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September 29, 2008
[PR] Transformers 2 gets iMichael IMAX treatment
MICHAEL BAY TO SHOOT SELECT SCENES OF TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN WITH IMAX® CAMERAS
LOS ANGELES, CA, September 30, 2008 – IMAX Corporation (NASDAQ: IMAX; TSX: IMX), DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures today announced that director Michael Bay will shoot key sequences of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen with IMAX® cameras. Bay will integrate the IMAX footage with state of the art CGI to create an unprecedented look and feel for the highly anticipated sequel to last year’s box office hit, Transformers. As previously announced, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen will be released to IMAX® theatres simultaneously with the movie’s wide release on June 26, 2009.
The movie sequences shot in traditional 35mm will be digitally re-mastered into the unparalleled image and sound quality of The IMAX Experience® with IMAX DMR® (Digital Re-mastering) technology. The IMAX DMR scenes will appear in the traditional “letterbox” shape, while scenes shot with IMAX’s cameras will expand vertically to fill the entire IMAX screen.
“The extraordinary level of detail and intensity captured by the IMAX camera creates many exciting possibilities for us with this film,” said Michael Bay, the film’s director. “IMAX’s all-encompassing format will take this story to a new level, and I am once again very excited to share The IMAX Experience with Transformers fans around the world.”
“The addition of another amazing title from DreamWorks and Paramount, combined with more groundbreaking use of IMAX technology by Hollywood’s top filmmakers, are examples of how far we have come as a company and a distribution platform over the past several years,” said IMAX Co-Chairmen and Co-CEOs Richard L. Gelfond and Bradley J. Wechsler. “The growth of the IMAX theatre network, fueled by the economical benefits of the new IMAX digital system, is driving interest from virtually all of the top studios, which is resulting in more IMAX movies for audiences to enjoy.”
“Michael Bay’s innovative use of IMAX cameras will create a spectacular cinematic adventure for moviegoers next summer,” added Greg Foster, Chairman and President of IMAX Filmed Entertainment. “We’re very excited to be integrated as a core part of the Transformers production, and with the skilled marketing and distribution teams at DreamWorks and Paramount, the timing is ideal given our expanding global audience and network footprint.”
The IMAX release of this movie was previously mentioned in IMAX Corporation’s second quarter results press release on August 7.
Posted by Ray Pride at 10:52 PM | Comments (0)
[NSFW] Full Metal Debate
Was John McCain saying things under his breath during the first debate? This is how rumors get started.
Posted by Ray Pride at 01:22 AM | Comments (0)
September 27, 2008
"50 eggs..."
For Mr. Newman, via Hobotopia.
Posted by Ray Pride at 11:39 PM | Comments (0)
Paul Newman for Ned Lamont (2004)
Ned Lamont talks about the lifelong progressive.
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Newman's own popcorn
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Paul Newman by Dennis Hopper, 1964
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Paul Newman, James Dean screen test
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Paul Newman in Slap Shot
Trailer. [Bonus below: Slap Shot en Québécois.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 09:47 AM | Comments (0)
September 26, 2008
Lake of Udaipur, Le Tone: a travel notebook comes to life
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Postering Synecdoche, New York
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Sacha Baron Cohen crashes Milan catwalk
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Trailering W.: Based On A True Story's latest incarnation
[If you're reading this from Indie's front page, to view in proper ratio, click below on the time stamp link.]
As apt needle-drops go for placing a song to footage, this is splendid. On the nose a bit? Yup.
Posted by Ray Pride at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)
Filmmaker Todd Sklar on working in Columbia, Missouri
Earlier this week, I traveled to Columbia, Missouri to present two Olivier Assayas films (Irma Vep; Late August, Early September) in the first installment of Ragtag Cinema's Critic's Series. It was the first time I met filmmaker Todd Sklar, although I had reviewed his self-distributed feature comedy debut, Box Elder, earlier this year. (It's still out there, including a scheduled return engagement at Chicago's Siskel.) Afterwards, we stepped out onto Hitt Street to talk about why Columbia's good for him and for filmmaking. [The trailer for Box Elder is below; here's a good making-of piece. Website.]
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Three Days Of The Condor: "We play games"
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September 25, 2008
Dot Matrix Revolution by Superbrothers
DOT MATRIX REVOLUTION* from superbrothers
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Silent Light (2007, ****)
Richly individualistic movies still get made. They're out there. Rich history cannot but produce rich potential. Looking back and forward, as the British Film Institute turns 75, they asked seventy-five figures to comment on "Visions for the Future. There's a rangy bunch of notions floating through the videos where a largely male assemblage answers two questions: What one film would you wish to share with future generations? And "What exits you about the future of the moving image?" Untethered from the necessities of finance and distribution, optimism reigns in the 150 brief videos, with contributors ranging from musician Nitin Sawnhey's words on Pather Panchali; Ken Russell on Metropolis; Gurinder Chadha on Ozu's Tokyo Story; Patrick Marber (Closer) on The Red Shoes; and Sir Roger Moore (Bond, James Bond) on Lawrence of Arabia. Robert Altman liked to say that he was never inspired by a good movie, only the bad ones that showed him what never to do in his own work, yet the litany of titles in like having the 400-plus titles of the Criterion Collection fall on your head: with all the crises crashing around the world in the world of film today, isn't it amazing that this many remarkable movies have been made despite the complacency and corruption often visited upon the form? (Or, as a Romanian director once said to me, "We are just a little planet with little insects, but what beautiful insects we are.")
Composer Michael Nyman advocates Carlos Reygadas' amazing Silent Light, which has begun a one-week run at MoMA in Manhattan, for being "an extraordinary, transcendent meditation on love and religion." That opening shot is embedded above, a glorious six-minute sunrise that encompasses the stars, the sky, animals and man. Seen on a proper screen, you see neither the past nor the future but an eternal present. A work of obstinacy and vision, Silent Light holds rare beauty. Here's a condensation of Nyman's comments: "What excites me is that filmmaking is accessible to anybody and everybody. There's obviously the same danger that there is with very accessible music technology—synthesizers and computer programs—that you can equally come up with crap as you can come up with a masterpiece. That's the danger. Whether it breaks down the studio system or it breaks down the hegemony of studios and big producers, conditioning the way we see images, and the way that narratives are put together and the way that specific subjects are dealt with, I think—I hope—Hollywood is in a terminal stage. Maybe this almost free cinema will be the future. Visual education on the internet, even with YouTube, I think will increase and make these Hollywood dinosaurs into what they are, relics of 19th century theater."
