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February 28, 2008
Indie is traveling to a festival in the Show Me State...
... and will report back soon.
Posted by Ray Pride at 03:24 PM | Comments (0)
February 27, 2008
[DVD] Pierrot le fou (1965, ****)
In Jean-Luc Godard’s peppy, pop-art i>Pierrot le fou, made between Masculin-Feminin and Alphaville, is a boldly colored lark of an outlaw couple-on-the-run movie, starring an impish Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina. It’s remarkable how modern some of his 1960s tossed-off feuilletons remain into this century. Oh, and there’s the party scene with Sam Fuller, behind big sunglasses (the kind fashionable even this week and available at Urban Outfitters) and a fat stogy, who Belmondo says to, “I always wondered what movies were,” and Fuller replies, “Film is like a battleground. Love, hate, action, violence, death. In one word… emotion." And, Godard, from a 1965 Cahiers du Cinema interview, about one of the movie’s loveliest, most hypnotic effects: “When you drive in Paris at night, what do you see? Red, green, yellow lights. I wanted to show these elements without necessarily placing them as they are in reality. [This effect was created by flashlights being rotated across the windshield of a car sitting still in a dark room.] Rather as they remain in the memory—splashes of red and green, flashes of yellow passing by. I wanted to recreate a sensation through the elements which constitute it.”The Criterion DVD: out two days after seeing La chinoise in 35mm: pictures, moving. First clip: Samuel Fuller.
Buried in the trailer below: Anna Karina, bowling.
Posted by Ray Pride at 10:46 AM | Comments (0)
February 26, 2008
That is the biggest thing in the world that can happen to an Irishman.
David Carr catches up to Glen Hansard, post-gold man: "Hansard was effusive walking into the press room and saying “I just got a text from Bono. That is the biggest thing in the world that can happen to an Irishman.” And for one last round, drawn from the Academy transcripts. Glen Hansard: "Tanks! This is amazing. What are we doing here? This is mad. We made this film two years ago. We shot on two handicams. It took us three weeks to make. We made it for a hundred grand [euro]. We never thought we would come into a room like this and be in front of you people. It's been an amazing thing. Thanks for taking this film seriously, all of you. It means a lot to us. Thanks to the Academy, thanks to all the people who've helped us, they know who they are, we don't need to say them. This is amazing. Make art. Make art. Thanks." And, brought back to the stage after being cut off, 19-year-old Markéta Irglová of the dazzling smile: "Hi everyone. I just want to thank you so much. This is such a big deal, not only for us, but for all other independent musicians and artists that spend most of their time struggling, and this, the fact that we're standing here tonight, the fact that we're able to hold this, it's just to prove no matter how far out your dreams are, it's possible. And, you know, fair play to those who dare to dream and don't give up. And this song was written from a perspective of hope, and hope at the end of the day connects us all, no matter how different we are. And so thank you so much, who helped us along way. Thank you." And in the immortal words of Bob Hope (via Frank Tashlin), if you're driving home tonight, be sure to use a car.
Posted by Ray Pride at 11:29 AM | Comments (0)
February 25, 2008
A Chicago tagger celebrates Robert Elswit's Oscar nod
Posted by Ray Pride at 05:15 PM | Comments (0)
Helen Mirren as "The Star In The Reasonably Priced Car"
Posted by Ray Pride at 05:07 PM | Comments (0)
Death of a 15-year-old: New York Underground Fest is done
From a posting at the Frameworks list by Nellie Lozano of NYUFF: "This will indeed be the last official NYUFF, but the organization is going to live on. We've been going through a lot of changes in the last few years and have decided to make a fresh start. We hate seeing that lots of cool festivals are dying off too, that's a big reason why we're going to be working on developing year round programming and building our organization into something that will be able to sustain itself in the longrun. We'll be making an official announcement soon, so stay tuned."
Posted by Ray Pride at 01:40 PM | Comments (0)
The Oscars, gone in 60 seconds
[H/t STV.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 11:23 AM | Comments (0)
February 22, 2008
[LOOK] A History of Evil in 5 animated minutes
Posted by Ray Pride at 07:46 PM | Comments (1)
[LOOK] Night of the Living Dead bubblegum cards
"From a set of 67 cards, published in 1988 for the 20th movie anniversary." Chewy.
