrán's sturdy, unlike the other actors, but like the other actors, isn't given a modulated style of performance over the film's duration. "I'm trying to be constructive here!" a character bellows in a scene that may as well have been played up against construction paper in a high school production. "Listen! I’m part of this underground movement," García Lorca explains. The only instant that rises from the doldrums is a scene that draws on the historical fact of García Lorca's assassination; the reality is touching even when the scene's shot through blurred frills of field grass in an olive grove to the murmuring in English over the murmuring in Spanish of one of his seriously bloody poems. Also typical of the visual furze is a sunset scene where faces aren't lit, golden hour replaced with molybdenum. (Call it "day-for-Twilight.") Seriously, young Pattinson is given help by neither director nor editor, seeming in every other scene like he's suffering the actor's equivalent of dreams where you're naked in a restaurant. To be more charitable, he delivers a rapt portrayal of mild bowel irritation. The gay and/or homoerotic component is negligible, even if you include the goopy, carbonated slow-motion scissor kick underwater to suggest twinkly infatuation between Dalí and García Lorca as well as a scene where Dali masturbates to the other man fucking a female friend (the fright-coiffed Marina Gatell) in a nearby bed and the composition of two shots centers oddly, even in an unrated film, on the woman's bared, posturing anus. "We'll go for breakfast at the Pelican and you'll paint all afternoon!" A better line might have been "My best friend got executed in an olive grove and all he got was this lousy biopic." The typing and formatting of the screenplay is credited to Philippa Goslett.
Rock around the doc: Soul Power, Michael Jackson's This Is It
Two musical documentaries from Sony this week: Jeffrey Levy-Hinte's Soul Power is superior in every way to Michael Jackson's This Is It. Little-seen in its theatrical run, Soul Power ($29) as more than an oddity: a director editing the footage of ace cameramen decades after a shoot into his own dynamic documentary. My interview with Levy-Hinte is here.
Is This Is It all there is? A dog's breakfast of scraps from on-the-fly, sloppily-shot rehearsal footage of his not-to-be final tour, Michael Jackson's This is It excited some first reviewers enough to suggest the movie's good enough to be nominated for Best Picture. Unless you really, really care about Michael Jackson, it's not much of anything: it's hushed hagiography as sandpapered as Jackson's own nose, less documentary than séance. It's also debt warmed over: On the verge of losing his many possessions after decades of incautious spending, Jackson had to do something as creditors circled. A tour, with multimillion-dollar advances from mammoth tour promoter AEG, was the choice. Interest must be paid. But the final evidence of that choice, compiled by director and "co-creator" Kenny Ortega, with the furious assistance of editors Don Brochu, Brandon Key, Tim Patterson and Kevin Stitt, MJTII would surely embarrass the late ditherer. As Vladimir Nabokov reputedly said, "Only ambitious nonentities and hearty mediocrities exhibit their rough drafts. It is like passing around samples of one's sputum." (Nabokov's heirs, three decades on, recently published that writer's unfinished final novel, having allowed the sputum to age and mellow.) A difference scatological reference came to mind walking out of the theater. What's the line from Withnail and I? "It feels like a pig. Shat. In. My head!"
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Ibraheem Youssef's cool alternative Tarantino posters
More here.
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January 25, 2010
As awards acceptance speeches go, this one's to the point
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