Here's a sample of Manohla Dargis' finely wrought rave: Reygadas' "silky camera movements and harmoniously balanced widescreen compositions still enthrall, but he now comes across as less committed to his own virtuosity and more invested in finding images — of children bathing, trees rustling, clouds passing — that offer a truer sense of the world than is found in melodramatic bloodletting." And of the opening: "mesmerizing, transporting…. the seemingly unmoored camera traces a downward arc across a nearly pitch-black night sky dotted with starry pinpricks. Accompanied by an unsettling chorus of animal cries and screams (what’s going on in there?), the camera descends from its cosmic perch into the brightening world and then, as if parting a curtain, moves through some trees onto a clearing that effectively becomes the stage for the ensuing human drama."
Posted by Ray Pride at 02:46 PM | Comments (0)
I wasn't made for fighting, Asif Mian
A striking video by Asif Mian.
WOODHANDS :: I Wasn't Made For Fighting from .: IDEAL FRIENDS :. on Vimeo.
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Deep thought: Slacker Uprising
Is free a fair price when the product's crap? [Warning: self-hagiography ahead.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 10:44 AM | Comments (0)
September 24, 2008
[PR] Che officially gets Ziegfeld airing
"Steven Soderbergh’s Epic Movie Biography Che to Premiere In Full- Length at New York’s Ziegfeld Theater And Los Angeles’ Landmark Theater in December
"Jonathan Sehring, President, IFC, revealed that Steven Soderbergh's epic Che will premiere with limited runs in December at New York’s Ziegfeld Theater and at Los Angeles’ Landmark Theatre. Sehring also said that the December runs of the movie will be presented in its four-and-a-half-hour entirety with intermissions, although it will be presented in two parts when it opens wide in theaters in January 2009. IFC acquired the acclaimed movie recently at the Toronto International Film Festival."
Posted by Ray Pride at 02:44 PM | Comments (0)
Wim Wenders returns to Room 666
Back to Room 666 from Think Tank.
The future of cinema... is there one? Twenty-six years after his Chambre 666, asking 1982 Cannes-goers like Godard, Spielberg and Fassbinder about the future, Wenders is on the other side of the camera. Plus ghosts... [Think Tank's press release with more details is below.]
V2 Cinema presents the short documentary feature BACK TO ROOM 666 (aka DE VOLTA AO QUARTO 666), starring director Wim Wenders. Directed by Gustavo Spolidoro, the movie updates the scenary of Wenders' Room 666 (1982), now with the German filmmaker as the interviewee. The video is the third of five shorts from online series Boundaries of Thought: THINK TANK (AKA Fronteiras do Pensamento: ENSAIOS VISUAIS). The THINK TANK is sponsored by Braskem and Copesul Cultural and produced by Davi de Oliveira Pinheiro and Leticia de Cassia.
In Room 666 (aka Chambre 666), Wenders asked several film directors from around the world the following question: With the popularity of TV, is cinema a dying art form? BACK TO ROOM 666 recreates the same atmosphere and the same question of the original in the times of digital cinema. “Now, 26 years later, the cinema survived, but again it passes through a time of doubts. It is from this picture that we try to retake the original idea bringing the same inquiry, but this time for its creatorâ€, says Brazilian filmmaker Gustavo Spolidoro (Still Orangutans).
For the short feature, the hotel room scenario from Room 666 was reallocated in the city of Porto Alegre (Brazil). This time a notebook replaces the TV set. The screen shows a scene from Wenders’ film where Michelangelo Antonioni foresees the future of the high definition video back in 1982. “Wenders talks about this scene and the characters from his movie ‘appear’ and interact with himâ€, says Spolidoro. “The guests from the original also take part in our movie, as ‘holograms’ that appears to continue the history from the pastâ€, explains.
***
BACK TO ROOM 666 - Directed By Gustavo Spolidoro And Produced By Davi de Oliveira Pinheiro and Letà cia de Cássia. Photographed By Eduardo Rabin. Edited By Alfredo Barros. Running Time: 15 minutes. In German, with English subtitles.
PHOTOS - Wenders_01 - Wim Wenders and director Gustavo Spolidoro on set. Wenders_02 - Wim Wenders reading the script. Wenders_03 - Wim Wenders. Michelangelo Antonioni on screen. Photos by Luciano Amaro Valério - © V2 Cinema.
***Â
THINK TANK is a spin off from the international seminar Boundaries of Thought (aka Fronteiras do Pensamento, 2007-2008) held in Brazil. Peter Greenaway, Michel Houellebecq, Pierre Levy and David Lynch are among the lecturers. The series presents (monthly) an online unpublished short-film with the presence of highly respected personalities of movies, theater, music and plastic arts. The directors Márcio Schoenardie (LEVELS), Fernando Belens (FEAST OF TITANS), and upcoming Camila Gonzatto and Davi de Oliveira Pinheiro show the world their particular views of art.
Posted by Ray Pride at 12:37 PM | Comments (0)
September 22, 2008
Frank Lloyd Wright on "What's My Line?"
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Diablo Cody checks in from Manifesto Nation
The only thing wrong with the rant is that it ought to be eleventy-seven times longer, as Diablo Cody cranks the HVAC at her MySpace blog: "I know my name is fake and that it annoys you. What, do you hate Queen Latifah and Rip Torn, too? Writers and entertainers have been using pseudonyms for years. Chances are, 
you're spewing bile under an assumed screen name yourself. I'm sorry if you think I'm like some inked-up quasi-Suicide Girl derby cunt from 2002, but I like my fake name. It's engraved on an Oscar. Yours isn't. Listen: I've been telling stories my whole life. Even when I was a phone sex operator, I was the Mark Twain of extemporaneous jerk-off fiction. I took every perspiring creep on a fucking journey. I don't know how to do anything else... I'm in love, I just bought a house, and my boss made E.T. I kind of have to focus on reality."