Posted by Ray Pride at 07:22 PM | Comments (0)
Bertolucci, slayer of fathers
Over at the Guardian, Stuart Jeffries looks back with Bernardo Bertolucci, who still says 'Films are a way to kill my father'. "One rainy night in Paris in 1970, Bernardo Bertolucci was standing outside the Drugstore Saint Germain. It was a quarter to midnight. He was waiting for his mentor, the great New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard, to arrive from the French premiere of the Italian's new film, The Conformist. "I haven't talked about this for dozens of years," says Bertolucci, "but Godard was my real guru, you understand? I used to think there was cinema before Godard and cinema after - like before and after Christ. So what he thought about the film meant a great deal to me." ... At midnight, Godard arrived for the rendezvous. Bertolucci, 37 years after the event, recalls exactly what happened next: "He doesn't say anything to me. He just gives me a note and then he leaves. I take the note and there was a Chairman Mao portrait on it and with Jean-Luc's writing that we know from the handwriting on his films. The note says: 'You have to fight against individualism and capitalism.' That was his reaction to my movie. I was so enraged that I crumpled it up and threw it under my feet. I'm so sorry I did that because I would love to have it now, to keep it as a relic." ... Why do you think Godard didn't like The Conformist, I ask Bertolucci. It was, after all, partly a trenchant diagnosis of a fascistic mentality. "I had finished the period in which to be able to communicate would be considered a mortal sin. He had not." But there might be another reason Godard didn't like the film. In it, Clerici asks for his doomed teacher's phone number and address. "The number was Jean-Luc's and the address was his on Rue Saint Jacques. So you can see that I was the conformist wanting to kill the radical."
[Lots more at the link.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 03:27 PM | Comments (0)
A Fellini moment: the opening of La dolce vita
Posted by Ray Pride at 11:24 AM | Comments (0)
[RIP] Suspect Video, Toronto
Torontoist : "Massive Fire Guts Queen West Block": "Transit vehicles are being diverted and streets have been closed near Queen and Bathurst as firefighters battle a six-alarm blaze this morning. The fire broke out about 5 a.m. and spread through eight low-rise buildings on the south side of Queen, consisting of fourteen addresses between Bathurst and Portland. The destroyed block contained commercial properties Suspect Video, Duke's Cycle, National Sound, Preloved, the Jupiter head shop, Room Furniture and Accessories, Pizzaiolo, and Organize By Design. Second and third floor apartments have also been wiped-out. All residents were safely evacuated." [More at the link, including photos.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 11:20 AM | Comments (0)
February 21, 2008
[LOOK] Full Metal Wii (NSFW)
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February 20, 2008
[LOOK] Designer Chip Kidd hears voices
... as a way of promoting his new novel, "The Learners."
Posted by Ray Pride at 02:39 PM | Comments (0)
[DVD] Waiting For Fidel (1974, ***)
From the shelf: A long unseen, very funny predecessor to the comic, self-centric documentary essays of Nick Broomfield and Michael Moore is a topical DVD again, Australian-Canadian filmmaker Michael Rubbo's very funny Waiting for Fidel (Facets). In 1974, Rubbo set out with Joey Smallwood, the septuagenarian socialist former premier of Newfoundland and Geoff Stirling, a broadcasting millionaire-""he's not coming down here to swallow this Communism"-- to get a day to interview Fidel Castro on his own turf. Castro leaves them waiting… and waiting… They take the sun, drink, prepare lists of questions at the beach or around the pool. The seemingly informal give-and-take on politics in Cuba and Canada, as well as their perceptions of the contrasts between socialism and capitalism, are digressive but telling. (Extras include the now-older Rubbo and Stirling's amusing reminiscences.)
Posted by Ray Pride at 02:29 PM | Comments (0)
Teaser: Joe Angio's Crash Course: The Accidental Art of Arnold Odermatt
And you thought How To Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It) was a goofy title...
Posted by Ray Pride at 12:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 19, 2008
TribuneCo honcho Sam Zell meets his workers
This would be the one in which he found a reporter disrespectful and drops an "f-you" in front of the assembled Orlando employees... followed by a more germane moment about the executive who was used to being told what to do before Zell came along, a "motherfucker" who made $750,000.
Posted by Ray Pride at 06:25 PM | Comments (0)
Mad enough to be a genius?: Francis Ford Coppola on NBC in 1975
Posted by Ray Pride at 03:44 PM | Comments (0)
February 18, 2008
Alain Robbe-Grillet: "Literature's good for nothing"; was 85
From Eden And After, 1970. 
And he wrote Last Year At Marienbad.
Posted by Ray Pride at 02:23 PM | Comments (0)
February 17, 2008
Errol Morris on interview technique
I've had the privilege of hearing a few versions of how Errol Morris conducts his interviews, but this is more terse than usual. From an interview at Spiegel Online about the upcoming Standard Operating Procedure: How long are the interviews? Long. Ten hours, 12 hours, 14 hours, two days. Long. Can you tell us something about your interview technique? It's the "shut the fuck up" school of interviewing. You shut up, you let them talk. And you try to ask stuff which is remotely interesting to them, and to yourself.
