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July 29, 2008
DVDS: Satantango, The Band's Visit, The Year My Parents Went On Vacation, Inglorious Bastards, American Slapstick 2
Finally, and at last, and released on the day after filmmaker Bela Tarr's 53rd birthday, you can hold Satantango (1994, ****) in your hands. Facets Video has been working on this project for ages—a November release date came and went—but this impressively rich, epic yet minute seven-and-a-half hour accomplishment may be the week's most impressive release (although as an our-DVD set than as an exhibition of the reported single copy of the extremely expensive 35mm print). A dark night all its own (which I watched again across a hot and hyper-humid weekend), Tarr's 1994 story of muddy, rain-streaked, poverty- and booze-battened Hungarian village life works his idiosyncratic ideas about the representation of time and space through duration and it's mysterious just how the emphatic, understated grace of his camerawork affect the small shreds of story. How can the tempo of experience be expressed in the tempo of film? Each director finds their own way, but it seems wrong to resist the pull of music, which, like other forms of sound, works directly in the mind rather than requiring interpretation the way images do. It'll be intriguing to see what those new to this beautiful and elusive film make of it. [Manohla Dargis wrote a fine appreciation in January 2006.] Extras: letterboxed; several shorts, including Macbeth (1982, 64m), Tarr's rarely seen version of Shakespeare's tragedy in two shots; Journey on the Plain (1995, 34m), an anomalous enterprise in which actor-composer Mihaly Vig revisits Satantango locations; Prologue (2004, 5m), Tarr's contribution to the omnibus Visions of Europe and the transcript of a panel discussion including Jonathan Rosenbaum and Scott Foundas. [Facets, $80.]
Eran Kolirin's The Band's Visit, (***) an Israeli film that got bounced out of the competition by the Academy for Best Foreign Language Feature for having too much English in it, is a sweetly deadpan comedy of miscommunication where an Egyptian police band in boldly baby blue uniforms take a wrong turn and find themselves stranded amid Israelis in a dusty village and can only converse through that lingua franca. (Notch another one for the bureaucrats.) While it's obvious that Arab-Jewish relations are being made metaphoric, Kolirin is more interested in observational whimsy, and his best moments of comic composition show the influence of august forebears like Jacques Tati. And the delivery of the line, meant as seduction, "Do you like Chet Baker?" is an instant classic. With the always-welcome Ronit Elkabetz.
When the Oscar shortlist for Best Foreign Language Film was announced, a New York journalist attacked Cao Hamburger's The Year My Parents Went on Vacation, sight unseen as prototypical sentimental Oscar bait. If the writer had bothered to see the movie, a far different story would have unspoiled before blogging. Sly and ironic, and not unlike the Blame It on Fidel, Hamburger uses a child's perspective to examine complicated political turmoil (which likely took place in his own childhood). Set in 1970, a warm comic tone prevails even against the backdrop of the military dictatorship's crackdown on leftists during the 1970 World Cup. Twelve-year-old Mauro winds up in this hands of a neighbor of his grandfather, who's died before Mauro's arrival, and he's sheltered by a world that's a rush of Yiddish rather than Portuguese. Assured in most of its particulars, "The Year My Parents Went on Vacation" (a euphemism for going into hiding from the secret police) manages to mingle sweet and melancholy with likable results (and occasional gratifying surprises, such as the ending.) Extras: extended scenes, outtakes, international trailer, interviews. [City Lights, $27.]
Enzo Castellari's spaghetti western-front action movie Inglorious Bustards (** ½) is so much a favorite of director-geek Quentin Tarantino that he's purchased its title [re-spelling it as "Inglourious Basterds"] and based his upcoming Jews-kill-the-Nazis fantasia distantly on its content. I can't imagine anyone finding this amiable but thin Fred Williamson-Bo Svenson vehicle so inspiring without an ample amount of narcotics in the house. (You can almost hear the ghostly cry of the vendors pacing the aisles of an urban grindhouse on first release: "Loose joints… loose joints…") Still, it's sweetly nonsensical diversion. Released under various titles, including Hell's Heroes and G. I. Bro. Two versions are available, a slimmed-down edition and a three-disk monster. Both include Tarantino's emanations about what he considers its greatness. Three-disk extras include "Train Kept-a-Rolling," a doc with Castellari, Williamson, Svenson, Massimo Vanni, the SFX artist, producer, screenwriters; "Back to the War Zone," a locations featurette; audio commentary and soundtrack CD. An impressive package for those prepared to be impressed. [Severin; $18; $30.]
Trailer.
Tarantino-Castellari teaser.
American Slapstick Volume 2 offers up three discs of 30 lesser-known silent shorts, never released on home video before. While dipping into the discs offered interesting glimpses of performers like Larry Semon, Syd Chaplin (Charlie's brother), Alice Howell and Anne Cornwall, the series is likely for enthusiasts only, who would watch from start to finish. For non-specialists, the liner notes provide interesting sidenotes yet are forbiddingly unhelpful for navigating the shorts by artist. [Allday Entertainment/Facets, $35]
Posted by Ray Pride at 03:43 PM | Comments (0)
July 28, 2008
Nash Edgerton's first feature, The Square, has some short siblings
In Australia, The Square, feature debut of stuntman-director Nash Edgerton, opens July 31. (Click for the film's site.) But he's already made some incredibly inventive, action-driven shorts, including The Pitch, Spider, Deadline and Lucky. Ready... set... [Bio. A 2005 profile.]