Posted by Ray Pride at 11:18 AM | Comments (0)
September 21, 2008
Metamorphosis, Glenn Marshall
Metamorphosis from Glenn Marshall.
A demo of the software program, Processing.
Posted by Ray Pride at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)
September 20, 2008
Ragtag Cinema's Critics' Series, Monday and Tuesday
On Monday and Tuesday, I'll be the first guest at Ragtag Cinema's Critics Series in Columbia, Missouri, showing and discussing two films by Olivier Assayas, Irma Vep and Late August, Early September.
If you're in central Missouri and haven't seen 'em... The Columbia Missourian asked a few questions about why these films? A very good backgrounder on Assayas is at Senses of Cinema. [Below, a half-hour conversation with Assayas, David Poland and me, which I remember as being a treat, but I concede that I look unaccountably uncomfortable and glum in the parts I've watched.]
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[Mash Mash] "No Country For McLovin"
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September 18, 2008
"Soul Meets Body," Death Cab for Cutie
Cheryl + Andrew's SDE - Vancouver from StillMotion on Vimeo.
Posted by Ray Pride at 04:04 PM | Comments (0)
Peter Broderick's New World of Distribution
Peter Broderick's compiled some of his current notions about where indie distribution's going. Part of the introduction follows; you can also download a PDF of the whole shebang 
be more tenacious, and take more risks. There are daunting challenges and no guarantees of success. But this hasn’t stopped more and more intrepid filmmakers from exploring uncharted territory and staking claims... Independents who are able to make overall deals are required to give distributors total control of the marketing and distribution of their films. The terms of these deals have gotten worse and few filmmakers end up satisfied. All is not well for companies and filmmakers in what I call the Old World of Distribution. At Film Independent’s Film Financing Conference, Mark Gill vividly described “the ways the independent film business is in trouble” in his widely read and discussed keynote. Mark listed the companies and divisions that have been shut down or are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, noted that five others are in “serious financial peril,” and said that ten independent film financiers may soon “exit the business.” Mark made a persuasive case that “the sky really is falling… because the accumulation of bad news is kind of awe-inspiring.” While he doesn’t expect that the sky will “hit the ground everywhere,” he warned “it will feel like we just survived a medieval plague. The carnage and the stench will be overwhelming.” Mark’s keynote focused on the distributors, production companies, studio specialty divisions, and foreign sales companies that dominate independent film in the Old World. Mark has many years of experience in this world. He was President of Miramax Films, then head of Warner Independent, and is now CEO of the Film Department. He sees things from the perspective of a seasoned Old World executive. I see things from the filmmaker’s perspective.
For the past 11 years, I have been helping filmmakers maximize revenues, get their films seen as widely as possible, and launch or further their careers. From 1997 until 2002, I experienced the deteriorating state of the Old World of Distribution as head of IFC’s Next Wave Films. After the company closed, I discovered the New World of Distribution in its formative stages. A few directors had already gotten impressive results by splitting up their rights and selling DVDs directly from their websites. Filmmakers started asking me to advise them on distribution, and, before I knew it, I was a “distribution strategist” working with independents across the country and around the globe. Since late 2002, I have consulted with more than 500 filmmakers. While some have taken traditional paths in the Old World, many more have blazed trails in the new one. I’ve learned from their successes and failures and had the opportunity to share these lessons with other filmmakers, who then have been able to go further down these trails. It has been very exciting to be able to participate in the building of the New World, where the old rules no longer apply." [More at the link or download above.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 01:32 PM | Comments (0)
Peter Greenaway's "I Am Overpowered," for Face Tomorrow
Like Prospero's Books, with less money and fewer Rip Van Winkies.
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Sir Ben embodies Minor Threat's Ian MacKaye
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Spike Lee sez hello to HisSpace
Linked here.
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Une catastrophe par Jean-Luc Godard [2008, ****]
J-LG's trailer for the Viennale, or, as the YouTube poster puts it, "Bande-annonce de la Viennale et opus godardien impénétrable."
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CREDITS: "My Favorite Martian"
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September 17, 2008
Manoj Shyamalan's "Sixth Sense Chihuahua"
Posted by Ray Pride at 06:41 PM | Comments (0)
Jeff Dowd's new ditty: spaceman and the dude, revolutions
well, it is political, dude.
Posted by Ray Pride at 12:07 AM | Comments (0)
September 16, 2008
El Metro de Madrid
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Michael Langan's Doxology
Animation!
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September 15, 2008
Wasted, rotoscoped by Raymond Prado for Austin musician Matthew Bryan
Wasted- Matthew Bryan by Raymond Prado from Raymond Prado.
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Ninja cat
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September 13, 2008
50 Polish film posters
As advertised.
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Atchoo!
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September 11, 2008
DeNiro and Pacino's first interview together
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Northern composure: Forsaking fiction in a world of mad fact
12:30pm, 11 September 2001
Pure joy, pure bliss: I saw a movie called Amelie on Monday night that seemed to have made my movie year.
Little tears sting my eyes throughout. I join friends from New York at a party for a film set in Los Angeles. We talk about what we have seen. I think of questions to ask the director of Amelie today.
I sleep on it. I wake a little after 10 on Tuesday to the words of my roommate at the Toronto International Film Festival. I'm supposed to interview David Lynch in a couple of hours, talk about the psycho-mayhem of Mulholland Drive, a movie of glittering absurdity.
But CNN is on in the living room. My colleague, S—, and I watch the footage from New York. We're kibitzing in a void, not really listening to each other, just commenting and theorizing so gravity does not pin us to the ground. Toronto local lines work, I can get on-line. Cell phone, forget about it. I have to assume my friends are fine. None of them live or work near the World Trade Center.
S— and I watch the footage, ash-covered emergency vehicles slaloming between pedestrians, spilled into the street, faces mostly blank, some bloodied, all urgently getting away: from danger, from cameras, from mad fact.
