Archive for March, 2004
Sunday, March 7th, 2004
Holly Willis, Karol Martesko and I founded Filmmaker back in the fall of 1992 and for many years after that Holly served as our West Coast Editor before moving on to her current position as editor of the quite excellent Res magazine.
We were trading e-mails recently, and Holly asked if we’d link this site to the European Graduate School, where she is working on her second Ph.D. When she wrote to me that the program was “ridiculously perfect — it brings together amazing philosophers with filmmakers for intensive three-week seminars in a tiny town in the mountains of Switzerland every summer” — my interest was piqued and I asked her to e-mail back some more comments on the program for this blog. Here is what she wrote:
“The program works like this: we study online for six months, with each seminar focused on the particular work of a filmmaker or philosopher and students engaged in often contentious online discussion. In December, I watched as many of the films of Claire Denis as I could; in January, we read work by Giorgio Agamben and Avital Ronell. I’m currently reading Heidegger for a seminar on philosophy and art led by Chris Fynsk, whose lovely book, Infant Figures, has amazing passages on the work of Francis Bacon. I’m also reading some Hegel for a class with Jean-Luc Nancy, and in April, we turn to the films of Chantal Akerman.
“After the online session, students travel to the tiny town of Saas-Fee in Switzerland, nestled among five towering mountains in the Alps. The town has one main street; cars are not allowed, preserving the town’s sloooow pace and clean air. There’s a bar, a couple of stores, an ice cream shop and hotels for the visiting skiers in the winter…
“The seminar I attended last August was amazing — although only three weeks in length, it felt more engaging and ultimately more fruitful than any other academic experience. The school is run by Wolfgang Schirmacher, a philosopher in his own right. In our introduction to the school, he … Read the rest
Thursday, March 4th, 2004
Haute Tension
If you’re a regular reader of Filmmaker, you’ll recognize Travis Crawford‘s byline. He’s often in our pages writing about cutting-edge genre films, Asian auteurist work, and unclassifiable Euro arthouse pics. (See his feature on Bruno Dumont’s 29 Palms in our current issue.)
But when he’s not writing for Filmmaker, Crawford is, among other things, programming the Philadelphia Film Festival‘s “Danger after Dark” program, the genre-section that allows him to cherrypick the best new titles as well as the essential works that have been on the fest circuit for the past year.
Crawford is the king of the long, thoughtful, exceedingly well composed email (no “lol!” or “:)”‘s for him), so when he sent the message below to his personal list, I thought I’d post it here. It’s an advance look at this year’s “Danger after Dark” titles, which aren’t scheduled to be formerly announced until next week. And, as usual, Crawford’s descriptions comprise a “must-see list” for everyone wanting to catch up on new horror, fantasy, and suspense films.
The Philadelphia Film Festival runs April 8 – 21.
“ACACIA (South Korea): Director Park Ki-hyung (WHISPERING CORRIDORS, SECRET TEARS) is chiefly responsible for the new wave of Korean horror cinema, and this is his most affecting, mature film to date, a story of a young adopted boy’s malevolent influence on his new home. The saddest horror movie since DON’T LOOK NOW. (North American premiere)
AZUMI (Japan): Yes, VERSUS and ARAGAMI director Ryuhei Kitamura is back in Danger After Dark, with this lavish, big-budget female swordplay epic. The major studio coin has allowed Kitamura to spend more on swords, hyperactive camerawork, and blood effects. Otherwise, little has changed, and fans will dig it. (East Coast premiere)
DRAGON HEAD (Japan): A huge special effects-laden manga-adapted spectacle about my favorite cinematic subect: the complete and total end of civilization. Two teens on a school trip dig themselves out of the train tunnel that has collapsed during their travels, only to find that the Japan above ground has been devastated by a mysterious plague. Grim, downbeat science fiction … Read the rest
Wednesday, March 3rd, 2004
Count Morgan Spurlock’s Super Size Me along with Bowling for Columbine and The Thin Blue Line when discussing contemporary documentaries which have actually produced real social change.
In an upcoming Filmmaker piece, Spurlock discusses the influence Moore has had on his Sundance hit Super Size Me, in which the filmmaker explores America’s fast-food mania by eating only McDonald’s food for one month. (By day 21 he’s gained almost 20 pounds and is on the verge of liver failure.)