The Pitch.
Spider.
Deadline..
Lucky. [More below.]
Edgerton's stunt reel.
A backgrounder on Edgerton and his actor brother and The Square.
Posted by Ray Pride at 04:59 AM | Comments (0)
July 27, 2008
Wong Kar-Wai naked... in a manner of speaking
Wong Kar-Wai choreographed Tony Leung and Carina Lau's wedding, administered by monks in Bhutan; a Chinese site expresses shock at a shot of WKW without his customary dark shades: "This is the first time that I have ever seen Wong Kar-wai without his trademark sunglasses. I never realized his face was so big; evidently the shades he wears occupy a good part of his face... [H]e looks like such a regular postman dude in the picture that I was left scratching my head…so that’s WKW? How could this be? I hope he dons his glasses again soon." Oh, here's a huge version of the portrait of the bride and groom at Ugyen Pelri Palace. 
Reports Alexandra Seno of Far Eastern Economic Review, WKW lavished himself on calibrating the soundtrack as well: "At the relatively intimate wedding today at the Uma Paro in Bhutan, the admirably tenacious Hong Kong paparazzi outside may be doing all they can to get pictures of the ceremony and parties (ivory Vera Wang wedding gown chosen by William Chang Suk-Ping), but we can give you more: the sounds of the celebration. Since signing up as unpaid (and outrageously over qualified) “wedding planner” for the nuptials of Carina and Tony, Wong has been consumed with selecting just the right tunes to set just the right mood. Wong and his regular crew are essentially planning and executing this wedding—running it like one of his movie sets with his usual film cabal. When it rained during an open-air wedding portrait shoot last Saturday, Wong ordered his regular producer to scout for another “set” immediately. A good thing that the crew were used to the director’s improvisationational working style... [H]ere are the songs and artists that the filmmaker and his crew have lined for the wedding: Can’t Take My Eyes Off You; Mendelssohn’s wedding march; Happy Together; Even If; Songs by Sergio Mendez; Songs by Abba; Songs by the Bee Gees; Songs by Stan Getz; Live performances by Faye Wong and Tony Leung." A dispatch from IHT. China Daily's version. [Portrait via Jet Tone Films.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 10:36 PM | Comments (0)
There's a dude with a bag on his head staring back at you
Mark Duplass: "Working on our first movie, The Puffy Chair, we were driving around with the crew in rural Maine one night and Mark, who was obsessed with horror movies at the time, asked everyone, What's the scariest thing you can think of?' Somebody from the back of the van was like: 'You're watching TV and you look out the window and there's a dude with a bag on his head staring back at you.'"
Posted by Ray Pride at 01:51 PM | Comments (0)
July 24, 2008
Indie is transcribing
Images from a humid-torrential-downpour Pitchfork Music Festival weekend for now, until the type-type-typing's done; this is minutes after a basement afterparty with No Age was flooded and the Chicago skies continued to pour. [Dov Charney is nowhere in sight.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 10:10 PM | Comments (0)
An image from Wings of Desire
From atop the Siegessäule statue in Berlin.
Posted by Ray Pride at 12:19 PM | Comments (0)
July 18, 2008
Guillermo del Toro: mixologist
At Alamo Drafthouse, Mr. Del Toro administers "The Muppet."
Posted by Ray Pride at 04:23 PM | Comments (0)
Yes, Debbie Reynolds sings "If I Had A Hammer"
Posted by Ray Pride at 03:05 PM | Comments (0)
July 17, 2008
The unlikeliest film tie-in of the day: The Exiles skateboards
Milestone Films' The Exiles, presented by Charles Burnett and Sherman Alexie, a restoration of Kent McKenzie's 1961 fiction film in film noir tradition, the story of Native Americans in Los Angeles' Bunker Hill District as they struggle during the Bureau of Indian Affairs “relocation period," boasts the most unlikely but strangely thrilling product tie-in in an age. Writes Milestone's Dennis Doros, "Possibly the very first tribute of its kind for any classic film release, we are particularly pleased that The Exiles has struck a chord with Native Americans throughout the US and Canada. It is interesting to note the coincidence that it was Douglas Miles' own San Carlos Apache Reservation in Gobe, Arizona where Kent Mackenzie first conceived the idea of The Exiles when he visited in 1957. Mackenzie's stark vision serves as the template for the (often misunderstood) stark artistic vision(s) of Douglas Miles as he re-creates scenes from the film... Using spraypaint, exacto knives and found objects, imagery from The Exiles comes to life via Miles' singular vision. His guerilla art method provides the backdrop for the collision of two works of art/artists exploring the so-called native experience. A perfect combination. The results being a one-two punch that builds interest and respect for The Exiles film, director, music and cast." To cite two of the many celebrations of the film, here's Manohla Dargis at NYTimes: "The restoration and long-delayed commercial release of The Exiles, a 1961 film about a largely forgotten corner of that deceptively bright city, is nothing less than a welcome act of defiant remembrance..." And Richard Brody at the New Yorker; "[T]he night photography alone would make the film immortal." The film's website. The site for Miles' Apache Skateboards. Coverage of his work here. [Below: a clip from The Exiles.]