I try never to have a list of questions. Philip [Gourevitch], who has been going through these transcripts, told me something I had never realized. He said: "You know, you say the same thing at the beginning of every single interview. You always say, 'I don't know where to start.'" It's true, I never know where to start. And then they usually say something, thank God. You had the photographs and the videos they shot, and you decided to add another level by recreating images. Why did you decide to do that? This is now the third film where I have used reenactments. I remember someone asked me during the making of "The Thin Blue Line" -- I had terrible trouble getting the money to shoot the reenactments -- if I really needed the reenactments. The answer is yes, I really need them. I'm very protective of my reenactments. There's this mistaken idea about reenactments in general that you're showing somebody what really happened. I've never used reenactments that way, nor do I ever imagine myself using reenactments that way. What you're doing is you're creating a little world where people can think about a problem or a set of questions. I'm trying to get the audience to think about certain questions about who was where, when, and what did they see. It forces you into a position where you are asked to think about something or to think about something the way I am thinking about it. In "Standard Operating Procedure," if the idea is entering history through a photograph, if you're somehow going through the surface of that photograph and going beyond, the reenactments help you to do that. They slow everything down, almost, but not quite, to that instant of photography and ask you to reflect, to listen to what people are saying about that moment when the photograph was taken and the circumstances under which it was taken. It's creating a kind of strange abstract world around a photograph... With "Standard Operating Procedure," I've collected an enormous amount of evidence in this story. This is one of the best investigations I've ever done. I'm really proud of it. Also in this case I kept saying I want to make a non-fiction horror movie. I wanted to make something that looked like a horror movie. [Photo from Morris' website.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 08:05 PM | Comments (0)
February 15, 2008
A professional relates: composer Nico Muhly on Golden Compass's score
Composer Nico Muhly (Joshua, Choking Man, Drawing Restraint 9) has an extravagantly amusing website. Here's his take on a recent film score: "Now, the issue with the Golden Compass score is that it is exactly the kind of manipulative, cartoony orthodoxy that the books seek so hard to undermine. There was one vile little turn of phrase that reminded me so much of that song “Somewhere Out There” from An American Tail, which works so well in that movie because it’s a cartoon about mice. Here, in this complicated, multi-layered story, having this kind of music just forces the whole film into a tedious urban sprawl of forced emotions. If you want to describe a 
parallel universe musically, why not set up some parallel rules of harmony, or instrumentation? Inasmuch as Pullman has subtle twists in nomenclature, why not perform a similar Clever Act in the music? I did, however, like the throat singing and the natural harmonic series, so, at least there was that."
Posted by Ray Pride at 01:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 14, 2008
A Filmmaker interview with Tamara Jenkins
An interview I did with Tamara Jenkins for Filmmaker magazine was print-only until now; it's online now. It's the summary of several conversations in a couple of cities, and one of my favorite things 
the Oscar nominee offered was this about writing: "I dunno, writing is weird and lonely and makes you grumpy and strange, and it’s nice when somebody understands that. I also have a dog. That helps. Makes you go out into the world. Then your dog’s like, “Okay, I have to walk you.” There’s something about moving and thinking. A treadmill, working out, and your brain just kind of makes connections. Moving — being in cars, trains, being on treadmills, they’re all really good for the writing brain. But I haven’t written in a long time; I have to start writing. To write you really should be writing every single day to keep the muscle going. But then if you write and make a movie, the year of working on the movie goes by and then you’re supposed to start writing again and you have kind of forgotten how. So I have to start writing. I have to buy a new journal; I have to get some nice pens." [More at the link.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 08:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Jumper (2008, **)