The philosopher George Steiner has a new book out. He continues his argument of many years that language is no longer possible, and has not been in the time that has spun out since the Holocaust. I can't follow all his reasoning. But fiction I am concerned about today. Yesterday, audiences were shaken by Tim Blake Nelson's Holocaust narrative, The Grey Zone. I decided to wait. I wanted joy, not gloom. Distraction, craft, the diversion of art: not the diversion of tragedy to fiction.
I blow off two morning screenings. The best movies at this year's Toronto festival have been about happiness, the search for truth, the search for simple beauty. Jill Sprecher's fine Thirteen Conversations About One Thing is one of the best of that bunch. But all conversations today will be about One Thing that does not involve Love or Happiness or things that we want to see in capital letters, such as America Under Siege.
Will David Lynch still want to talk? Will the director of Amelie, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, still want to discuss the notion of on screen happiness and bliss later this afternoon?
On-line for only seconds, my AOL Buddy List lights up with names: New Yorkers who are safe, for now, in their own homes, describing the din of voices and vehicles outside, the idea there is nowhere to go. A journalist I know was on her way to get passerby reactions after the first plane hit the World Trade Center. She forgot her police pass. She went back home. The second airliner hit. She is staring at the TV, ready to collect "local color." But stays on line. But stays indoors. "I'm fucked up," she says, the deadpan of typed words as ashen as the faces on CNN.
Others ask me to pass messages along to friends at the Festival. Mike saw the first explosion from his kitchen window across the river. Andrew is okay. Tell Scott's friends the Bowery still stands.
Canadian television goes to their own commentators. "We go now to a sociology professor from Grimsby."
Grim. Grimm's fairytales: they're just stories that go bump in the night. But who wants to go into the dark today? Movies, movie archetypes, they all seem unworthy at the moment. I don't want to find myself at a great movie, I won't be able to concentrate. I don't want to fall into a crap movie like the Steve Martin dud, Novocaine, because life is just too short. Even the Bosnian war black comedy, No Man's Land is inappropriate. I want to watch the images on the tube, like I did during the L.A. riots. However shabby the analysis, however unclear the activity, however shaky the camera, this urban topography, the New York I know and love, is familiar. The fear on the faces is not. The Terror Porn replays. The airliner pierces the second tower again, again. Can narrative contain chaos? A little girl is the only one who remembers to cry. Her mother wipes ash from her small ruby cheeks with bottled water.
"I'm as close as I can get without being shooed away," someone says on a cell phone to the Canadian equivalent of CNN.
It's all too true to be good. The American CNN commentators invoke Tom Clancy. They wonder where the president is. Pulp fiction is their touchstone. Steve and I mention names like George Romero, watching the shots of the streets of Manhattan where no one walks, only runs, only gallops. We start to compare the events to other apocalyptic fictions, but stop suddenly, a silent compact: let's talk about family, friends, what will become of civil liberties in the United States.
I may be in Canada a long time. I wonder what country I'll be returning to.
[Newcity, 11 September 2001; appeared in a slightly different version in indieWIRE Daily, 14 September 2001.]
{Next: 31 January 2002.]
THE PLANE BANKS to the right, toward Brooklyn.
The last time I flew into New York, the 767 rode low over the lights of Manhattan, as if tugged gently along the beaded arterial glow of Broadway. It's a sooty dusk this December day, not from smoke, but from fog and shattered light. It is as if this spectacle were composed of albumen and platinum and memory, like a Stieglitz print on a clean, well-lighted gallery's wall.
Of course I look for the absence. I know New York. But not so well that my eye intuitively knows how to sketch in the missing towers. I cannot see coils of smoke, only sprigs of rain and approaching night.
The weather is unseasonable, warm, then hot, the renewal of spring in blizzard season. I am staying further uptown, where flowers are confused, in early bloom, their enthusiasm sentencing them to certain death. The next day, the light on the streets is as clear and bright as a new lover's smile. And it smells of spring. I go downtown to a friend's, nearer the site, and I expect the unspeakable buzzsaw of smells to assault my senses. The burning Coke cans, as some said, the bristle of burning wire, copy toner, frizz. But no. The night's damp still lingers in sidewalk crevices, along the facades of bodegas and bars and boutiques. At Houston and Bowery, I know I will go no closer. I have read, seen, talked, e-mailed, considered: I do not wish to know the literal void. The spiritual void is being filled. Colleagues and friends talk of renewal, not thematically, not dogmatically, but through simple enthusiasm, mere hope. The next day will mark two months since September 11. We don't talk around the subject, but no one really wants to talk about it. It is not a dance around the 220-story elephant in the room, but a dance of celebration, to the gift of inappropriate, untimely atmospheric conditions, a shred of global warming caressing the hearts, bodies, faces of the recently battered.
At Gitanes, the smell of brioche, café au lait, and that glorious attitude: I deign to serve you, how dare you look at me, enjoy your small parcel of land on this little sidewalk in so-large Soho. The sun beams down. We talk of many things, and all are good. The light of beautiful eyes, obscured first by sunglasses, but then by smiles that beam almost like phosphorus. We are alive; Manhattan is happy; we persist, we will grow stronger; soon, we will even be surly again. One of the waitstaff stands on the lip of the doorway, looks toward the sun. "It smells like France," she says.
"What part," I ask, "Are you from there?
"I'm from Morocco," she says, "I just imagine it smells like France."
"What does Morocco smell like?"
"The sun." She squints, then cuts me a smile like fresh creamery butter.
I'm invited to a dinner party that night. A documentary is premiering on the Sundance Channel. The filmmaker has invited friends and peers to share her debut, her public mortification, but first, to pour wine and rumor upon the waters. The owner of the apartment has just moved from Los Angeles to New York for work. It's further downtown, along the tributary of Broadway that feeds nearer the former World Trade Center. The wind is picking up. Night falls. The smell of the Hudson, the waft of the East River. Insurgent water, silent, somewhere near. A sour note of flowers somewhere, a pile of romantic gestures not made, left to founder and rot.