Trailer for The Exiles.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 07:46 PM | Comments (0)
I love cold-calling: The Marina Zenovich story
A strong interview with director Marina Zenovich on the day Roman Polanski asks LA prosecutors to consider the charges of judicial misconduct in Roman Polansk: Wanted and Desired. A few bits: "I read an article in the Los Angeles Times that kind of piqued my interest in 2003. So, I had some people from that article who I cold called. The article was about whether or not [Polanski] would be able to come to America if he got nominated for The Pianist. When he got nominated there started to be more press, and then the girl and her lawyer went on the Larry King show and her lawyer said, “The day Roman Polanski fled was a sad day for the American judicial system.” That was really the comment that got me going, but I didn’t know anyone who knew her lawyer. I cold called him. I love cold calling [laughs]. I cold called the judge’s girlfriend. It was amazing; I found the judge’s obituary online and she was mentioned as being with him at his death. This was 2003, and he died in, I think, 1994. It was 11 o’clock when I found her number, and the next day by noon I was in her living room. And I said to her, “You shouldn’t let strangers into your house.” Anyway, that’s part of the fun, trying to find people, and then people hook you up with other people.
"I was never trying to humanize him. I think you can’t help but humanize people by telling their story, because he is a human... I think of him as a man who’s had a long and varied life filled with more ups and downs than most people. I wasn’t trying to be sympathetic, I was just trying to understand what got him to that night. I wanted to go backward in time to tell some of his history. I would have [told] more, but we had to keep to the story. I would have wanted to show maybe a little bit more of his childhood, but people know about his childhood, at least the people that I’m telling the story for. To me, he is very human. We’re all flawed human beings. If you tell a story about someone, you can’t help but make them human. I have archive[d footage] of him where he’s being very human. He’s very real. He’s not like—I can’t think of the male equivalent of Britney Spears. If I was to make a film about her, I would try to humanize her. I’ve never seen her do anything that seems particularly humanizing except for maybe when she was really, really in trouble. I remember reading something about her, like she got on an airplane, sat in coach, sat in the last row and was shaking all the way to L.A. That was the most human thing I’d ever read about her. She’s presented as a celebrity and you don’t even think of her as a human. To me, Roman Polanski is a full-blown figure and human being." [Much more at the link.]
[Photo © 2008 Ray Pride.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 07:45 PM | Comments (0)
Appropriating Girl Talk's Appropriations [language NSFW]
Girl Talk is Greg Gillis, whose second album is "Feed the Animals." He's an epic practitioner of the mashup: every song is comprised of what he considers "fair use" samples from other recording artists. Enter "Bunny Greenhouse," who's compiling videos with snippets from videos by those musicians. Jeeeeez..... Then again, BG did re-edit Magnolia to Gameboy music.
This is the composition I'm looking forward to BG's remake:
Posted by Ray Pride at 07:44 PM | Comments (0)
July 16, 2008
It's electric: when Mark Twain visted with Nikola Tesla
On a 95-degree day in Chicago where breezes are no balm... an image pregnant with possibilities.
Posted by Ray Pride at 03:54 PM | Comments (0)
No time for the old in-out, love, I've just come to read the meter.
From Kubrickonia, a small trove of Kubrickiana, a spot of door wide open: Mr. Kubrick's offices had cat doors. And you might be amazed what you could learn about Kubrick's boxes if you were to move around the web. No, I don't mean the complete Barry Lyndon on YouTube. JMW Turner never engraved a postage stamp in his life. [Below: For the love of a nice, normal fella and a trailer that might just be a Kubrick homage.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 10:29 AM | Comments (0)
July 15, 2008
Batman explodes the shark
From Batman: The Movie (1966): "Bat ladder away!" "Hand me down the shark repellent bat spray!"
Posted by Ray Pride at 06:59 PM | Comments (2)
"I'm a doctor!"; Yes, of course you are, Dr. Harford
From the Telegraph's 
Stanley Kubrick: a props odyssey. All drawn from the Kubrick Archive. Make an appointment today!
Posted by Ray Pride at 04:21 PM | Comments (0)
July 14, 2008
An hour with Matt Dentler on digital distribution
From Los Angeles Film Festival's YouTube Screening Room account, an hour of Cinetic's' Matt Dentler in conversation with YouTube about emerging initiatives. As they prepare to release their first batch of titles to various portals, Cinetic Rights Management also offers a list of sites that currently support shorts and features, including Amazon Unbox; iTunes Movie Store; Hulu; Jaman; Netflix Watch Instantly; YouTube Screening Room; imeem; Veoh; Joost; Babelgum; Caachi. Fred Schuer's backgrounder on Cinetic Rights Management, from Portfolio in June, is here.