ISN'T IT ENOUGH TO HAVE COME UP WITH A SLOGAN THAT PERFECTLY ENCAPSULATES A CONCEPT without having to go then and make the expensive, logistically unwieldy, imperfect result? Jumper: "Anywhere Is Possible." I'd figured that if anyone could pull off the idea of characters being able to jump across space at will with any sort of panache and a bit of willful eccentricity, it would be Doug Liman, whose Go, The Bourne Identity and Mr. and Mrs. Smith are as giddily crafted as their reported production processes were tortured. There's another reason this subject suits Liman's profile: his ADD-OCD-OMGZ! range of interests and whims. (From a New York magazine profile: "[H]e sits with his sheepdog Jackson—for his birthday, Liman bought him some sheep.") The dread Hayden Christiansen (Star Wars I-III) is only slightly less wooden than in earlier roles, and Rachel Bilson, tiny and wet-dark-wide-eyed, is ideal in the teen-dream role of the crush from high school that can be swept off her tiny feet. There are shreds that hint at mythology of a centuries-long battle between Jumpers and Paladins, embodied by Samuel L. Jackson, claiming to be an agent of the NSA, CIA and IRS at various times, with a platinum merkin skullcapped atop his head and a range of costumes that start at Matrix-with-a-Nehru jacket that after a while simplify into in Obi-Wan muslins. (Other cryptic allusions are equally toothsome.) Except for the incessant product placement, Jumpers plays as a very expensive episode of a kooky Komedy TV series for kidz you've never seen before, especially at its brisk, relentless, shocking 88-minute length. Still, there's eyeball kicks everywhere and the immensely watchable Jamie Bell should be a star. [Ray Pride.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 06:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
[PR] Roy Scheider's got a posthumous role
Not Brett Morgen's Chicago 10, in which the late actor is a cartoon, but an unfinished project called Iron Cross. Here's a larger image. Comes the press release, unedited: "ACADEMY-AWARD® NOMINEE ROY SCHEIDER’S MISSING SCENE TO BE DIGITALLY COMPELTED FOR his final leading role in revenge thriller IRON CROSS. Film Written & Directed by Joshua Newton and Scheduled to Premiere at the Venice International Film Festival in September 2008
NEW YORK, NY, February 14, 2008 – Two-time Academy Award® Nominee Roy Scheider, who sadly passed on February 10th, was one key scene shy of completing principal photography for what he hoped would be his great comeback performance in the upcoming revenge thriller IRON CROSS. The pivotal scene will be finished using the latest CGI technology. The feature-length debut of British writer-director Joshua Newton, will launch at the Venice International Film Festival in 2008.
Roy Scheider, widely recognized as one of Hollywood’s most versatile actors, was nominated for an Oscar® for his extraordinary performance of Detective Buddy Russo in The French Connection, and again for his sparkling portrayal of director Bob Fossee in All That Jazz. Scheider had been featured in more than 50 films; His upcoming credits include Dark Honeymoon (co-starring Daryl Hannah and Eric Roberts) and what is his final leading performance in the Joshua Newton film IRON CROSS.
IRON CROSS tells the story of Joseph, a retired New York police officer, played by Roy Scheider, who witnessed the massacre of his family in Poland 1941. He travels to Nuremberg to visit his son Ronnie (Scott Cohen, Gilmore Girls, Cashmere Mafia) years after turning his back on him for rejecting a promising career in the NYPD and marrying a local artist, Anna (Calita Rainford, Return to House on Haunted Hill). No sooner does Joseph attempt to heal the rift with Ronnie, when he swears that living in the apartment above, under the false name of Shrager (Helmut Berger, Ludwig, The Damned, The Godfather Part III) is the now aging SS Commander who committed the atrocity. With little hope of seeing him stand trial, Joseph talks Ronnie into exacting justice - and vengeance - and together they set out to kill him.
“Roy Scheider was one of the most talented and acclaimed actors of his generation. His versatility really set him apart and made him the obvious choice o play such a complex, troubled character as Joseph. “Roy was extremely passionate about this project and we became close during filming” said Joshua Newton, writer, director and editor of the film. He really was a brave man; I admired his fighting spirit and I am honored to have known and worked with him”. The story is a very personal one for Newton, as it closely mirrors conversations and experiences with his own father Bruno Newton, who passed away last year during filming, and coincidentally like Scheider, from complications caused by myeloma. In memory of both Newton’s father and Scheider, 10% of Newton’s share of the film’s profits will be donated to the International Myeloma Foundation.
IRON CROSS is being produced by Joshua Newton and Kevin Farr. Roy Scheider was represented by ICM.
###
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February 13, 2008
Reviewing the reviews: Alex Cox and Walker
In advance of its Criterion release, director Alex Cox previews part of the DVD as he reviews the contemporary American reviews of his little-seen Walker (1987) here (14mb quicktime download). Cox's notes on the film are here.