My nose is as nervous as a terrier. I will smell death, soon, I fear, jack-legging my way to this unfamiliar address. But no. Only the smell of spring and damp in the midst of encroaching winter. The room is warm. Bread is broken. The space is nice, but still not fully moved into. The hostess charms, a non-Angeleno returned to New York, concerned but not jumpy about the future. The back windows look downtown. There, from only a couple of blocks, you can see the dome of 2 World Financial Center, which was the most visible of squat survivors in the WTC aftermath. It glows. Too, the work lights, into the evening, and into the night after we will sleep, a glow of blinding, angelic transformation heightening the sky. I don't want to steal glances. The hostess pours more wine.
A few minutes before the program begins, there's trouble with the volume. As someone works to make sense of all the cables and jacks, a moment's silence falls. Of the dozen or so guests, I notice, all but one of us stares off, curious, wary, quiet, through the back window toward the weightless light.
"Aha!" the technician announces, the sound pouring out, a burst of sound and music promoting the show that starts in seconds. The personal expression, the entertainment, commences. We look gratefully toward art, toast our friend, our lives, alive.
Posted by Ray Pride at 11:10 AM | Comments (0)
Away, new photographs
If you're in Chicago in the next five weeks, a new selection of six large-scale photographs entitled Away will be shown at Atomix, near the intersection of Chicago and Damen. Please stop by...
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Home Movie Day PSA
[Via Boing-Boing.]
Posted by Ray Pride at 12:04 AM | Comments (0)
September 10, 2008
Nagi Noda, 35, noted Japanese director, designer
Creativity's Ann-Christine Diaz reports the death of Nagi Noda, "the Japanese artist/designer/director behind groundbreaking music videos and spots passed away on Sunday, September 7. She was 35. Noda had experienced ongoing complications related to a bad car accident last year that resulted in chronic pain. The exact cause of death was not specified. "Beyond being a brilliant artist and wonderful talent, Nagi was one of the most incredibly unique spirits that I have known," says Sheila Stepanek, CEO/EP Partizan US, which represented Noda. "Our thoughts and prayers are with her family and friends." Stepanek says that Noda passed "in her Mark Ryden dress, Chanel boots, perfect make-up with Viktor & Rolf lace black eye lashes." Noda was best known in the ad industry for her fantastic "Sentimental Journey" clip for Japanese pop star Yuki, which featured multiple "analog" clones of the singer and was featured in Saatchi's 2006 New Directors Showcase." More at the link, including two samples of her work, plus a link to her "Hearts on Fire" video for Cut/Copy as well as for "She's My Man" for Scissor Sisters. (Embedding is not allowed for these.) And: a truly lovely 2006 video, "TIGA (far from) Home."
Bonus, even if you don't like poodles or bodybuilders: "Mariko Takahashi's Fitness Video."
Posted by Ray Pride at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Wayne Wang's Princess of Nebraska debuts on YouTube while 1,000 Years Of Good Luck hits theaters
Wayne Wang's career as a feature director came with one of the first micro-budgeted success of the once-burgeoning American independent movement, 1992's Chan is Missing Much of his work is with women or bears Chinese and Chinese-American themes, even as he alternates studio work with smaller projects, such as Brooklyn-by-the-block Smoke (1995), written by Paul Auster. With a modest amount of money on hand after shooting, 
a companion film, Blue in the Face was made in five days by Wang and Auster, and there's a similar occasion a decade later, with Wang's latest, the generational drama A Thousand Years of Good Luck to be released next Friday in New York and L.A. in theaters, and the teensy-scaled The Princess of Nebraska, a story of a young woman making a momentous choice, shot with smaller, mostly consumer-level cameras, including the main character's cell phones, to be shown on YouTube's Screening Room for free starting October 17 (there's a trailer here.) A primary reason these almost guerilla-scaled collaborations appeal to Wang is how contrary they are to the style of editing in contemporary studio-budgeted projects, where a moment for reflection is a moment to be snipped. It's called a "pacing pass," or a review of the assembly to make sure that everything is always moving at the briskest of clips. "Well, that's true with all these studios now. You preview, you preview, and you're already chopping things out. And then at the end, they go through a pacing pace and basically anything that is a moment of taking a breath, for the audience to think, they take it right out. So that's what the studio films have become. There are no characters: they're heroes, they're comic strip heroes, and they're very one-note most of the time. There are a few films that go and deal with characters but there are very few of them. And plot! Everything has to be part of the plot. Everything is so cause-and-effect, it's unreal. That's why, again, in my film there are a lot of things that are not explained. A lot of things that don't lead to something. Which is part of their lives and their conflicts." Wang is open to evolving forms of distribution, but says, "We need to look at the world in both those ways. The sad thing is probably that the theater films are all going to be event films. That's the reality." And smaller pictures? The easy-to-laugh director says, laughing, "It's fun to do. It's almost like throwing all the rules out the window." Today's press release credits Magnolia PIctures, Cinetic Rights Management and YouTube for collaborating on devising the parallel distribution strategy." Quoting Magnolia's Ray Price: "The internet's ability to provide free streaming video is going to radically redefine independent film's access and availability to its audience. It provides a new platform, which can free us from the 'Top Ten' mentality in the same way that FM radio did for the music business." "The Princess of Nebraska is about a young woman from China who tries to locate her identity through different kinds of new media," Wang adds. "The piece was shot with this kind of mentality with various kinds of easily accessible digital sources. I am very excited that the distribution will be consistent with the way the piece was conceived and produced." Matt Dentler of Cinetic Rights enthuses: "For years, filmmakers have asked me when a veteran icon would release a new work for free, online," said Matt Dentler of Cinetic Rights Management. "That time is now, and we're thrilled to be part of this exciting distribution strategy."
Posted by Ray Pride at 03:55 PM | Comments (0)
[PR] Summit's Hurt Locker factsheet
THE HURT LOCKER
• Summit Entertainment has acquired the U.S. distribution rights to the action war drama THE HURT LOCKER which was a special presentation film at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival. Directed by Kathryn Bigelow and penned by Mark Boal, THE HURT LOCKER stars Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Christian Camargo, Suhail Al-Dabbach, Christopher Sayegh, Evangeline Lilly with Guy Pearce, David Morse and two-time Academy Award® nominee Ralph Fiennes. The film is financed and produced by Nicolas Chartier via his Voltage Pictures banner and produced by Bigelow and Boal via their First Light banner as well as Greg Shapiro via his Kingsgate Films banner.