Posted by Ray Pride at 04:35 PM | Comments (0)
Burn After Reading's international teaser
Via "Universal UK Trailers," who's only ever uploaded this video. "Good."
Posted by Ray Pride at 03:17 PM | Comments (1)
Katharine Hepburn? Removalist.
From the same interview, Ms. Hepburn rearranges the set to her substantial satisfaction. "Or put a rug over it! A green one!"
Posted by Ray Pride at 08:44 AM | Comments (0)
July 13, 2008
Interview of the... week? Zabriskie Point's Mark Frechette, Daria Halprin in conversation with Dick Cavett, Mel Brooks and Rex Reed
Several strained interviews linger in my memory, but this 8-minute clip from "The Dick Cavett Show" is almost otherworldly, and I mean that in a good way. Thirty-eight years ago was another planet. [Below, the same points made by other means by Signor Antonioni.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 01:54 PM | Comments (0)
While on the subject of intellectual property... Do you like Huey Lewis and the News?
Posted by Ray Pride at 01:53 AM | Comments (0)
July 12, 2008
Taking snapshots in the rain and getting struck by lightning
Thirteen seconds of "don't try this while leaning out your window in the Pacific Northwest in a gloomy pouring-rain dusk." "Jessica Lynch was filming lightning strikes from the window of her home last week when the storm she was documenting got a little too close for comfort. Actually, it got a lot too close for comfort: Lynch got tagged by a thunderbolt that struck near her house in Guemes Island, Washington." [Via Underwire.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 09:44 AM | Comments (0)
July 11, 2008
The Wackness' Jonathan Levine on sense of place in movies
More in an interview to be posted shortly. [Apple Store, Michigan Avenue, Chicago, June 19.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)
July 09, 2008
Chris Doyle's Olympics commercial for Coca-Cola China
The corporation describes.
The making-of, in Chinese, with Mr. Doyle looking uncommonly healthy with tall clean hair.
Posted by Ray Pride at 12:10 PM | Comments (0)
July 08, 2008
More reflections on Bruce Conner
"Thank you for your thoughts about Bruce. We have lost an amazing artist... Bruce was firmly opposed to display of his films on-line, and on his behalf as an attorney I made numerous requests for removal. Now that Bruce has died, all copyrights are now held by Jean Conner (Bruce's wife), and she has explicitly directed that I request and otherwise take action to have all on-line postings of Bruce Conner movies removed immediately."
That photo alone! Godspeed Bruce Conner. Writes Mike Plante: "He took film leader, a ‘secret' part of film, and reedited it as featured content. He reinterpreted found footage into his own heavily political - and often hilariously entertaining - short films... In his shorts, you see the roots of today's political satire, music videos and commercials, from slick editing that gives meaning under the surface, to landscape emo moments... Successful in the art world, he stayed DIY his entire career. Often fighting for his work to be displayed or projected correctly and with his personal attention, he never sat back and simply sold items.... When hired by San Jose State to teach a painting class, they wanted a set of his fingerprints and signature. He stated he couldn't sign their forms as his signature made something art, according to galleries. Not to mention his fingerprints and touch appeared on artwork and was his property. They agreed to make a limited edition of his application with fingerprints and signatures, forcing the government to play by new, esoteric rules... Conner was cantankerous and one-of-a-kind. He would wear an American flag pin. When asked why, he said, "I'm not going to let those bastards take it away from me." Sigh...
An obit by Kenneth Baker, art critic at SF Chronicle: "Asked once by a critic to mention some artists who influenced him, Mr. Conner said, "I typed out about 250 names," and instructed the writer to add that "limited space prevents us from printing the remaining 50,003 names on Mr. Conner's list of influences." Mr. Conner announced his own death erroneously on two occasions, once sending an obituary to a national art magazine, and later writing a self-description for the biographical encyclopedia Who Was Who in America." Conner's punk portfolio, "Mahubay Gardens," is up at the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archives, and at the link. The Walker Art Center blogs. Conner may have influenced George Lucas. John Yau talks to Conner at Brooklyn Rail. Conner: "ArtNews had a regular series, with pieces like “Jean Dubuffet Makes a Painting.” It included the artist’s signature and photographs documenting the product being produced. As I saw it, it was a product being produced because the camera was there, and, when somebody is observing the performer’s action, that always alters things. I decided it would be interesting to submit an article to ArtNews about Bruce Conner making a peanut butter sandwich, peanut butter being one of my favorite foods and main standbys during periods of economic distress. I also decided that it should be compulsively and precisely detailed... I asked Tom Garver to come to my apartment and take photographs as I built this sculpture and also while I ate it, which I didn’t tell him I was going to do. I set up a tape machine to record the entire process so we could time every action exactly to the second so that, in the article when it says the time is 11:35 and 10 seconds a certain action is happening. By timing the tape after the fact, it was possible to do that as precisely as possible. I then wrote the entire article. I wrote about building the sandwich and then about eating it. I asked Thomas to put his name on it because I knew ArtNews would not print it if it did not have an established, professional voyeur commenting and presenting the event. He said fine. However, he would not put his name to me eating the sandwich, which took place precisely at noon." Exhibit photos by Steve Rhodes. Conner's artist page at LA's Kohn Gallery. Prints at Gallery Paule Anglim. A Conner ink blot. Prints at Magnolia Editions. Bio at Carnegie International. More photos at Flickr.