Posted by Ray Pride at 08:41 PM | Comments (0)
Kon Ichikawa, 1915-2008
"Kon Ichikawa, celebrated Japanese helmer whose career spanned more than seven decades, died on Feb. 13 of pneumonia. He was 92," obits Mark Schilling at Variety Asia. "Best known abroad for "The Burmese Harp" (1956) and "Fires on the Plain (1959), pics that vividly, if grimly, portrayed the human costs of WWII, as well as the 1964 Tokyo Olympics docu "Tokyo Olympiad" (1965), Ichikawa was the last directorial giant of Japan's now vanished studio studio system, which reached its peak in the 1950s and early 1960s, before succumbing to the advance of television. Born in 1915 in Ise City, in Western Japan, Ichikawa began his career as an animator, heavily influenced by Disney's "Silly Symphonies." In 1933 he joined the animation department of the predecessor of the Toho studio... He began making sophisticated comedies, with Hollywood as a model, but later became known for his powerfully told, vividly shot literary adaptations, including "The Temple of the Golden Pavilion" (1958), "The Key" (1959) and "The Makioka Sisters" (1983). The scripter on many of the pics of his 1950s and 1960s creative peak was his wife, Natto Wada, who died in 1983, but largely laid down her pen after co-writing "The Tokyo Olympiad." [More at link.]
![[RIP] Kon Ichikawa.jpg](http://www.mcnblogs.com/mcindie/archives/images/%5BRIP%5D%20Kon%20Ichikawa.jpg)
Posted by Ray Pride at 01:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 12, 2008
A 5-minute Roy Scheider tribute reel
Posted by Ray Pride at 05:46 PM | Comments (0)
It's a Dogme kind of day, really, it is
Posted by Ray Pride at 05:41 PM | Comments (0)
February 11, 2008
"Bye Bye Life" from All That Jazz
Posted by Ray Pride at 07:15 PM | Comments (0)
A Once interview newly online pre-Oscars
Filmmaker Magazine's put online for the first time an interview with director John Carney and composer Glen Hansard I did for the Spring '07 issue. You can find it here. Once is nominated for Best Original Song for "Falling Slowly," music and lyric by Glen Hansard & Markéta Irglová. "In John Carney’s limber long-player, several songs suggest a life, a small, wonderful world consisting of a few Dublin haunts where an unnamed street corner performer, or busker (Glen Hansard), and an unnamed younger Czech woman (Markéta Irglová), who has a winsomely resourceful command of English, meet, tease, learn but mostly, with eyes wide open, develop a mature relationship deepened by the dance of several songs, including the gorgeous “Falling Slowly,” which the extremely affable and charming pair convincingly “compose” in front of us..."
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February 10, 2008
Wright as rave: Joe W. on the ecstacy of his imagery
Do some research, ask the right questions, everybody's got stories. Joe Wright "hasn't had a drink for nine months, which, to anyone who knew him a few years ago, will be a surprise," Jason Solomons writes in the Guardian. "Wright hit the London rave scene in the early Nineties, when he and a friend, Adam Smith (currently directing hit TV show Skins) were part of an outfit called Vegetable Vision, creating visuals for acts including the Chemical Brothers, Darren Emerson and Andrew Weatherall. 'I was definitely off my head on ecstasy for quite a few years,' he admits. 'I was up a scaffold, 60ft above this seething mass of people, matching visuals to music from these amazing DJs. I'd put a slide of raw meat next to maggots, or a shot of police in riot uniform next to Campbell's tinned soup and I'd flash between the two to the music and the crowd.'" Solomon gets Wright to arrive at this: "[P]roducers who were part of the rave generation themselves are trusting directors influenced by it with bigger budgets now. I know I managed to get that rave feeling into Pride and Prejudice, just little suggestions of it in all the pastoral beauty. I love dawn shots, or shots after the rain has stopped, because I always loved staying up all night till dawn, when it all got still and calm. Scenes like that act as emotional recall for me and I'm sure for anyone who was doing ecstasy back then. Those feelings are in Atonement, too. [The extended tracking shot on the beach is] like one big rave, a really trippy 
scene... And then there's the use of the graphics in the earlier scene when Bryony reads the wrong, lewd letter from Robbie to Cecilia. I managed to get the word "cunt" to fill the screen in old Courier font - we used to do that for Underworld lightshows.' I can't believe that Joe has had the chutzpah to get a Best Picture nomination for a film that does indeed flash up the C word three times. On the plane over to LA, I watch Atonement again on the in-flight movie channel. As the scene of Robbie typing his fateful letter to Cecilia comes up, I glance along the cabin to see the C-word emblazoned on dozens of little seat-back screens. When you're hot in Hollywood, you can get away with anything."
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The Hottie... grosses $220 per at 111 screens
You have to pay for cable, right? I like this Mika Brzezinski person. Joe Scarborough? The pride of Florida!