• Summit plans to release the film in 2009.
• “THE HURT LOCKER is one of the most exciting and well-received films of the festival,” said Summit Co-Chairman and CEO, Rob Friedman. “It is wonderful to be working with Kathryn Bigelow and all of the filmmaking team to bring this film to the U.S. audience.”
• THE HURT LOCKER is an intense portrayal of elite soldiers who have one of the most dangerous jobs in the world: disarming bombs in the heat of combat. When a new sergeant, James, takes over a highly trained bomb disposal team amidst violent conflict, he surprises his two subordinates, Sanborn and Eldridge, by recklessly plunging them into a deadly game of urban combat. James behaves as if he's indifferent to death. As the men struggle to control their wild new leader, the city explodes into chaos, and James' true character reveals itself in a way that will change each man forever.
• THE HURT LOCKER is inspired by first-hand observation by journalist and screenwriter Mark Boal who was stationed on assignment with a special bomb unit. The film couples grippingly realistic action with intimate human drama to portray soldier psychology in a high-risk profession where men volunteer to face deadly odds.
• CAA packaged the film and represented its sale to Summit Entertainment.
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[PR] IFC puts on the Che t-shirt
IFC FILMS ACQUIRES NORTH AMERICAN RIGHTS TO
STEVEN SODERBERGH’S CHE
Toronto, Ontario – September 10, 2008 – IFC Films has acquired all North American rights to Steven Soderbergh’s epic “Che” starring Benicio Del Toro, produced by Laura Bickford and Benicio Del Toro and written by Peter Buchman. The film had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival where Benicio Del Toro won the Best Actor Prize. It is currently screening at the Toronto International Film Festival and will be screening next at the New York Film Festival.
“Che” will be released for one week awards qualifying run in New York and Los Angeles in December. The company will then re-open the film in January through IFC In Theaters, its day-and-date distribution platform which makes independent films available to a national audience in theaters and on-demand, simultaneously. It will also be included in the company’s exclusive video rental deal with Blockbuster Video.
Jonathan Sehring, President of IFC Films commented, “Steven's been involved with IFC as a member of the advisory board of both the IFC Network and the IFC Center since we formed them. We also financed “Gray’s Anatomy, ” and we have always considered him one of the most visionary American directors at work. "Che" is nothing less than the film event of the year. By giving us the rise and fall of one of the great icons of history, Steven Soderbergh and Benicio Del Toro, who gives an incredible soulful performance, have humanized him and given audiences around the world something that will be discussed for years to come. We are uniquely positioned through our day-and-date program and our Blockbuster deal to get this film to the widest possible audience, and we are thrilled.”
Keith Leopard, Director of Content for Blockbuster, said, “We are extremely excited to partner with IFC Films and present this stunning and thought provoking film to our customers.”
The deal was negotiated by IFC President Jonathan Sehring, VP of Acquisitions and Production Arianna Bocco and Senior Counsel Betsy Rodgers with Wild Bunch’s Vincent Maraval, Agnes Mentre, Laurent Baudens and Pierre Selinger.
“This project is so important to us and we wanted to partner with someone sharing our same idea of distribution,” said Maraval. “This is a unique distribution challenge and we needed someone with creative passion and marketing skill to work with. IFC Films came with the same ambition and energy that we had during the whole process of that exceptional adventure. We are pleased and relieved to give them our dearest baby to take care of.”
Producer Laura Bickford said, “IFC Films is a great place for “Che” and we are thrilled at their enthusiasm for the film and the unique model they offer us.”
“Che” is comprised of two stand alone parts that are the result of 7 years of intense research: “The Argentine” and “Guerrilla.” In “The Argentine,” Ernesto Che Guevara, an Argentine doctor, is one of 80 rebels under Fidel Castro on a mission to overthrow the corrupt government of Fulgencio Batista. Che is quickly embraced by his comrades and the Cuban people through his grasp of guerilla warfare and as a fighter. The film tracks his rise in the Cuban revolution from doctor to commander to revolutionary hero.
In “Guerrilla”, Che is at the height of his powers after the Cuban Revolution and has reemerged in Bolivia. Che has organized a group of Cubans and Bolivians to start the great Latin American revolution which will ultimately bring him to his death. Through this story, we come to understand how Che remains a symbol of idealism and heroism that lives in the hearts of people around the world.
IFC Films has been a major presence at the Toronto Film Festival with 7 films screening at the festival including Arnaud Desplechin's A CHRISTMAS TALE, Ole Christian Madsen's “Flame and Citron”, Matteo Garrone's “Gomorrah,” Kim Jee-Woon's “The Good, The Bad, The Weird”, Steve McQueen's “Hunger”, Barry Jenkins' “Medicine for Melancholy” and Olivier Assayas' “Summer Hours”. The company just announced the acquisition of Jan Troell’s “Everlasting Moments” which was one of the standout hits of the Telluride Film Festival and is currently also screening in Toronto.
About IFC Entertainment
A leader in the independent film industry, IFC Entertainment consists of multiple brands that are devoted to bringing the best of specialty films to the largest possible audience: IFC Films, IFC Productions, and the IFC Center. Through an innovative day-and-date distribution model, IFC Entertainment makes films available to a national audience through theatrical release by its renowned film division, while IFC In Theaters, an on demand service, simultaneously releases these titles to cable and satellite viewers. IFC Festival Direct features a wide selection of titles acquired from major international film festivals and offers them exclusively through on-demand and digital platforms. IFC Productions is a feature film production company that provides financing for select independent film projects. IFC Center is a three screen, state[-of-the-art cinema with
luxurious seating and HD digital and 35mm projection that s]hows art-house films in the heart of New York's Greenwich Village. IFC Entertainment's companies are subsidiaries of Rainbow Media Holdings LLC.
