Archive for February, 2006
Thursday, February 23rd, 2006
Holly Willis has a fascinating piece up at the L.A. Weekly about an internet-based new-media film entitled No Animals Were Hurt by Peter Brinson.
Writes Willis:
At the very moment I write this, Peter Brinson’s online biopic of inventor Alan Turing is 33 percent its proper length. That’s because since early January, when the site with the video was launched, there have been 17,044 viewers, each one unlocking and revealing a single frame in the video’s 5,000 frames. As the number of viewers grows closer to multiples of 5,000, the video images slow down, allowing the voice-over to complete the story and reveal the tragic conclusion of the inventor’s life. And at the magic point of completion, the video, titled No Animals Were Hurt, screens in its entirety for 24 hours before resetting to its shorter self.
Brinson, who studied new media at CalArts and now teaches in USC’s Interactive Media Division, says the idea for the video’s dynamic form plays on the difference between what’s generally known about Turing, a genius mathematician who made key advances in the development of computer technology and helped break Nazi codes during World War II, and what’s not known, including the fact that he was gay.
“The incomplete film is disorienting to people because the Internet is supposedly all about providing information instantly,” says Brinson. “Hopefully that tension makes people curious about Turing.”
Part of an emerging form known as computational or database cinema, in which the computer makes film viewing dynamic and mutable, Brinson’s project deftly shows us our own role as viewers in completing, and supporting, the media.
… Read the rest
Thursday, February 23rd, 2006
Redford on this year’s Sundance on Yahoo:
“It’s gotten to the point now — almost to a breaking point — where there’s a fever that has taken over the festival that creates an enormous amount of chaos and excitement and tension,” the 68-year-old actor said in a recent interview with The Associated Press. “It’s gotten a little bit harder on me…
“The festival that we do is the same one as we did the first year,” he said. “We program it exactly the same every year, which is for new voices and more experimental films.”
The difference now, Redford said, is everything surrounding it.
“Once the merchants come, then the celebrities come. Once they come, the paparazzi come. Once they come, fashion comes. So suddenly you’ve got a party … where Paris Hilton’s there and all the attention goes there and she’s got nothing to do with anything.”
… Read the rest
Thursday, February 23rd, 2006
Since 1996, veteran indie producer, writer, and lyricist Jack Lechner and his wife Sam Maser have penned witty parodies of the Oscar and Independent Spirit nominees, with each film set to a different popular tune. (The Spirits have even incorporated the songs into their show.)
When Jack and Sam sent out their lyrics for 2006, they also announced that 10 years is, apparently, all we’re going to get: “It’s been a wild ride, but after 100+ songs, we’re pretty close to running out of workable tunes that most people know…As it is, Sam has to remind Jack every year that most people aren’t familiar with — or can’t sing — anything from Sweeney Todd. We hope the news of our Oscar card retirement will be greeted with a loud sigh of disappointment rather than a loud sigh of relief, but hey, we’re not there to hear it anyway.”
Here is the last installment. Enjoy.
Brokeback Mountain
(to the tune of “Climb Every Mountain”)
Climb Brokeback Mountain
And you will see
Cowboys with a certain
Ambiguity
On Brokeback Mountain
So lush and green
They do what Roy Rogers
Never did on screen
They’re still roping cows
And they’re still herding sheep
But they’re not very still
When the sheep are asleep
Climb Brokeback Mountain
But if you do
Don’t be homophobic –
Cowboys need love too!
Capote
(to the tune of “Goldfinger”)
Capote!
He’s a guy
So tiny and limp of wrist
But here’s the twist –
He’s a coyote
Out for prey
And if you’re his trusting source
You’re his main course!
When four murders occur on a farm
He arrives on the scene, full of charm
Folks in Kansas think
He’s warm and human
‘Til they’re in a book
By Truman
Capote
Like the pair
Of murderers he’s cajoled
His blood is cold
The town has been rolled
Bought and sold
The story is told
And controlled
By Truman for gold
His blood’s cold!
Crash
(to the tune of “Mame”)
What makes Los Angelenos berserk?
Ra-ace!
What makes a cop behave like a jerk?
Ra-ace!
What makes a … Read the rest
Thursday, February 23rd, 2006
There’s an eccentric tracking of life and movies through ticket stubs posted by Mike over at Botsko.net. Having collected all his movie ticket stubs for six years, he puts their data in a spreadsheet and analyzes his moviegoing habits through dating, Fandango, ticket price increases, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the birth of his child.
One of his conclusions: he wound up paying more for movies he liked:
What’s interesting though is that the average price I paid per ticket reflects my opinion of the movie. The better I rated the movie, the more I paid on average to see it. I paid about $5.65 for a ticket to see a movie I didn’t enjoy, and about $7.00 to see one that I loved. Obviously I’m excellent at predicting which movies I will enjoy, and I’m willing to spend money on higher priced tickets to see it sooner rather than later. Only two of these ninety-nine movies were advanced screenings, roughly ten of the them we saw on opening day (estimated), and the rest we saw within a few weeks of their release.
Thanks to Kottke for the link.… Read the rest
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2006
Twitch, which is a great site covering what it calls “strange little films from around the world” (with a heavy emphasis on Asian art and genre films) links to Handcranked Films, a collective of filmmakers who include War (pictured) director Jake Mahaffy, one of Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces of 2005. What I didn’t realize until Twitch’s piece is that Handcranked includes a number of other filmmakers, including Daniel Sousa and Jeff Slas, and that all of their work is featured on the site.
Here’s what Todd at Twitch has to say about them:
“Handcranked is a collective of film makers in the Boston area making experimental live action and animated films. It looks as though most of those involved spend their days either teaching about film or working on commercial projects, so this is where they stash their dreams. Gorgeously shot and just loaded with fantastic images I’m not at all surprised by the list of festivals these things have played at but I am more than a little stunned that I’d never heard of any of them before now … take a look. You won’t be disappointed.”… Read the rest
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2006
The Reeler has a good piece up on Marshall Curry, whose Street Fight opened today at New York’s IFC Center.
From the piece:
“While viewing Curry’s riveting film last week, it occurred to me that this could absolutely be the dark horse nominee come March 5. In chronicling Newark’s 2002 mayoral race between relative newcomer Cory Booker and Jersey’s reigning machine-politics king Sharpe James, Curry captures a system imploded by racism, corruption, lies and at least a few physical altercations. Perhaps more shockingly, Street Fight reflects the assured work of a first-time feature filmmaker–a guy who quit his job, bought a camera and followed the campaign with his crew of one just to see what would happen. A complete and total hunch.”
I’m a big fan of the film and recommend it highly. I first turned on to it last spring when I went to Hot Docs, the giant documentary conference in Toronto. Trying to figure out which of the 300+ films to check out, I resorted to a time-tested method: asking the volunteer driver chaffeuring me from the airport what he had heard was good. “Street Fight,” he told me, and I made a point of checking out the film and then placed Curry in our Filmmaker 25 New Faces of Independent Film 2005. Less than a year later, Curry, a first-time director who bought a camera on credit to begin his film, is, as the Reeler calls him, the dark horse nominee at the Oscars in the Best Documentary category.… Read the rest
Tuesday, February 21st, 2006
I ran into a colleague on the street a few hours ago who caught me up on some depresing industry buzz that had been circulating in Berlin: that Genius, the parent company of theatrical distributor Wellspring which is majority-owned by the Weinstein Company, is effectively shuttering the classy specialty distributor that has released so many great foreign and independent films. And now, Eugene Hernandez has the details in Indiewire. Going forward, the Wellspring name will become a home-video brand, and the Weinstein Company says they’ll release Wellspring’s upcoming theatrical titles. About ten people in Wellspring’s theatrical division will lose their jobs, and cineastes will wonder if future films of the quality of The Beat My Heart Skipped, Kings and Queens, Palindromes, and Notre Musique will find a release without Wellspring in the theatrical distribution arena. In his piece, Hernandez identifies the irony here: that the Weinstein brothers’ Miramax made its early name on the kind of pictures Wellspring distributed, and there’s little indication that these sorts of films have a place on their new company’s release slate.… Read the rest
Tuesday, February 21st, 2006
Josh Horowitz has a good conversation with writer/director Whit Stillman up on his Better than Fudge blog. His transcribed phone call works as a solid “part two” to Anthony Kaufman’s piece in the current Filmmaker which discussed the making of Metropolitan on the release of the film’s new Criterion release.
Here’s the end of the piece, but click on the link above to read the whole thing:
“JH: What do you miss most about making films?
WS: Number one, an income. Number two, director’s guild health insurance. Number three I just miss the extroverted production life, being around technicians and being constructive. I’m not a loner. The loner lifestyle of a screenwriter is not something that appeals to me except when I’m shooting a film and then it seems very appealing.
JH: Do you feel you still have something left to prove as a filmmaker?
WS: I have enormous stuff left to prove.
JH: You’ve been very well praised critically over your career. What validation do you need?
WS: The current situation is a little scary because there have been good reviews in the past but I think most of those people are dead or retired.”… Read the rest
Friday, February 17th, 2006
There’s a new trailer up for Richard Linklater’s Philip K. Dick adaptation A Scanner Darkly. It’s way better than the previous teaser as it highlights the film’s woozy humor as much as its panoptic paranoia. When I interviewed Rick for Filmmaker, the film was slated to come out this spring. It’s been pushed to summer, so this trailer will have to tide you over in the meantime…… Read the rest
Friday, February 17th, 2006
Forgive us as we iron out the kinks on the new site design. We just learned that due to an improper setting comments from readers have been going into the ether as opposed to onto our website. We’ve just reinstated those formerly lost comments and have changed our settings so comments are posted immediately.… Read the rest