Today, in an echo of K-Mart’s decision to stop selling bullets following Moore’s cinematic targeting in Bowling for Columbine, McDonald’s has turned Spurlock’s title into an anachronism by announcing that, by the end of the year, super-size meals will no longer be offered.
“The driving force here was menu simplication,” explained McDonald’s spokesman Walt Riker. But despite Riker’s protestations to the contrary — “[The decision] had nothing to do with the movie,” he added — it’s hard to believe that Spurlock’s film, which will likely be a publicity magnet upon its release next month, wasn’t a key factor in the fast food chain’s decision.
In a separate McDonald’s memo, it was explained that the elimination of the seven-ounce super-size french fry carton was part of the company’s “healthy lifestyle initiative.” If that “healthy lifestyle initiative” includes McSalads, check out Spurlock’s film when it’s released — you’ll be shocked at the fat content of those leafy treats.
… Read the rest
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2004
Tom Kalin‘s long-awaited sophomore feature, Savage Grace, based on the book by Natalie Robins and Steven M. L. Aronson, is finally set to go into production this summer.
Savage Grace was named the best true crime book of 1986 by the Mystery Writers of America.
“The book is about the Baekeland family,” explained producer Christine Vachon in a 1998 interview in index magazine. “They invented plastic, but they sold out too early. So even though they made a lot of money, they should have made a lot more. By the ’50s, the fortune was dwindling, and Brooks Baekeland, [the son of Bakelite inventor Leo Baekeland], married a girl who had socialite aspirations. They had a son, and he eventually ended up having an affair with his mother and then killing her. It’s a really cool story.”
Julianne Moore has been cast as Barbara Baekeland, the Bakelite heiress who was stabbed to death by her 25-year-old son, Antony, in her London penthouse in 1972.
A model and would-be Hollywood starlet, Barbara Baekeland was reportedly so deeply distressed by her son Antony’s homosexuality that she attempted to seduce him as a “cure.” When police arrived at the scene of her murder, Antony was calmly placing a telephone order for Chinese food. He was later institutionalized at Broadmoor until a bureaucratic mistake resulted in his release in July 1980. He lived with his grandmother in New York for a short time until he beat and stabbed her. He was eventually sent to Riker’s Island, where he suffocated himself to death on March 20, 1981.
“I’m sometimes drawn to these really extreme things,” says Moore. “I read the script, and there’s some really horrific stuff in it, and I just thought, ‘Oh no… Think I’m going to have to do this one….’ ”
The $12-million production is scheduled to shoot in the UK, Spain and France this July. Killer Films’ Vachon and Pamela Koffler will produce, with Hamish McAlpine and Caroline Stiller of Tartan Films as UK co-producers. John Wells is the film’s executive producer.
Kalin’s debut feature, … Read the rest
Monday, March 1st, 2004
-scope Art Fair Inc. has announced that the third annual -scopeNewYork will take place March 12-15 at the new Hotel Gansevoort, located in New York City’s meatpacking district.
A throwback to the Gramercy Art Fair of the mid-1990s, from which the much larger Armory Show evolved, -scope Art Fair Inc. presents one-person and thematic group exhibitions organized by innovative international galleries, curators, dealers and arts organizations in the intimate and relaxed atmosphere of a hotel. More than 65 exhibitors from around the world are expected to attend.
At last year’s -scopeNew York, “The prevailing esthetic was pop-culture saturated, with a lot of low-tech figurative works,” wrote Walter Robinson in Arnet Magazine. “Installations had a youthful, ‘anything is possible’ vibe and were frequently accompanied by rock music. And the hotel setting banished the clean, white cube, of course, in favor of a totalizing sensibility, with art works installed in showers and videotapes playing on the TVs. Even the bedspreads were art.”
In addition to visual arts exhibitions in New York, Miami and Los Angeles, -scope features programs such as Cinema-scope (which brings together the work of emerging international video artists and filmmakers), -scopeSound (showcasing emerging local DJs, sound artists and bands at each), -scopeTV (a six-part series documenting the development of the art scene on a worldwide basis), and panel discussions on a range of art-related topics.
Two panel discussions have been organized in conjunction with -scopeNew York: Collecting the Hard Stuff on Saturday, March 13, and Sex and Religion on Sunday March 14. Both run from 5-6pm and are included with the $10 admission to the fair.
-scopeNewYork kicks off with a party entitled Culture on the Verge on Friday, March 12 at 9pm.… Read the rest