Rainbow Media Holdings LLC
Rainbow Media Holdings LLC is a subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corporation (NYSE: CVC). Rainbow Media is a leading producer of targeted, multi-platform content for global distribution, creating and managing some of the world's most compelling and dynamic entertainment brands, including AMC, IFC, WE tv, Sundance Channel, LIFESKOOL, SPORTSKOOL, and VOOM HD Networks. Through IFC Entertainment, Rainbow Media also owns and manages the following: IFC Films, a leading distribution company for independent film; IFC Productions, a feature film production company that provides financing for select independent film projects; and IFCCenter, a three screen, state-of-the-art cinema in the heart of New York'sGreenwich Village. Rainbow Media also operates Rainbow Advertising Sales Corporation, its advertising sales company; Rainbow Network Communications, its full service network programming origination and distribution company; and 11 Penn TV, a company that manages Rainbow Media's NYC studios and post-production facilities.
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Werewolves of New Jersey, when you can't afford lawyers, guns and money
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September 09, 2008
[PR] Universal Changes Its iTunes
NBC Universal Returns to the iTunes Store
NEW YORK and SAN FRANCISCO—September 9, 2008—Apple® and NBC Universal today announced the return of NBC programming to the iTunes® Store (www.iTunes.com) including NBC networks' top 10 series available immediately for purchase and download in both standard definition and stunning high definition. iTunes customers can choose programming from NBC, USA Network, SCI FI Channel, Bravo, Sleuth and NBC News including favorites such as the award-winning and critically acclaimed "Heroes,” and the Emmy award-winning programs "The Office,” "Battlestar Galactica” and "30 Rock.” NBCU standard definition television shows on the iTunes Store are $1.99 per episode and HD programs are available for just one dollar more at $2.99 per episode and select library content is available for $.99. Additional NBCU programming from Oxygen, Telemundo, Mun2 and NBC Sports will be available on iTunes soon.
"The return of our shows to iTunes is terrific news for everyone who loves television and the ease and convenience of Apple's iTunes,” said Jeff Zucker, President and CEO, NBC Universal. "And now, by offering consumers a variety of new options, our fans have even more ways to enjoy our content.”
"We are thrilled that NBC is back on iTunes in time for the Fall TV season,” said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "NBC has some of TV's most popular shows and now customers can purchase and download them from iTunes in SD or stunning HD.”
iTunes customers can also purchase a Season Pass which allows viewers to buy an entire season of programming at a discounted price. In addition, NBC Universal is offering one free episode from each of their top series, available in either SD or HD, on the iTunes Store for the next two weeks. The premiere episodes of upcoming NBC shows, such as "Knight Rider,” "My Own Worst Enemy” and "Kath & Kim” will be available on iTunes a week before their broadcast premieres later in September and October, with subsequent episodes available the day after broadcast. NBC is also making full episodes of several vintage television shows available on iTunes for $.99, including "The A-Team,” "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour,” "Miami Vice,” "Kojak” and the original "Battlestar Galactica.”
The iTunes Store is the world's most popular online music, TV and movie store with a catalog of over 8.5 million songs, over 30,000 TV episodes and over 2,500 films including 600 in stunning high definition video. With Apple's legendary ease of use, pioneering features such as iTunes Movie Rentals, integrated podcasting support, iMix playlist sharing, the ability to turn previously purchased tracks into complete albums at a reduced price, and seamless integration with iPod® and iPhone(TM), the iTunes Store is the best way for Mac® and PC users to legally discover, purchase and download music and video online.
Pricing & Availability
iTunes 8 for Mac and Windows includes the iTunes Store and is available as a free download from (www.iTunes.com). Purchase and download of songs and videos from the iTunes Store requires a valid credit card from a financial institution in the country of purchase. Video availability varies by country.
NBC Universal is one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news and information to a global audience. Formed in May 2004 through the combining of NBC and Vivendi Universal Entertainment, NBC Universal owns and operates a valuable portfolio of news and entertainment networks, a premier motion picture company, significant television production operations, a leading television stations group and world-renowned theme parks. NBC Universal is 80 percent owned by General Electric and 20 percent owned by Vivendi.
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.
Posted by Ray Pride at 11:33 AM | Comments (0)
September 08, 2008
[PR] Searchlight's Wrestler release
FOX SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES
ACQUIRES “THE WRESTLER”
Specialty Arm Acquires US Rights
Toronto, Ontario, CANADA September 8, 2008 – Fox Searchlight Pictures President Peter Rice today announced that the company has acquired US rights to the riveting drama THE WRESTLER, which had its North American premiere last night at the Toronto International Film Festival and won the Golden Lion at the 2008 
Venice Film Festival. Directed by Darren Aronofsky and written by Rob Siegel, THE WRESTLER stars Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood. The film was produced by Scott Franklin and Darren Aronofsky thru Protozoa Pictures. Vincent Maraval, Agnes Mentre and Jennifer Roth served as executive producers and Mark Heyman co-produced. The film is scheduled to be released in December 2008.
Said Fox Searchlight Pictures President Peter Rice, "Darren Aronofsky has created an unbelievably electrifying and compelling tale with tour de force performances. We are delighted to be releasing this brilliantly executed film and thank Wild Bunch for choosing Searchlight."
Added Darren Aronofsky, “I’ve known Peter Rice for many, many years and am excited and honored to finally get a chance to collaborate with him and his team.”
Said Vincent Maraval “We are delighted to have closed the deal with Fox Searchlight which we believe is the best distributor for this movie.”
Back in the late ‘80s, Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Mickey Rourke) was a headlining professional wrestler. Now, twenty years later, he ekes out a living performing for handfuls of diehard wrestling fans in high school gyms and community centers around New Jersey.
Estranged from his daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) and unable to sustain any real relationships, Randy lives for the thrill of the show and the adoration of his fans. However, a heart attack forces him into retirement. As his sense of identity starts to slip away, he begins to evaluate the state of his life -- trying to reconnect with his daughter, and strikes up a blossoming romance with an aging stripper (Marisa Tomei). Yet all this cannot compare to the allure of the ring and passion for his art, which threatens to pull Randy “The Ram” back into his world of wrestling.
Director Darren Aronofsky presents a powerful portrait of a battered dreamer, who despite himself and the odds stacked against him, lives to be a hero once again in the only place he considers home – inside the ring.