Posted by Ray Pride at 01:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 09, 2008
Eva Dahlbeck, 1920-2008
![[RIP] Eva Dahlbeck.jpg](http://www.mcnblogs.com/mcindie/archives/images/%5BRIP%5D%20Eva%20Dahlbeck.jpg)
AFP: Bergman actress Eva Dahlbeck dies aged 87: "Swedish actress and author Eva Dahlbeck, most famous for numerous appearances in movies by legendary filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, has died,... She was 87. Dahlbeck, who had long suffered from Alzheimer's disease, died at a Stockholm retirement home on Friday... Born on March 8, 1920, Dahlbeck was one of Sweden's most celebrated actresses in the 1940s and 50s and was most well-known for her lead roles in such Bergman films as his 1952 "Secrets of Women", "A Lesson in Love" (1954) and "Smiles of a Summer Night" (1955). Bergman himself died last July 30 at the age of 89. Dahlbeck, who attended Sweden's prestigious Royal Dramatic Theatre acting school, received the Eugene O'Neil Award in 1961 for her stage performances. She also wrote around a dozen novels."
Posted by Ray Pride at 12:49 PM | Comments (0)
Bad for glass, worse for brain: mad, mad Ronaldo-san
Hilton on Japan writes of "Insane Ronald-san": "Mass kudos to the artist who edited this series of clips of the Japanese Ronald McDonald (known as Donald, or Ronaldo-san in Japan). This is wild beyond wild, and captures (for me at least) the essence of all that is McDonald's hyper-marketing machinations. If they could, I have no doubt they would produce commercials like this, play 'em in endless loops in elementary schools around the world at full volume, and transform us all. Or maybe they already did...'
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February 08, 2008
When you get to Sesame Street
Posted by Ray Pride at 01:43 AM | Comments (0)
Maggie Gyllenhaal and Paul Mazursky make interim agreements
Posted by Ray Pride at 01:25 AM | Comments (0)
February 07, 2008
Misdefined words: what does "Maverick" mean? QT explains
Sometimes pop has it all over politics... While using the word "Maverick" to describe someone who's old enough to have taken multiple positions on every issue under the sun, doesn't it also ring of other things, like Roger Avary's "party piece" by Quentin Tarantino appropriated in Rory Kelly's Sleep With Me (1994)? "What's a film about, what's it really about? What genre does it take? ... [T]he whole idea, man, is subversion. You want subversion on a massive level. You know what one of the greatest f---ng scripts ever written in the history of Hollywood is? Top Gun... Top Gun is f---ing great. What is Top Gun? You think it's a story about a bunch of fighter pilots... It is a story about a man's struggle with his own homosexuality. It is! That is what Top Gun is about, man. You've got Maverick, all right? He's on the edge, man. He's right on the f---ing line, all right? And you've got Iceman, and all his crew. They're gay, they represent the gay man, all right? And they're saying, go, go the gay way, go the gay way. He could go both ways..." [Clip below.]
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A simple sentiment: maybe it's true
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus - Official Site - Coming Soon.
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Where in the world is Bill Forsyth?
When Bill Forsyth's last feature, Gregory's 2 Girls, was on the circuit in 1999, I got to talk to him in a couple of countries. Such a sweet, smart man, with his own ideas about how to live his life. He demurred each observation I offered, no matter how precise and specific. If Housekeeping were available on DVD in the States, its influence could not be understated. Now this: "It is his best-known and best-loved work," writes Tim Teeman in the Times of London, "but Bill Forsyth, the writer and director of Gregory's Girl, doesn't own a copy, and doesn't want to. “I've always said, as far as I'm concerned once you've made a movie, it's the kid that's left home,” he says plainly. “I used to say, if I saw one of my movies walking down the street, I wouldn't cross the road to say hello.” ... Silence has reigned for the last eight years. No films. No word of Forsyth. “I just write, live, have a nice life,” he says. He and his partner Moira have been together for five years and live in the Western Scottish countryside. They first went out in their early twenties before his marriage to Adrienne Atkinson with whom he has two children. He has written for HBO and is developing a British-based comedy with the American sitcom queen Caryn Mandabach. The public impression is things went very wrong for you, I say. “That's strange. I don't see that shape,” Forsyth says. “I don't remember tripping up along the way. I just kept going. I have to put my hand on my heart and say I'm ten times happier not making films than making films.” he says. I did it 'cos they let me. It's not something you decline... I can't stand the cinema. We did go once three or four years ago just to experience it. We went to a mall outside Glasgow and had a pretty horrendous experience.” What did he see? “I'm blushing,” he says, and he is, and he is laughing too.