Posted by Ray Pride at 07:30 PM | Comments (0)
Maddin on Savage in My Winnipeg
Savagery! Where'd Guy Maddin rent his mom? Pic and interview from The National Post: "One of Maddin's more bizarre fabrications is the inclusion of someone he identifies in the film as his mother. In fact, the woman is 87-year-old actress Ann Savage, who retired in 1955. "Ann Savage is without a doubt the fiercest femme fatale in the history of film noir," says Maddin, "the savage centre of the most famous Poverty Row film ever made, Detour (1945), and so she means a lot to me symbolically. She is my mother, she is Poverty Row filmmaking." Maddin recalls that when he started to write My Winnipeg, he told a friend in Los Angeles: "If only Ann Savage were alive to play my mother. And he said, ‘Ann Savage is alive, she was just at my wedding and I have her phone number.' "
Posted by Ray Pride at 06:13 PM | Comments (0)
Bruce Conner was 74
"Thank you for your thoughts about Bruce. We have lost an amazing artist... Bruce was firmly opposed to display of his films on-line, and on his behalf as an attorney I made numerous requests for removal. Now that Bruce has died, all copyrights are now held by Jean Conner (Bruce's wife), and she has explicitly directed that I request and otherwise take action to have all on-line postings of Bruce Conner movies removed immediately."
Artforum reports Bruce Conner, in declining health in recent years, has died, age 74. "Bruce Conner, a San Francisco–based artist known for his assemblages, films, drawings, and interdisciplinary works, passed away Monday afternoon. Conner moved to San Francisco in 1957 and quickly found his place within the city’s vibrant Beat community. His gauzy assemblages of scraps salvaged from abandoned buildings, nylon stockings, doll parts, and other found materials gained him art-world attention, as did A Movie (1958), an avant-garde film that juxtaposed footage from B movies, newsreels, soft-core pornography, and other fragments, all set to a musical score... 
Conner was active in the Bay Area’s 1960s counterculture scene, designing light shows for Family Dog performances at the Avalon Ballroom, and in the ’70s focused on drawing and photography..." There will be no funeral. A set of links to Conner's visual arts is at the "Beats In Kansas" site. From the Larry Keenan Gallery. Wiki. A wowza extended appreciation by Dennis Cooper is here, including the notation that Conner had asked for embedded video to removed on June 12 of this year. Cooper quotes at length from a fine Kristine McKenna LA Times profile: "Conner's last burst of intense art activity came in 1978 when he became involved in the San Francisco punk scene as a staff photographer for fanzine Search and Destroy. A corrosive aesthetic of outraged idealism that Conner had anticipated by decades, punk was tailor-made to his sensibility, and he spent most of 1978 at a punk club called the Mabuhay. "I lost a lot of brain cells at the Mabuhay," he laughs. "During that year I had a press card so I got in free, and I'd go four or five nights a week. What are you gonna do listening to hours of incomprehensible rock 'n' roll but drink? I became an alcoholic, and it took me a few years to deal with that. "I've always been uneasy about being identified with the art I've made," he concludes. "Art takes on a power all its own and it's 
frightening to have things floating around the world with my name on them that people are free to interpret and use however they choose. Beyond that, I've seen many cases where artists have been defeated because the things they made came to be perceived as being more important then they themselves were. De Chirico struggled to develop a new style of painting, but nobody was interested-they only wanted to show his own work. This is something I've experienced myself, and it's a highly unbalanced situation because essentially the artist is denied a voice about the course of his own life and work." Caveh Zahedi got video of Conner appreciating Louise Brooks in 2006. [Removed.]
A Movie (1958)
[Removed.]
America Is Waiting.
[Removed.]
Mongoloid.
[Removed.]
Breakaway (1966) (with Toni Basil)
[Removed.]
Valse Triste (1977)
[Removed.]
Vivian
[Removed.]
The White Rose
[Removed.]
Take the 5 10 To Dreamland.
[Removed.]
A link to Conner's Mea Culpa [Removed.]. A linky, fact-filled appreciation from July 5 (diggin' the hood ornament on that Rolls!). Conner is part of the 7th Gwanju Biennale. Below: detailed and fact-filled information about Report. {Stills from Nathan Austin's blog.]