The deal was brokered on Fox Searchlight’s side by Senior Vice President of Acquisitions Tony Safford and Vice President of Business Affairs Megan O’Brien. Creative Artists Agency (CAA), which packaged the film, is handling the North American rights. Darren Aronofsky was represented by CAA and Carlos Goodman.
Fox Searchlight Pictures is a specialty film company that both finances and acquires motion pictures. It has its own marketing and distribution operations, and its films are distributed internationally by Twentieth Century Fox. Fox Searchlight Pictures is a unit of Fox Filmed Entertainment, a unit of Fox Entertainment Group.
Posted by Ray Pride at 04:39 PM | Comments (0)
[PR] The Coens' A Serious Man starts Monday
PRODUCTION BEGINNING IN MINNESOTA ON JOEL AND ETHAN COEN’S A SERIOUS MAN
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEW YORK, September 8th, 2008 – Production begins today on location in Minnesota on A Serious Man, for Focus Features and Working Title Films. Joel and Ethan Coen, Academy Award winners for No Country for Old Men and 
Fargo, are writing, producing, and directing the film. Working Title co-chairs Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner are executive-producing the film with Robert Graf, who has worked on the Coens’ last six features in various producing capacities.
The director of photography on A Serious Man is seven-time 
Academy Award nominee Roger Deakins, who is marking his tenth feature collaboration with the Coens. Mary Zophres is the film’s costume designer, marking her ninth feature collaboration with the Coens. Jess Gonchor is the production designer, marking his third feature collaboration with the Coens.
A Serious Man is the story of an ordinary man’s search for clarity in a universe where Jefferson Airplane is on the radio and F-Troop is on TV. It is 1967, and Larry Gopnik, a physics professor at a quiet midwestern university, has just been informed by his wife Judith that she is leaving him. She has fallen in love with one of his more pompous colleagues, Sy Ableman, who seems to her a more substantial person than the feckless Larry. Larry’s unemployable brother Arthur is sleeping on the couch, his son Danny is a discipline problem and a shirker at Hebrew school, and his daughter Sarah is filching money from his wallet in order to save up for a nose job. While his wife and Sy Ableman blithely make new domestic arrangements, and his brother becomes more and more of a burden, an anonymous hostile letter-writer is trying to sabotage Larry’s chances for tenure at the university. Also, a graduate student seems to be trying to bribe him for a passing grade while at the same time threatening to sue him for defamation. Plus, the beautiful woman next door torments him by sunbathing nude. Struggling for equilibrium, Larry seeks advice from three different rabbis. Can anyone help him cope with his afflictions and become a righteous person – a mensch – a serious man?
Tony Award nominee Michael Stuhlbarg (whose films include The Grey Zone) stars as Larry; Fred Melamed (Suspect) plays Sy; Richard Kind (The Visitor) portrays Arthur; and Minnesota actors Aaron Wolf, Sari Wagner, and Jessica McManus are cast as Danny, Judith, and Sarah, respectively.
The Coens’ comedy thriller Burn After Reading, also from Focus Features and Working Title Films, world-premiered last month as the opening-night film of the 2008 Venice International Film Festival; made its North American premiere last week at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival; and will be released by Focus nationwide on Friday, September 12th. The film stars George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Richard Jenkins, and Brad Pitt.
Focus president of production John Lyons, who is overseeing A Serious Man and oversaw Burn After Reading on behalf of the company, has previously collaborated with the Coen brothers extensively, as casting director on their features Raising Arizona, Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy, Fargo and The Big Lebowski.
Messrs. Bevan and Fellner have also had a long association with the Coens; Fargo (which won Oscars for Ms. McDormand as Best Actress and for the Coens in the Original Screenplay category), The Hudsucker Proxy, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou? (for which Mr. Clooney won a Golden Globe Award), The Man Who Wasn’t There, and Burn After Reading were all made by the Coens with Working Title. Working Title Films is Europe’s leading film production company, making movies that defy boundaries as well as demographics.
Currently in post-production at Working Title are a record number of films: Beeban Kidron’s Hippie Hippie Shake, starring Cillian Murphy, Sienna Miller, Emma Booth, and Max Minghella; Kevin Macdonald’s State of Play, starring Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Robin Wright Penn, and Helen Mirren; Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon, adapted by Peter Morgan from his play of the same name and starring Frank Langella and Michael Sheen; Joe Wright’s The Soloist, starring Jamie Foxx, Robert Downey, Jr., and Catherine Keener; Richard Curtis’ The Boat That Rocked, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, and Nick Frost; and Paul Greengrass’ untitled thriller starring Matt Damon.
Focus Features (www.filminfocus.com) exists to produce, acquire and distribute original and daring films that challenge the mainstream to embrace and enjoy voices and visions from around the world that deliver global commercial success.
In addition to A Serious Man and Burn After Reading, upcoming Focus Features releases include Henry Selick’s 3-D stop-motion animated feature Coraline, starring Dakota Fanning and Teri Hatcher; Shane Acker’s animated fantasy epic 9, starring Elijah Wood and Jennifer Connelly; Cary Fukunaga’s immigrant thriller Sin Nombre; writer/director Jim Jarmusch’s new film, tentatively titled The Limits of Control, starring Isaach De Bankolé; a contemporary comedy directed by Academy Award winner Sam Mendes and starring John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph; Taking Woodstock, the new film from Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee; and Gus Van Sant’s Milk, starring Sean Penn as Harvey Milk.
Focus Features and Working Title Films are part of NBC Universal, one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news, and information to a global audience. Formed in May 2004 through the combining of NBC and Vivendi Universal Entertainment, NBC Universal owns and operates a valuable portfolio of news and entertainment networks, a premier motion picture company, significant television production operations, a leading television stations group, and world-renowned theme parks. NBC Universal is 80% owned by General Electric and 20% owned by Vivendi.
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September 06, 2008
"Hollow Men": When Brando met Eliot
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September 05, 2008
Indie is looking for parking
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September 04, 2008
Did I say Alex Payne was cynical? Nooooo.
Pynchon and the Coens know why satire's best as a period piece.
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September 03, 2008
Bill Melendez was 91
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September 01, 2008
A little Ridley Scott for Labor Day
And a little peace-keeping in Minneapolis, via Jane Hamsher:
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