“Wedding Crashers,” he says. “We just wanted a night out. But the experience of being with the audience, the stench of popcorn. I objected to the way they were being manipulated, infantilised...The difference between an arthouse film and Wedding Crashers is minute. Then after the movie you're herded out, a rat in a maze. Suddenly you're in the car park.” After the interview, Forsyth sends Teeman a note. It's worth reading. Where's the tissue? [The article has links to follow-ups on what became of the cast of Gregory's Girl; two video interviews with a younger Forsyth follow; Forsyth's script of Being Human can be downloaded here; plus Forsyth's CV. A 1999 London Telegraph interview (scroll to second entry), just as Forsyth was releasing his last film, is here.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 08:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 06, 2008
Screenwriter Ronald Harwood on the Hollywood bucks
"Harwood is drily optimistic that agreement will be reached ("I think the Writers Guild are having their balls squeezed") but far more certain that any settlement will make no difference to writers' income. "I've had a piece of every picture I've ever written. I've never had a penny. David Lean said to me at a party just after The Dresser, 'Do you want to make money out of movies?' I said, 'I'd love to.' He said, 'Go into the film studio; go and find the office where they're counting the money; you'll see men in suits on their knees stuffing money into sacks. The money they can't get in, grab, because that's all you're going to get.' "It's the game. There is nothing you can do about it."
Posted by Ray Pride at 04:30 PM | Comments (0)
Trailering Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden? (2008)
I wonder if this will ever even be released after its underwhelming Sundance debut... Maybe right after Blueberry Nights?
Posted by Ray Pride at 02:47 PM | Comments (0)
February 05, 2008
Brin like Flynn: "Help us, Sergey and Larry..."
Сергей Михайлович Брин!
Posted by Ray Pride at 07:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
911 is the only-est number: Trailering Manoj Shyamalan's The Happening
Posted by Ray Pride at 12:31 PM | Comments (0)
Trailering Michael Almereyda's New Orleans Mon Amour (SxSW)
Posted by Ray Pride at 12:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Filmmaking doesn't get any simpler, even in 30 seconds
Ummmm... I think you know where this one is going....
Posted by Ray Pride at 06:52 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 04, 2008
Sundance, Iced
Dude, dancing. [Closing night, Racquet Club.]
Bagheaded.
Amanda Micheli with La Corona poster.
Newspaperman. [Main Street.]
Hydra. [Main Street.]
Mr. Hernandez, in low light.
Where in the world is Morgan Spurlock? [Charlie's Bar, Yarrow Hotel.]
Shy boy. [Closing night, Racquet Club.]
The wee hours at the end. [Yarrow.]
Yarrow breakdown.
Goodnight, John Boy. [From Marriott headquarters.]
Missing the 30 inches. [Escaping Park City..]
Denver from the air.
Into the next storm.
Posted by Ray Pride at 05:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
More cricket-kicking: Variety notes
Over at Variety, Diane Garrett, one of Sime Silverman's sylvan successors sums up a simple body count of newspapers kicking crickets to the curb. "Studios have long questioned the relevance of film critics... [Newspapers] have recently eliminated their longtime critics, opting to pick up reviews from outside sources rather than devote dwindling resources to film criticism at a time when the [internet] is exploding with all sorts of film critiques and opinion... The San Diego Union-Tribune just axed longtime film critic
David Elliott. Detroit's Free Press is in no rush to replace Terry Lawson... And the New York Daily News has announced no replacement as yet for veteran opiner Jack Mathews..." [A notation about former Chicago Tribber Michael Wilmington seems to have its chronology twisted; he came from the L.A. Times, and now writes for the Chicago Jewish Star and Isthmus of Madison, per the Chicago critics' website.] "Bean-counters argue that since the same films are shown everywhere, the critic's hometown is irrelevant... [But] auds in different regions of the country respond to certain subjects -- like, say, teen pregnancy, religion and politics -- differently than they might in other locales. A critic who lives in the community he or she is writing for would understand and reflect that... The heyday of the local critic may soon be gone forever -- if it isn't already."
Posted by Ray Pride at 05:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 03, 2008
The future of movie reviewing... in THX
The future is now, from Time Out Chicago: "[A] graduate of Northwestern’s journalism program... the Chicago editor [of] Ain’t It Cool News... believes that professional critics... alienate their readers by burying them in film-school blather. 'There are certainly some [film] critics who maybe would make better film historians,' he explains.' As much as [a reader] likes getting a little history lesson, what it really boils down to is: Is this [a film] that I want to see?'”
Posted by Ray Pride at 02:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 02, 2008
"Yes We Can": are there similar videos for other candidates that have been overlooked?
I was looking for a Romney or Huckabee or McCain-supporting video with similar optimism, but I guess I'm not too good with the internets. [A much crisper copy here; Why it was made.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 11:31 PM | Comments (0)
How movies are made: Dept. of Julian Schnabel
I see nothing wrong with this. It's even endearing. [On the set of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 07:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Sundance on Monday...