From a blog entry by Tom Warner: "In a work of memory, affection, and grief, filmmaker Bruce Conner uses experimental techniques, such as stop-action newsreel footage, numbered leader, television commercials, and a scene from Frankenstein, to record the assassination of President Kennedy, and to protest the exploitation of his death and the violence of the times in which he lived. Newsweek's Jack Kroll called Conner "the most brilliant film-editor of the avant-garde." And Film Quarterly's David Mosen commented on Report thusly: "Society thrives on violence, destruction, and death no matter how hard we try to hide it with immaculately clean offices, the worship of modern science, or the creation of instant martyrs. From the bullfight arena to the nuclear arena we clamor for the spectacle of destruction. The crucial link in Report is that JFK with his great PT 109 was just as much a part of the destruction game as anyone else. Losing is a big part of playing games." And Conner himself says of it: "I was so emotionally involved initially with Report that I would have to leave the auditorium while it was shown. It would disturb me so much that I would be physically shaking." How precious is this film? Canyon Cinema [no longer] sells 16mm copies for $1,800! At one time there was a DVD available from Michael Kohn Gallery in West Hollywood called 2002 B.C. that contained eight 16mm Conner shorts, including Report. But Conner stipulated that his fans donate $50 to one of three L.A. charities in order to get the disc...
Bruce Conner Trivia: During the 1960s Conner became an active force in the San Francisco counterculture as a collaborator in light shows for the legendary Family Dog at the Avalon ballroom, and through his intricate black-and-white mandala drawings and elaborate collages made from scraps of 19th-century engravings, all of which remain icons of the period's sensory-based spirituality. In the 70s, he started photographing SF punk bands for Search & Destroy magazine after seeing Devo play there (on a tip from his pal Antonia Christina Basiloti - better known as Tony Basil - who years earlier he filmed dancing naked in 1966's Breakaway)....
Report Trivia: Between 1963 and 1967, this film went through seven transformations ... and in 2005 Conner transferred the film to digital for yet another version. Conner comments: "My concept was to make every viewing print similar using the same soundtrack, but the images would change with each print. People could see this long process of various images at different viewing times. The experience would be similar to people's memory of seeing films when they are shown again. There is sometimes a moment of wonder when the images seem to be different or in a different order than when the film was first seen...In the 1960s, it was possible to make unique reversal prints. I would just edit the A-roll of Report (one single line of 16mm film) take some images out, move them around, put other ones in. During the first eight minutes of the film, I used one image that would repeat over and over and over as a film loop. The prints went into distribution or into people's hands, and then they would someday disappear from wear and tear."
Posted by Ray Pride at 12:53 PM | Comments (1)
July 07, 2008
Two Tom Disch poems, two weeks before his suicide
Science fiction savant and swell poet Tom Disch committed suicide on the Fourth of July, age 68. He'd been committing his poetry to his LiveJournal page rather than suffering submission anxieties. (His novella, "The Brave Little Toaster," became a Disney animated short.) Here's an ominous pair he penned two weeks before his death.
The Tablets of Common Knowledge 1
Two of them appeared in a perp-walk
on Channel One tonight, looking tough and stoic--
but still young enough to serve as someone's
bitch once they've been bled by their lawyers
and whoever may be able to spare them, a while,
the horrors of an enforced sodomy. That.
as we know, is what prison is there for
and that is why there is an interval
between the sentencing and the first rape.
Kill yourselves while you can, guys.
It's what I would do.
The Tablets of Common Knowledge 2
People regularly disappear.
Some simply return to the burrows
they've lived in and die among friends.
Some take holidays: you may have received
their postcards and seashells. But many more
are murdered. The numbers are astonishing.
Corpses disintegrate in woodland graves
or, submerged, are home
to the seaworm and the ray.
We are entering an era
when men will die like flies,
swept off by floods, shoved
into pits by bulldozers, or starving
en masse as they cling
to the prison bars. Oh, the world
is a terrible, unkind place. But wasn't that
always the case? Let's sing something
together. Maybe that will help.
Posted by Ray Pride at 04:13 PM | Comments (0)
Consummated love via woodpecker
Posted by Ray Pride at 12:43 AM | Comments (0)
July 04, 2008
A Brazilian child's remake of The Shining
I think I like the More 4 trailer for the Kubrick season better.
Posted by Ray Pride at 04:14 PM | Comments (0)
July 03, 2008
John Waters calls him "the gay Citizen Hearst"
The Los Angeles Times website is almost impossible to find things serendipitously on a given topic, such as this Claudia Eller profile of entrepreneur Paul Colichman and his burgeoning media empire. A few days late, but still of note: "Cult filmmaker John Waters calls him "the gay Citizen Hearst." ... Five years ago, Colichman and his business partner launched Here, television's only premium gay cable network. Now, with an eye toward building their empire, they recently made a $6.5-million deal to buy the popular news magazine the Advocate, style monthly Out and other sister publications... "People say, 'Why would you buy a print publication when you're really in the television business?' " said Colichman. "But our point of view is that everything is cross-platformed now -- we are in the content business, and to generate profit you need to be everywhere." Colichman, 46, and his odd-couple business partner, Stephen P. Jarchow -- a straight family man from the Midwest -- also produce and distribute low-cost films and TV shows at their 13-year-old company, Regent Entertainment... "We realized that if you're self-financed, we had to pick a niche if we were going to truly be successful," Colichman said. "We knew that going head-to-head with the studios, we'd get our head handed to us sooner or later." [More at the link.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 09:34 AM | Comments (0)
July 02, 2008
Behind the scenes of Eurocinema
Eurocinema may be a success, reports Glenn Garvin of McClatchy Newspapers. "[V]ideo-on-demand brainchild Eurocinema is in 20 million homes and adding half a million more every month - and doing it by defying practically all conventional wisdom about the tastes and habits of American television viewers. The channel, headquartered in a Miami high-rise, offers no movies in English, no movies that have won Oscars - in fact, just about no movies that [the average viewer] has even heard of... Eurocinema is now available on Time Warner and Charter cable systems across America as well as DirecTV’s satellite service, and will join the Dish Network satellite lineup next month... "We’re trying to take advantage of the limited availability of foreign films here. In New York or Los Angeles, it’s easy to see foreign films. Denver, or even South Miami, not so much... You take 10 movies made in Europe, and maybe three are really good," says Perioche. "Of the three, one will probably be picked up for distribution in the United States. And that leaves two very good films that won’t be seen here. Those are the ones we want, even if nobody’s ever heard of them." [More detail at the link.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 05:18 PM | Comments (0)
Greenaways to go: mocking up The Last Supper
As the Guardian reports, "British filmmaker Peter Greenaway brought to life Leonardo Da Vinci's The Last Supper in Milan on Monday night, as part of a series of projects to animate classic works of art. In front of an intimate invited audience - and for one night only - Greenaway used lighting, projections and music to transform the fresco into a spectacle suitable, he said, for "the laptop generation." A short video extract. A 5-minute mp3 download of the ever-conversant Mr. Greenaway. And: seven pictures. More at Greenaway's site. [Portrait source.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 12:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 01, 2008
"The Fly The Opera" debuts: Cronenberg and Shore are amused
LAOpera's production of "The Fly The Opera" is premiering in Paris at Théâtre du Châtelet. Synopsis: "'The Fly 'is an engrossing exploration of the physical and psychological transformation in which a brilliant scientist begins to mutate into a hybrid of man and fly after one of his experiments goes horribly wrong. Researcher Seth Brundle makes a stunning breakthrough in the field of matter transportation when he successfully teleports a living creature. Frustrated in his budding romance with a scientific journalist, and in need of a human subject, he recklessly attempts to teleport himself. An unseen fly enters the transmission booth as well, however, and Brundle soon realizes that his experiment has had "mixed" results." An AP dispatch via NPR. Coverage from Sydney Morning Herald, where Cronenberg says, "It's a magical re-living of a part of my life, this time playing a completely different role in the creation of a very different animal. I can't wait to see what happens." The Globe & Mail went backstage: "With opening night coming up, it's a little bit tendu – how do you say? Yes, tense,” whispers the assistant from le Châtelet as he picks his way past the two baboon puppets, one furry and happy, one slimy and not. Yet it hardly seems tendu in the theatre as the rehearsal begins. The chauvinistically inclined might suggest that it's the calming presence of all those Canadians: Shore and Cronenberg hail from Toronto, and tenor David Curry, who plays the love rival Stathis Borans, grew up nearby in Oakville, Ont. Daniel Okulitch, the bass-baritone who plays the central role of scientific-genius-turned-household-pest Seth Brundle, is a Calgary boy." The promo video is here, including an interview with composer Howard Shore, a childhood friend of David Cronenberg. Cronenberg directs; Placido Domingo conducts; the libretto is by David Henry Hwang; Dante Ferretti designs; and costumes are by Denise Cronenberg. More at Shore's site and LAOpera, where the production moves in September. A PDF of the announcement is here. The synopsis of the 1950s-set production: 
THE FLY: THE STORY
The opera is set in the 1950s.
Act I
In the darkness, voices are heard counting out binary code, sequences of zeroes or ones. The lights rise upon banks of computers and video monitors, which gradually become transparent to reveal the proverbial "ghosts in the machine" staring out at us. The ghosts repeat two words: "Help me."
A hi-tech laboratory is filled with equipment covered in gore. Veronica Quaife sits in the center of the gruesome scene as police officers examine the room. A female officer asks Veronica if she would like to change out of her bloody clothing. "It's only blood," Veronica replies, adding cryptically: "The new flesh has come."
Veronica recalls a cocktail party three months earlier, hosted by Particle magazine. A scientific journalist, she is attending with her boss, Stathis Borans, the editor of Particle magazine. She meets researcher Seth Brundle, who giddily boasts of an invention that he 
has been working on in secret. Against her better judgment, she agrees to go with him to his laboratory.
He shows her two telepods, and asks her for something that is uniquely hers. She removes a stocking and watches as Brundle places it inside one of the pods. A camera projects the image of the telepod's interior onto a computer screen. A molecular analysis begins (voiced by the ghosts in the machine). A burst of light flashes inside the pod, and the image on the computer screen reveals that the stocking is no longer there. When Brundle opens the second pod and shows Veronica the stocking transported there, she realizes that he has discovered the secret of teleportation.
Veronica tells Stathis of Brundle's discovery. Veronica and Stathis have been engaged in a love affair, which she is determined to end once and for all. He is convinced that Brundle's discovery is a trick. Brundle himself arrives now, asking Veronica to write a book about his work, which he says has a few problems to work out.
Back in Brundle's lab, Veronica watches as Brundle attempts to teleport a baboon. But something is not right, and the computers are unable to process the molecular analysis of a complex organism. When the second telepod is opened, we see the mangled remains of the baboon turned literally inside out.
Veronica tries to console Brundle, and the two kiss. After devoting so many years to his frustrating work, he is now inspired by her to continue searching for the success that has eluded him.
After further research and experimentation, Seth and Veronica attempt once again to teleport a baboon. This time, they are successful.
Stathis, making a presentation to a group of scientists, reveals what Brundle has been working on. Outraged, Veronica agrees to meet with Stathis one last time. As she exits Seth's lab, we hear the buzzing of a fly.
Seth returns to his lab with champagne and groceries. He sees a note from Veronica: "I have an old life to scrape off my shoe once and for all." Seth muses that, as exciting as his new romance is, nothing can match the thrill of scientific discovery. He activates the telepods and climbs inside. We see his image on the video monitor and the teleportation sequence begins. But the camera, set for automatic movement tracking, now focuses on a fly speeding into the telepod just before the door closes behind it. Brundle emerges from the second telepod, his first attempt at human teleportation an apparent success.
Act II
In the present, Veronica's conversation with the female police officer continues. The computer monitors show video imagery of Brundle performing amazing physical feats. Veronica recalls how everything seemed to change when she returned to the lab after Seth's triumph.
We see Seth amazed to find that he is a changed man. His body now moves as quickly as his mind, and he now has a voracious appetite and is sexually indefatigable. He rejoices that his experiment has freed him from his previously cerebral life. Veronica discovers bristly hairs growing on Seth's back, which she cuts off, and suspects that something has gone wrong.
Marky, a cowboy, is at a busy dive bar with his girlfriend Tawny. Brundle walks in and unsuccessfully tries to hit on Tawny. When Marky calls him on it, Brundle suggests that they arm wrestle: fifty dollars if Marky wins, but Tawny goes home with Seth if the scientist wins. Confident as well as broke, Marky quickly agrees. They begin and Seth promptly fractures Marky's arm.
Seth takes Tawny home. After a night spent making love, he urges her to go through the telepods, promising her an amazing rush. She rushes out.
Veronica takes the hair samples to a lab and learns that they seem to be from a fly. She is terrified that Seth seems to be addicted to his new powers, but Seth accuses her of being jealous of him. They break up.
During the next four weeks, Seth sees disturbing side effects of his experiment. His fingernails fall out, followed by his teeth. He reviews the computer records of his teleportation and discovers that two life forms were involved, himself and a fly. Did his body absorb the fly? Negative, the Ghosts in the Machine reply: Brundle and the fly have been fused at the molecular level. They are now "Brundlefly."
Every day brings new changes. Unable to eat solid meals, Seth learns to vomit digestive fluids onto his food and reingest them. His fingers and toes fall off; his skin cracks. Terrified and alone, he begs Veronica to see him again. Shocked at his transformation, she asks Stathis to help find a cure. She recounts a nightmare she has had, in which she gives birth to Seth's mutant child, a grotesque larva. She tells Stathis that she is, in fact, pregnant.
Brundle reflects on the driving force of both insects and humans: to live, to kill, and to destroy anything that gets in their way. He warns Veronica to stay away; although he loves her, he can no longer guarantee that he won't kill her.
Stathis takes Veronica to a doctor in order to terminate her pregnancy. When Veronica is left alone in the examination room, Brundle appears, begging her to keep his child. When she refuses, he scoops her into his arms and takes her back to his lab. Seth has decided to decrease the percentage of fly in his body by taking Veronica through the telepods with him, fusing the four of them - the fly, Brundle, Veronica and their unborn child - together forever. He initiates the teleportation sequence, then forces her into one of the telepods and shuts himself into the other one.
Stathis arrives in time to release Veronica. They try to shut down the equipment, but their attempts only confuse the computer, which degenerates into chaos. When the telepod door opens, Seth has been turned inside out, just like the baboon. Barely alive, he whispers "Help me." "I will," she replies, taking Stathis' gun and shooting him.
Back in the present, Veronica tells the police officer that Brundle lives on, in the form of her child. She can no longer bear the thought of destroying all that remains of her beloved. "All hail the new flesh," murmur the Ghosts in the Machine."
Posted by Ray Pride at 08:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
John Waters on roller derby girls: fashion models that could beat the s--- out of you
Timeless scamp John Waters answers questions from readers at USA Today, including this sweet note on modern roller derby. "Given the rise of roller derby and the momentum of Baltimore's own Charm City Roller Girls, do you have any interest in doing a movie about the roller derby?" "No, but I'm for them, and I love that most roller-derby girls today are ironic burlesque stars. They seem to do both. I've met the ones in Baltimore, and I've met the ones in a lot of cities I go to. It seems like roller derby girls are my fans, and I'm their fan, too. They always have a great look. No one gives them any trouble, 'cause they could kick your aaa in a minute. But they always have fashion. They're like a fashion model that could beat the shit out of you. Which is a good look!"
[Photo © 2008 Ray Pride.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 11:15 AM | Comments (0)