A last pile of stuff coming up... For the weekend, Quentin Tarantino, post-Sundance Awards speechifying, talking Ballast with Bob Koehler; below, why you don't photograph Quentin Tarantino, and a Spanish filmmaker's parody, "Quentin Tarantino's Kill Him".
[Photo © 2008 Ray Pride.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 04:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 01, 2008
NSFW Haters in a Hostile World, (2/2008, Arin Crumley)
I am somehow in awe of Mr. Crumley's persistence. [Context, links, NSFW lyrics and tech notes at the jump.]
This is a mash up of real hate comments and hate mail I got in reaction to my last video. There is so much more that I couldn't fit in that you can read in the 4 main places I collected the hate:
http://williamsboard.com/topic/55003/...
http://gawker.com/350200/of-the-dozen...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_Qaj6...
http://arincrumley.com/social-checks-...
Also to note is that I've received two video responses:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-xXK_...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RemJE3...
One is a parody and the other proposes to be a video made by the himself. A commenter on his youtube channel seems to think the name of this poster is Adam Pearse. I'm currently looking into the validity of this video.
Also because the hatred commentary is presented in the form of a song, I had to write everything and change lines around and mash things up to get it to ryme. Here is my script I was reading while performing the song.
HATERS IN A HOSTILE WORLD - LYRICS:
Fuck you I hate you and your
stupid stuff that got stolen too.
Go back to california and get your daddy to buy a new bicycle.
Asshole.
I stole your video recorder you cunt!
and I'm going to use it to film my big dick getting put inside of ya
and post that as a video response on YouTube entitled . "Fuck You"
Hey man Thats a Nice Suite but your totally fucking trippin. Dude!
That microphone looks like a dildo and so do you.
Shit gets took Nigga!
They sold your bike to buy crack. And your never gonna get your wallet back.
Faggot! Face it, you have to replace it, Meanwhile I'm going to use your
passport as a dull knife to slice your balls off. CUNT!
And now your videos on gawker, life is so unfair
But it make me feel better that they also hate you over there.
Ignorant insane stupid douchebag fool.
You remind me of a retarded kid that I used to throw eggs at in school.
who the hell walks around carrying 30 maxed out credit cards??
I HATE YOU WITH THE FIRE OF 1000 YOUR OWN HERPES SORES.
Hey everybody.
I'm I asking too much to organize a hit?
ANTE UP! LET'S KILL HIM!
FEED HIM TO THE WOLVES ... HE's an IDIOT
Nice tie fucker but I don't feel sympathy.
You make me want to spit at my computer screen. GOD HAVE MERCY!
Your Creepy and a Hippy and a Commy
and you remind me of a friend I used to have that tried to molest me.
Stop your vicious bitch screech about communism
your a whiny Williamsburg version of Gollum.
And if I see you in Canarsie at night in that outfit
I will personally take that opportunity to grab your neck and slice it.
imagine being a criminal and seeing an unlocked bike and a JACKET FULL OF TREASURE
just sitting there and then some flim flam fruit gettin blitz...That why they took your shits.
Can't you see it from their point of view! You Deserved it!
And by the by...
Kill yourself.
ENDING:
Give me back my shit X2
You don't need it
ANd I need it
(refrain)
(Then get shot in the back with a machine gun and then to the head with a hand gun.) Sound effects available upon request.
MUSIC:
The chords I'm playing during the hate comments are D, A, B, F#, G, A.
But my guitar is tuned 3 half steps lower. Then at the end I do a similar chord progression which is D, A6, B, F#.
I think I'm right about calling it A6. But it's basically the index finger baring the three higher strings on the second fret.
Also I used sound affects provided by Sound Track Pro. If anyone needs these, just let me know.
Posted by Ray Pride at 08:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
That Kubrick guy's still a smart cookie, y'know?
Posted by Ray Pride at 07:04 PM | Comments (0)
Lede but not follow: EBE's Kelly Vance
From East Bay Express, Kelly Vance intros a lesson in keeping readers from making it past the opening graf: "Critics are funny. When they aren't whiling away their time discussing the relative merits of Keira Knightley's and Javier Bardem's hairdos, one of their favorite occupations is "discovering" a neglected national film industry and championing it loudly. Fifteen years ago, it was Iran. Five years ago, South Korea. For the past two years, the hot international project has been Romania." Whatever sense is there about Romania being a critical canard is lost to "Critics are funny..."
Posted by Ray Pride at 03:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack